Church #2 - Remembering Our Baptism 1/12/20 Baptism of the Lord -A

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L.  Kiser

Church #2 - Remembering Our Baptism

1/12/20   Baptism of the Lord A

            Last week we talked about the confusing ways we use the word ‘Church’ to mean several things: to refer to our building, and to refer to our gathered group here, which is the real meaning of the Greek word ecclesia,;and a local part of the whole Capital-C Church universal.  As we are beginning to look towards our future, our purpose and our mission as Jamesville Community Church, I asked us to pay attention to which of these meanings we meant, when we used the word ‘church,’ and seek to direct our pondering to the Biblical meaning of the word ie the gathering group of called-out Christ-followers. In other words, wherever we, this group, meets, whatever building or non-building, we are the church.  I want there to be no confusion when we talk further about our vision for the church and the mission of the church, that we are talking about a called-out and gathered people, and not buildings, as significant to our mission and ministry as that building may be.  I want us to be clear that when we speak of the overall purpose of church in Scripture, we are talking of all congregations that profess to follow Jesus Christ, and that we people here at Jamesville are an arm of that larger church, living out our following of Jesus Christ in this specific locale, and under the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.  

            This Sunday, today, we’ve remembered our own baptism on the traditional Baptism of Jesus Sunday.  I’m hoping we will indeed remember that we are baptized & what that means in our current life. Remembering our baptism is a good way to begin a new year and a new decade. Now we have both a Star Word from last week, Epiphany, & a water drop from today to set ourselves on a faith journey this year! 

            So let’s talk about baptism for few minutes. How many here were baptized at an age where you actually remember it?  As an older child, or at Confirmation, or as an adult? OK.  For many of us, baptism is the way we formally entered the church: we professed our faith, we took a stand with the message of Jesus Christ, and declared ourselves to be a Christ-follower, promising to turn FROM evil and turn TO God.  We also became a member of the church.  

      Who here were baptized as infants or toddlers, & don’t actually have a personal memory of the day? OK.  For  those of us baptised as young children, our parents promised to raise us to know and love Jesus Christ and be his disciple, and we confirmed our baptisms at Confirmation, claiming for ourselves that we now identified with the Jesus way, we promised to be Christ’s disciples and to follow what he taught. We joined the Capital-C Church universal, the Body of Christ, and we also became members of a specific local church.  At least in the Presbyterain sacrament of baptism, the questions asked at Confirmation are the exact same questions asked of our parents in infant baptism, and of adults in adult baptism. 

            Like many rituals, this acting out of our profession of faith isn’t necessarily the very moment our hearts say YES to God, or the very moment that faith starts.  Like plants and like human life, faith starts in secret ways, underground or in the dark.  The outward things we do are our public professions or our belief in God, whether for ourselves or for our children. Although we see baptism as a grace and a sacrament, it’s not magic.  More on this later.

            I’ve had people tell me that they don’t much care for the idea of standing in front of a crowd and getting wet.  Maybe it IS a weird ritual; it’s so much a part of my world that it seems normal to me!  There’s a lot of symbolism in the actions of baptism, and a lot of history.  We Protestants generally see baptism more as an outward and visible sign of an inward reality.  I’ll say that again because that’s a line I remember from seminary: an outward and visible sign of an inward reality. The important part is what’s going on inside between us and God: the decision to follow Christ (theologically of course God was already seeking us), to be identified as as a Christ-follower; the public declaration of choosing the faith and gospel taught by Jesus Christ, and believing that he spoke for God. The decisive words include choosing to turn from the ways of sin, and instead choosing to give ourselves to beginning the journey of faith. Its public - we almost always do baptisms in communal worship, or at least with some members of the community present as witness to the promises being made.   

            So in one way, baptism is like an entrance rite, an initiation of sorts.  Yet it’s a lot more than an initiation to just any nice group like a fraternity or sorority, or a civic organization.  It’s about one’s whole life, not just joining a nice group.  It’s about choosing the life & journey of Christian faith.  It’s about coming into this tradition of faith in God that dates back through the centuries, joining the ranks of those who actually risked their lives and their place in their family by declaring their belief in Jesus Christ. 

            The video we saw as we came forward to get our glass water drop showed one way that baptism has been historically done - being immersed in living water, flowing water - water that carries the symbolism of being life-giving and necessary for survival.  Humans can live without food for a lot longer than we can exist without water - maybe 4 days without water before there’s survival issues. We can go without food for a lot longer - water is quickly essential. It was always important for human groups to locate water for our own selves, as well as crops and animals.  Scriptures talk of God’s Spirit as a life-giving fountain of water, springing up in us to new life. 

            Baptism’s water also carries the symbolism of cleansing, washing, taking away the dirt and dust of the world - of reorienting our life, giving up the old ways for the ways of Christ. 

            In an even deeper symbolism, immersion in water carries the symbolism of being buried with Christ, and raised with Christ.  It’s like we die to our old self, and rise to the new life Christ promised.  Death and resurrection to new life is a major and basic part of the Christian faith - in baptism by immersion, we symbolically go under the water, and are raised from it. Of course, many denominations baptise by other ways than immersion, but the symbolism is there, that of identifying with Jesus in his death and resurrection to new life, like the actual waters of birth. 

There are stories in Christianity of saints rising from the water of baptism and singing.  Most of us don’t - most of us have the experience like the young man in the movie Tender Mercies, with Robert Duvall, who says he was glad he did it but he didn’t especially feel anything. We might have the experience of conviction or conversion prior to putting ourselves up for baptism; we might just have felt a call to identify with Jesus and make this declaration.  We may have been baptised as infants and raised in a church of called people, knowing the love of Jesus since before we could speak.

(In my Baptist tradition, when you felt the conviction of your sinfulness and need for forgiveness, you went up during the last hymn to pray with the pastor; then your baptism was set up for the next week. So I did this at 7, and was baptised by immersion the next week. The church ladies helped me change into a heavy white robe, & I rehearsed with the pastor before the service.  When the service started, I waded into the baptismal pool and was baptised.  I remember feeling very nervous before it, then really happy I’d done it. I was happy to be a member of the church.)  

            As we continue to ponder who & what church is (instead of a building the church meets in), let’s add to that pondering what our baptism into that “church,” that gathering of called-out people of Christ, means to us today.  What does it mean to us that we have pledged ourselves to follow the way of Jesus?  What does it mean to us that we have identified ourselves with this movement, this way of life, this worldview of faith in God?  What does this joining the Body of Christ call for from us?   Does it make a difference in our life choices that we have turned FROM evil and sin, and turned TO the ways of God?  Does it make a difference in the way we use the money God has given us?  Does it make a difference on how we treat others at school or at work?  Does it make a difference in what we choose to say in social media? Does it make a difference on how we treat family members? Does it make a difference in how we conduct our relationships?  Does it make a difference in our choice of vocation? Does it make a difference in caring for our environment, like recycling or single-use plastics?  Does it make a difference in how we view other races?  Obviously, since I wrote these questions, I think the answer is “Yes.”  So the next part of those questions is, “HOW does faith impact these choices?”  Because it does!

            Although we talk about the grace of baptism and its spiritual meanings, I don’t think of baptism as magic. Our United Methodist and Presbyterian denominations walk a middle road, saying that its the outer symbolizing of the inner reality, yet preserving the mystery that baptism confers a certain grace from God as well.  We also see the church (people) as responsible for providing faith development and Confirmation for the children & adults.  My personal understanding is that the act by itself doesn’t get us “in” with God, which is what a mom told me once (we had to have a talk…); it’s what we are symbolizing as far as our inner life goes. At the same time, I’ll agree that there may well be more going on than I understand. Even those who get baptised as adults can’t claim to totally understand what they’re doing - much like infants! Certainly baptism is more than just to get an ‘in’ with God, as one mom said to me - we had a talk….

Perhaps we understand more about our baptisms as we look back, remembering and pondering our baptisms from a way down the road.  Who knows what our commitment to God in Christ Jesus will lead to in our lives?  Who knows what we will be led to do or to be?  Who knows in what events of life we will be called on to show faith?  Who knows, ahead of time, in what kinds of craziness we may need to live the life of faith?  Especially in these days of threat to the planet’s climate and biological diversity of species, in these days of unstable leaders that have the ability to use nuclear weapons, in these days where hatred and division seem to be on the rise - our witness to God’s love and forgiveness, and generous kindness may seem rather naive or useless - unless we trust the deep faith that undergirds the world. Certainly believers in other times of history have lived their faith in very difficult times. Perhaps believers of the future will look back at these times of affluence as a difficult time when faith lapsed.

So the challenge this week is to ponder our own commitment to God, and what we feel in our hearts and guts about our following of Jesus Christ.  The invitation is to remember the zeal from the beginning, to re-ignite the flame of devotion, rekindle the fire of longing for our spiritual life.  AMEN.

Church #1 - What Is Church? 1/5/20 Epiphany A

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Church #1   - What Is Church?    

Jan 5, 2020 Epiphany

Happy New Year!  I hope we all had good times over the past week with family & friends.  I enjoyed being with my grandchildren in Seattle - can’t say it was exactly restful, although I loved it - and it was certainly different from my usual days! Now I’m ready to jump back into things here at Jamesville, and move forward with our Transitional journey. 

Jamesville CC is on a journey, somewhat like the Wise Men we’ve talked about in Children's Time. So far in our journey, we’ve done a good job looking at our congregation’s history.  I saw folks at the Christmas Eve services enjoying the timeline we put together in the Fellowship Hall.  As I wrote in the last newsletter, the next step of our journey together is to begin to think about our church and community, and what God is calling us to in our future.  We will look at the neighborhood God has set us in, its needs and projections of its future.  We will hear from some of the community leaders.  We will look at our own congregation, our own gifts, and the ideas the Spirit gives us. We will pray for our minds to be open and receptive to the vision God gives us  I will be preaching towards our understanding of what a church truly is and does. We will have some house meetings to talk with one another about our ideas. Putting it all together, we will set some goals and maybe put some things into practice. 

It’s always good to periodically take a look at ourselves, take stock of where we are, see if that’s where we hoped we would be -  readjust, reimagine, and reorient. Looking to the future and pondering what plans God may have for us is an important aspect of preparing for the future.

It occurred to me that a starting point might be to spend some weeks talking about “Church.”  What do we mean when we use the word “church”?  Are we all thinking about the same thing?   Do we all agree on what “church” is?  What “church” means? Do we all know what is said in Scripture about “church”?  I’ve put in some time pulling my own thoughts together.  I’ve also been collecting articles and ideas about what other congregations are involved with. I call it my IDEA file, and it includes articles from magazines and e-zines, as well as things that have popped up from my clergy facebook sources. These are going to be available and maybe distributed somehow, in order that own creativity is sparked - not that we have to copy, but to let our own minds open up to the creativity of God’s Spirit. 

Our starting place in this sermon today has to do with a very basic discussion on what “church” means. I’d bet that most of us here immediately formed a picture of our church building here, or a former church building we loved. But the church Jesus started wasn’t about buildings - it was about people.  I did a children’s sermon a while back, based on that little hand thing - “here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the door and see all the people.”  We did it with our hands like this (illustrate), and when we opened the doors, I joked that all we saw were people’s feet!  So I showed the children another way of doing their hands - a little more complicated, but when we opened the door, there were the people!!!  

Friends, the church we need to ponder and think about is made of humans, no matter what kind of building or structure we gather in - or if we gather in any structure at all.  To be scholarly a moment, the word translated “church” in our Scripture is the Greek word ecclesia, or a gathering for a specific purpose.  It originally meant a political assembly, like for a debate.  Its close relatives include the words for “summoned” or “called out.”  So a “church” is a called-together group, for the purpose of following Christ Jesus, and all that that means. We’ll talk more about the ways we address this purpose in other sermons, like learning, praying, acting, worshipping - all sorts of ways we grow into following Christ better. In other words, a “church” is basically a community of people who all are basically going the same direction - following God by hook or by crook, as best we can, with all our foibles and personality differences. 

I wish our English language had separate words for the group of Christ-followers and the various structures that we build for our centers!  It’s confusing to our speech and our thinking to use the same word. “Church” in the scriptures isn’t a physical building.  We could gather anywhere and still be the church of Jesus Christ.  Early Christians gathered in catacombs - which were the underground cemeteries of their time and place.  That sounds icky, but the church had to gather in secret at that time, and meeting in the catacombs was safe. Other early churches, like the ones the Apostle Paul started, gathered in peoples’ homes.  Churches in other countries have met under trees or in nice clearings. When I attended the Presbyterian General Assembly, where people come from all over the country and the world, we’ve worshipped and prayed and shared the Lord’s Supper in huge convention centers!  Places that the next week have Tractor Pulls!

I’ve had fun thinking up what other words we could use to differentiate church as people from the common usage of church as building.  I’d like to keep the word “church” to mean the gathered Christ-followers, because that’s what it means when we read it in the Bible.  For our building, now, we could use words like the ‘meeting place’, or ‘center’, or ‘facility’.  Some newer congregations with several locations talk about themselves as one church meeting in two campuses, and name the campuses.  We could refer to the ‘sanctuary’ and the ‘education room’, although I think education is not the right word for the kind of learning and character formation that goes on there.  Let’s work on that, shall we?  Let’s get creative and make a good new word.

It’s not that it’s bad to have a nice place to worship and gather, or a nice building to offer to the larger community for good things.  And our buildings can become significant to us - when we have met and worshipped or studied or prayed together in the same place many times, it can become special to us. A place can take on good associations ( or bad associations, depending on our experience there).  And a building can become a marker of sorts in a community - it reminds the community that Christ-followers are here and meeting.  If our building is open for community use, it tells the community that Christ-followers are interested in the well-being of all people, and their common human needs. 

So as we ask God to help us envision the life of our church (ie our local group of Christ-followers), part of our thinking could be the use of our facility as a means of facilitating the ministry and mission God is calling us to do.  But I do want us to focus more on ourselves as an arm of the Church Universal, a part of the Capital-C Church of Jesus Christ that lives and works here in Jamesville, NY.  And how we, in our unique way and setting, can carry out the purposes  of Christ’s church here. 

Part of our concept of ourselves as Christ’s church is this connection to the larger, universal Captial-C Church.  Its good that this Epiphany Sunday reminds us that God calls to all people, including those we might call foreigners.  God is the God of the world.  And the Capital-C Church includes all Christ-followers from every time and every place, like we say in communion.  The early believers, the apostles, those in the 6th century, the 11th century, the 15th century and so on.  Those in Russia or Japan or Europe or South Africa or wherever - - in Christ, we are all one.  Their suffering is our suffering, and their joy is our joy.  And visa versa.  Those who are part of the denominations of Presbyterian, United Methodists, Roman Catholics, 7th Day Adventists, Greek Orthodox - all who believe and seek to follow Christ.  The Capital-C Church goes on even if various local congregations fade away or if denominations split.  It may be even larger than this, too. It may include all who seek to worship and serve God, period. 

We here in Jamesville CC, NY, USA are a local manifestation of the Capital-C Church of Jesus Christ, which the Bible also calls the Body of Christ.  This is where we live and serve God to the best that we can hear and follow. 

So this is the context I want for us to understand when we seek the direction of God for our “church.”  What is in the Scriptures about Christ’s church is true for the church overall.  It’s rather in large and broad outlines, and not detailed for whatever country or century or community the specific congregations find themselves.  So we have some work to do in interpreting and envisioning how we live out what Scripture says.  This is the work of this group gathered here - I can’t tell this church exactly what to do - that’s our group’s discerning., and what we’ll be working on in the coming months.  So this week, think on these meanings of “Church” ...work on recognizing when we’re meaning the people or the building, and look for words to differentiate them.   Imagine lines connecting us to Christ-followers around the world, or through the centuries.  See that our denominations are more ways of organizing ourselves and governing ourselves than they are written in stone, and ways of handling different understandings of what living for Christ looks like.  Be in prayer for the Capital-C Church as well as  the local bodies that gather in all the towns and cities, and especially for us in this journey now.  

AMEN.

Christmas' Healing and Wholeness 12/24/19 Christmas Eve A

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Christmas’ Healing and Wholeness

12/24/19      Christmas Eve A

Often in this world, we strive to know how to live - what’s right, what’s good, what’s helpful; what’s meaningful; what moves the world forward on a path that leads to good for all people.   We look to religion and Holy Scriptures to tell us about this world that God created, and what is just and what is our high calling, how to treat others, how to treat creation.  At Christmastime, often our convictions and hopes are rekindled, reborn just as the miracle of God born in flesh restores our faith and makes us remember the kindness and love in God’s invitation to us.  When we’re reminded again of all we hope for, all we so deeply believe, all we long for, we renew our determination, we rejoice in that deep good that we recommit to.     

Yet ….even with our highest and best motivations and remembrances, even with the echo of the angels in our ears, you know, its just downright difficult to stick to our intentions when life begins to pull on our time, our pocketbooks, our attention, our energy.  Even in the busy preparations for Christmas celebrations, we are rushed and preoccupied getting everything ready, packing the car for trips, wrapping just that perfect present, getting the meal on the table all together at the same time.  After Christmas, with the return of schoolwork, doctors appointments, the kids’ ear infections, demands of work, keeping healthy food on the table - these things take our minds away from the wonder of angels and shepherds, the prophetic obedience of Mary and Joseph, the wisdom of those wise men who came to worship and yet were saavy enough to avoid King Herod on the trip home.  Our vision of living a more complete life of faith falls lower nad lower on the radar screens of our minds, and finally scrolls off.

      This birth of God in the baby Jesus calls to us at a deep, spiritual level of wholeness, of promise and fulfillment, of purposes transcending the everyday hectic pace of things, of a peace that wants to pervade and encompass our daily living. It may have been a historic moment, yes, but it speaks to us of an ongoing and continuous awareness of God in our midst, God being born among us day by day...if only our minds grow still and our eyes see.  In this baby Jesus, who grows in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and with people - in this birth, we see the coming together of Divine and earthly flesh, of spirit and matter; we see the hopes of the past pushing into the present and future.  We yearn for that kind of wholeness in our own living, that our goals and our actual living would match, that our faith and our actions would be consistent.  We long for the various pulls in our heart to be connected; that we would live in touch with all parts of ourselves… isn’t that what we wish we could do?  To not be distracted from our inner values by the insistent calls on our attention from daily activities and demands - or perhaps that we move through those daily demands with an ongoing awareness of the presence of this larger picture, this larger frame of human existence; that this experience of God’s transcendence would underlie all the rest. That we, too would know this wholeness and completeness of inner self with  outer self,  mind with body;  intellect with feelings; faith with the physical, unity with diversity, the resolution of all paradox.

    The promise that is Jesus Christ says this wholeness is possible, says that this vision can be reality.  In Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the one anticipated and hoped for, the answer to generations of longing and promise -  all these aspects of life meet together and hold out the promise of a new reality for humanity.  .  

     See, that’s God.  The resolution of the big picture held in this new individual. A culmination of humanity’s hopes for a world living as it was designed. No wonder the angels cried praise & people bowed & offered gifts!

      Tonight we let our hearts remember these highest hopes & be renewed. Tonight as we take bread (matter) and drink (spirit), let us celebrate that unity & wholeness that is in God. Tonight we restore our hopes & intentions for this often crazy world, and join ourselves in this praise. Amen.

Mary's Magnificat Manifesto 12/8/19 (Advent 2A)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

MARY’S  MAGNIFICAT MANIFESTO

Dec 8, 2019      Advent 2A

            An article has been going the rounds on my clergy groups this week, called “Lies Told About Mary.”  Intriguing title, isn’t it?   It talks about the sweet and pious way Mary is often depicted, with soft hair, a scarf over her head, head bowed submissively, accepting the angel’s announcement about her baby quietly and obediently, or bending over the baby Jesus with her head at that characteristic tilt. (SLIDES)  But I kinda hear something different when I read this passage, Mary’s song when she meets her cousin Elizabeth, both of them perhaps still reeling from encounters with angels and new pregnancies.  I seem to hear a Mary who is full of prophetic vigor, claiming a Godly vision straight from her scriptures, a vision of the world being set right, injustices corrected, the playing field leveled between rich and poor;... and all thanks to God, who is holy and powerful, and who Mary’s voice rises to praise and magnify. 

This song of Mary’s is known as the Magnificat, which is the first word in the Latin translation that people read Scripture in for many centuries.  If we translated it word for word, it would sound like Yoda - Magnify God my soul does! In better English grammar, My soul magnifies the Lord!  When we magnify something, we enlarge it, right?  Like using a magnifying glass in science projects.  Synonyms are words like enhance, boost, maximise, augment, intensify…  we get the idea.  In reference to God, then, we speak highly of God, extol God’s traits, venerate who God is, give God thanks for great deeds, praise, bless, adore - we lift God up and intensify people’s knowledge and love for God. 

Most of the paintings with the word Magnificat in their titles are more just Mary meeting Elizabeth.  Here’s a painting that just has the word “Magnificat” over her head; and here’s a couple where she looks at bit more exuberant.  Ah, here’s one that captures the spirit of the Magnificat as being for the poor of any ethnic group together. 

Here, though, is the Mary that most accords with what I hear in her song (the Ben Wildflower Mary, with fist raised and foot on a snake)!

Yes, she starts out by saying God has looked on her lowliness and she is indeed blessed to have this call.  Then, however, she goes on to repeat the prophecy that has been the standard reversal proclaimed by all prophets before her - a vision of God filling the hungry and lifting up the poor - and throwing the powerful from their thrones and sending the rich empty away. 

This is Mary the prophet of God, not a view of Mary that is very traditional!  Yet Mary fits the role of prophet as its usually described - the prophet receives a call to do something or say a message - check; and immediately feels inadequate or unworthy - check.  The prophet then aligns themselves God, as God will provide- check;  and carries out the task or tells the message - check.  Mary falls in line with the prophets of her heritage, the same way Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah and others do.  

Its interesting that the gospel writer Luke chooses to start off telling the Jesus story with Mary echoing the words of the prophets throughout the scriptures.  Its like he sets Jesus in this tradition from the start. And Luke will continue to show Jesus in the context of prophet, doing the works of setting people free, challenging the values of the government of his time, and proclaiming the kingdom of God is come in his own self.  Luke evidently sees this aspect of Jesus in the tradition of the prophets as vital to understanding who Jesus is and what Jesus does.

I guess that’s why I like this interpretation of Mary’s Magnificat.  Its more a manifesto than a comforting song.  Mary’s words aren’t sweet, her message isn’t soft and warm.  Mary’s song is a cry of God’s vindication of those who have been faithful, and have suffered.  Its not the song of the powerful people celebrating their importance.  The triumph of her song is the fulfilling of God’s promises, in which this enslaved and suffering people have trusted and hoped.  Its the hope of those who haven’t had the more obvious blessings of the world, and have yet known they are loved by God and are equal in honor and importance to God as those who seem to be the most blessed by the world’s standards.  Those who have been treated unjustly, those who have been kept down, gone hungry, had no health care, had no say,  - - God will vindicate them and fulfill the promises of a just world where all have enough…where people will treat one another with dignity, will be the good neighbor, will honor God’s values of honesty and humility…where the lion can lie down with the lamb… where we will indeed be the beloved community.

We need to reclaim these parts of the Jesus story, friends, because this is the whole reason Jesus came - its the message Jesus called “good news;” its the description of the kingdom of God that Jesus announced - and so challenged the kingdoms of earth that Jesus had to be killed.

If our celebrations of God’s birth as the human Jesus are all cute babies and warm families and lavish presents, we have missed a main purpose of Jesus’ birth - that God, in a radical love for humanity and all creation, came to demonstrate that love, to call people to lives of justice, to fulfill all the promises of things set right for all peoples. 

Mary’s prophecy seems more obviously good news to the downtrodden and poor, like in her imagery of filling the hungry and lifting up the lowly.  It seems to be bad news to the rich and powerful in this world, as Mary describes as casting down the mighty and sending the rich away empty.  For those of us in what are called the first world, who have the abundance and power that the rest of the world envies, this message should be a call to sober reflection on the inequalities of the world, both in this nation and in the world.  It CAN be good news for us as well, if it opens our eyes to the imbalances and the injustices in our world, and opens our hearts to the suffering of so many.  Its bad news first, though - like so many eye-opening experiences, we suddenly see our place in the big picture differently.  Hopefully our hearts are not just broken, but broken open - and compassion fills us, the compassion of God who loves us all - and that compassion leads to our desire to work with God to set the world right. 

So, in this Advent, how does hearing Mary’s prophetic song change the way we view the celebration of Christ’s coming among us?  Its such a huge thing for God to do, to let go of the power and might of godliness, and become a mortal and finite human.  What was the impetus for such a thing?  Its God’s desire to heal the world, to love all the people in it, to bring in this new realm of heaven here on earth; to save us from ourselves and our worst inclinations.  To make things right. 

So, in this Advent, can we see ourselves singing Mary’s words?

Here’s a version of her words that captures the intent and feeling of her song for me:

Canticle of the Turning Words by Rory Cooney, music by Mark Hayes

My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great,

And my spirit sings of the wondrous things that you bring to the ones who wait.

You fixed your sight on your servant's plight, and my weakness you did not spurn,

So from east to west shall my name be blest. Could the world be about to turn?

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!

Though I am small, my God, my all, you work great things in me,

And your mercy will last from the depths of the past to the end of the age to be.

Your very name puts the proud to shame, and to those who would for you yearn,

You will show your might, put the strong to flight, for the world is about to turn.

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!

From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone.

Let the king beware for your justice tears ev'ry tyrant from his throne.

The hungry poor shall weep no more, for the food they can never earn;

There are tables spread, ev'ry mouth be fed, for the world is about to turn.

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!

Though the nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast:

God's mercy must deliver us from the conqueror's crushing grasp.

This saving word that our forebears heard is the promise which holds us bound,

'Til the spear and rod can be crushed by God, who is turning the world around.

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? (Wake Up!) 12/1/19 Advent 1A

Rev. Rebecca Kiser

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?  (Wake Up!)              

12/ 1   Advent 1A      Matthew 24 & Isaiah 2

            Sometime around my seminary years, which means the early 1980s, the word “Spirituality” came into people’s awareness.  Protestants like Presbies and Methodists were a bit wary of the word, which seemed to have overtones of New Age mysticism and Catholic saints. One lone professor at Louisville Seminary had been intrigued by the re-emergence of Christin spirituality, and was introducing things to students.  I took his class, and was hooked.  Ancient practices of contemplation, silence, using the Scriptures for meditation, daily prayer, a more liturgical kind of worship - these excited this former Baptist.  I know the term “spirituality” in these days has a rather nebulous meaning that isn’t necessarily related to Christian faith precepts so much as it is to wholeness and holistic living, living our inner convictions, concern about toxins and health, the environment, personhood, honesty, good relationships, meditation, inner wholeness - - which, actually, I think have really great connections to faith in God and what Jesus called living in the kingdom, or the realm of God.  It came to me some years later that I could do a Doctor of Ministry program in Christian spirituality, so I looked around and asked our Presbyterian seminaries if they had programs of study like that.  They didn’t, at that point - they do now.  I found out about a program being started by Matthew Fox, whose books I’d found inspiring, that offered a D.Min. degree - wow!  Matthew Fox and a degree together!  I signed up. 

The entrance to the class location was upstairs, over some stores.  As we walked up those steps to the program center, we walked into an awareness of the time and the place we exist in the universe, which is central to Fox’s teachings.  The wall of the ascending stairway was painted with timeline of creation, starting at the bottom with what Fox called The Great Flaring Forth. (Fox’s spirituality takes regard for the science of creation, as a way of knowing what time it is, and why we are where we are, now, here.) So, starting with “Let there be light,” taking one inch as meaning x thousands of years, the next steps chronicle the slow birth of stars, their deaths and throwing elements into space, the gathering of disparate elements into groups like planets, and all the ages of life emerging.  You know where humans come in?  The last part of the 20th step, the top step.  The story of human life and existence is shown as virtually miniscule, compared to the vast timeline of creation prior to us.  Its humbling.  It tells what time it is. 

Although it seems like a long time to us since the historical Jesus walked on earth, that two thousand years is really just a blip, a pinpoint. When the apostles Matthew and Paul refer to “the last days”, it feels to us, in almost 2020, that its been an awful long time since Jesus first told people that the realm of God is at hand, the time to repent and turn to God is now, and to be ready for that great day when God creates a new heaven and a new earth. People assumed so much that the realm of God had arrived in Christ that they re-ordered the counting of the years, naming this new era as Years of our Lord, or Anno Domine, AD.  Early believers were full of the   expectation of God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven already. 

Christ followers have been doing their best, our best, for a long time now, and we’ve kinda lost the excitement of that first awakening to the hope that a new thing is being born, a new era is come.  Church got organized and over-organized, all kinds of sorrow and suffering are still around us, all kinds of evil seeming to win, all kinds of people falling short of our ideals…  It seems like nothing’s changed.  Yet in the great scope of things, it really hasn’t been much time at all since Jesus preached that the realm of God was at the door in his very self, that the time was now, that we who believe him step over that threshold and into the very kingdom of God itself. 

I have an illustration that came to me when I was learning to garden.  Its about yellow squash plants.  Now squash seeds are large and they germinate pretty quickly, so you can sow them right into the soil - make a hill and pat a couple seeds into the darkness of underground, and pretty soon life bursts forth in those first green sprouts, then the first true leaves.  Its doesn’t take much patience to get to this point, not like it does with, say, tomato seeds.  I now have a squash plant - -  although its nothing like its going to be later.  As the summer goes on, the plant grows more leaves - I have to watch for diseases and bad bugs, but basically the impetus for growth is coming from within, nurtured by the rain, the sun and the nutrients in the soil. All along, I am delighted by my luxurious squash plant at every stage.  And it is already a squash plant, from the time the seed sprouts.  Its here, it exists.  Finally the flowers appear and the insects pollinate it, and little yellow things show up and begin to get bigger, and recognizable as squash.  And as long as I keep them picked, it continues to bear more squashes all summer. 

Jesus’ kingdom, the realm of Christ, the realm of God, is already here - Jesus was born, lived, died and was raised again.  The kingdom of God is not yet all its going to be, but it is here, and we who believe are already in it.  That’s one of the things we need to wake up about, and see, and claim, and act on.  The time is here; the time is now.  We’re in that little ½ inch at the top of that staircase at Matthew Fox’s school.  God’s new realm is here and begun, and despite the way it feels like long years to us, the realm of God is birthed and living in us. We who are followers of Jesus the Christ have stepped over that threshold into a new time, a new era. 

When we wake up to that, when we know what time it is, we are charged to live in that truth.  The world might look like its going on as the same, but things are changed - changed in us, and changed in Christ.  The seed is planted and the sprouts are up.  The night is over and the light has appeared.  God’s new reality is among us and in us.  So the apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Rome can say,  “Wake up!  Lay aside the way things have always been in the world, and walk in the light of God!  Live in that realm of God, live the way God has called people to live! Honor God as the source of all being!  Live right with one another - put away mistreating others, lying, stealing, murder, greediness, manipulations, angers, envy, all those things that lead people down wrong paths.  Honor one another and look to the needs of one another, as you look to your own needs.  Live together in peace!  Help out with those who don’t have enough. Believe what God has said, and live like it!  Share the good news that Christ is here and has opened the way for us to be forgiven and restored with God! Use those abilities God has given you to help all people and all creation! Wake up!”  

Jill Duffield, current editor of the Presbyterian Outlook magazine, is among my favorite writers about Scriptures right now.  She writes about this first week of Advent, “...we who follow Jesus Christ know what time it is, what time it always is: It is time to walk in the light, put on the armor of light, be the light of the world no matter if we are in the field or eating or drinking or marrying or working. Disciples of Jesus Christ are to be on the lookout for the holy already here and surely coming, the light on the horizon, the inbreaking of healing, the hope of reconciliation and the possibility of peace ---- and nurture their coming into the world.

Perhaps our worship today can be an opportunity to wipe the sleep from our eyes, she writes.  Perhaps on this first Sunday of Advent, we can wake up to the reality that the Divine is in our world and working, growing.  Perhaps our eyes will be alert to the presence of Christ here, in us and among us.  Perhaps its a good time to consider how this changes our living - what do we need to set aside or take up anew as a result of our alertness to God’s presence, and the reality of Christ’s kingdom in our midst? 

As the passage from Matthew’s gospel points out, we don’t know the date and time of things in the future, we don’t know the length of our own lives, we don’t know the future of our country or the world.  We don’t know when the realm of God will come more into fruition.  We DO know that God is longsuffering, that God loves the creation and humanity, we DO know that our salvation is nearer day by day.  We DO know the promises and hopes of God making all things new. 

Friends, the time for us to believe God and live in God’s realm is now, while we are here and while God’s Spirit is seeking and calling.  God is reaching for us, and telling us what kind of life we are called to live.   Open those eyes!    Its time to awaken.  AMEN.

Is "Christ" Jesus' Last Name? 11/24/19 (Christ the King)

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Is "Christ" Jesus' Last Name? 

Nov 24, 2019  Christ the King   Col 1:11-20

            You all have probably realized that I really like FaceBook and the internet.  I know I’m 65 and supposed to be too old to “get it.” I know I’m a Boomer, too, and I’ve heard the jokes about “OK, Boomer” as if I’m virtually irrelevant to 2020. Too bad!  I’ve especially liked Google, where I can ask just about anything, and find 200,000 articles that answer in some way.  Of course I also know to use places that are trustworthy.   I also like being able to pick my phone up and say, “Hey Siri, find directions to GreenStar Market” and let the computer look things up for me.

            So I was looking around what the internet offered about Jesus Christ for this day’s sermon, and came across a question in a site named Quora that asked this:

 (SLIDE) (Where did the Christ surname originate? Was that Mary’s name?)

            I almost laughed, that someone knew so little about Christianity and Jesus that they would ask this.  Then I stopped and said to myself, “Well, more and more people know very little about Christianity except the weird stuff that makes the news.”  Its an opportunity to share what we know about Jesus, and why the title “Christ” has become a part of how we refer to Jesus. 

            (SLIDE) (meme - Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name).

 No, Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name.  Jesus’ name, before we Latinized its pronunciation, was Yeshua, or Joshua, which means “Savior” in Hebrew.  In Hebrew custom, he was probably identified by his parentage, so he would be Yeshua bar Yoseph, or Joshua son of Joseph.  Or he may have been known by his profession, like many older countries did, maybe Jesus Carpenter.  Some of the people in the Christian Scriptures are identified by their city of origin, like Mary of Magdala, or Mary the Magdalene -  so Jesus was sometimes called ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ (This is from the Quora site’s answer and other places.)

The earliest followers of Jesus were fellow Jews of that era, who saw Jesus’ attributes as those they expected the Messiah to exhibit - the Messiah, or anointed one of God, who would deliver them. So Jesus’ followers called him Messiah Jesus, or Jesus the Messiah.  Jesus the anointed one, anointed by God, as kings were anointed to their position.   “Messiah” is a title.  When our Scriptures were translated into Greek, the equivalent word for “anointed” was ‘christos’.  So Christ is the same title - Jesus who is the Christ, Jesus the Christ of God, the anointed of God. 

So actually, when a person says “Jesus Christ”, they are awarding Jesus the title, “God’s Anointed One,” which is the belief of Christianity.  When we use that name and title together, we are making a claim about who Jesus is.  We are stating our faith that Jesus is the one anointed by God as Messiah, Christ.

The historical Jesus was middle-eastern.  (SLIDE – meme of a dark-skinned Jesus)  I know we’re used to seeing pictures of a white Jesus, so he looks like us white folks.  If we had time this morning, I could show paintings of Jesus in various other cultural guises, too, as artists show Jesus as like them.  That’s interpretation, which we all do, because no one back in that era was taking pictures!  Folks who study skeletons and skulls of the middle-eastern graves have produced this picture (SLIDE - composite 1^st century Jewish face) that might be what a historical Jesus looked like.  In the last few years, experts have tried to construct what a Hebrew man may have looked like from various sources, and came up with this as a possible literal look. 

 Most of the portrayals of Jesus in paintings are not meant to be literal, though, but to convey or communicate what our Christian faith believes about who Jesus the Christ is.

(SLIDE - shepherd)  For example, this one is from 570 BC, from A CATACOMB, using  the common Greek and Roman motif of a shepherd with a lamb, and is a reference to Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

(SLIDE - halo) This one is from a catacomb from the 4th century, and already shows the halo effect of Jesus’ divinity (or the openness of the 7th and spiritual chakra in Eastern traditions).   

(SLIDE - pantocrater) This one is from the 6th or 7th century, and from the monastery of St Catherine actually on Mt. Sinai, now in Egypt.  The open right hand making the sign of the benediction, or blessing, is used to show Jesus as the Christos, with the power and authority of God, like from the Hebrew names for God: Sabaot - Lord of all hosts, and El Shaddai, God Almighty.  Some think that the 2 sides of this painting’s face indicate both the human nature and the divine nature combined in Jesus the Christ. 

(SLIDE - on throne) Here’s another that shows Christ  as King, by seating him on the throne of God. 

I’ve tried to find words to explain the meaning of “Christ the King,” and its difficult.  If we let our minds imagine, let’s imagine that the title “Christ” carries overtones of God’s universal power and presence; open our minds to imagine Christ as timeless and cosmic; as part of the One God who is the source & maker of all being, the capital-L Life that keeps the planets spinning and rotating, and watches the stars from their births to their imploding deaths.  Imagine Christ as a part of the One God who is the essence, the “isness,” of all that “is.”  Imagine the wonder, the immensity, the scope, the force inside existence in all its forms.   That’s what the title of Christ carries.  This is mysterious, mystical, and overwhelming to imagine, for me. 

Yet at the same time, we also affirm God as intimate and as personal to us, as the one born in human flesh, Jesus.  Just at the point when we’re ready to throw our hands up and say that we will never be able to comprehend God (which is true), we also have Jesus, who walked in the earth’s dust, grew up through childhood and teenage years, ate food, had good friends, and suffered a human, physical death.  And we affirm that God’s Spirit also comes to dwell in our own selves, binding us up in a new family of God, placing us to live in the new realm of Christ’s reality. 

Back in my Boomer day, we’d call that mind-blowing. 

So who is Jesus the Christ to you?  I guess that’s the important question, after all this talk.  Our faith affirms that God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are all this, all together.  Totally universal, totally in the macro of the universe and the micro aspects beyond our discoveries about creation.  God has designed all and knits it all together.  God is capital-L Life.  God is capital -T Truth.  God is capital-P Peace.  God is the capital-W Way of living.  And yet this God seeks us out, provides for us to be forgiven and restored in relationship with God, and now lives within each of us.  God’s love is overwhelmingly large, yet also individually personal.  Jesus Christ died and was raised for the world, and for each of us.  Jesus Christ now sets us within the realm or kingdom or kindom of heaven, and desires that we walk this Jesus path. 

Now, next week the Church year starts over, and we will find ourselves metaphorically preparing ourselves, our inner selves, for Jesus to be birthed in us and therefore into the world.  This is probably my favorite doctrine or belief, what we call the Incarnation, or Enfleshing, of God.

This week, however, we celebrate all that Jesus the Christ is, and all that this means in Jesus’ right to tell us how God created humans to be, how God desires humans to act, and to tell us the truth about what its like to live in God’s realm, following God’s expectations and design.  As Christ, Jesus tells and shows us the reality of existence, the world view that comes from God’s self, the understanding and the context in which we live and move and have our being.

In our civil year here in the US, this is the week we commemorate some of our nation’s beginnings, with the feast of Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving gives us a picture of us as Europeans interacting wisely with the Native peoples of this country who were already here.  Its hard not to be aware of the native peoples of this land when we’re constantly driving past places with names like Onondaga Nation, Cayuga and Syracuse, Ithaca, and more (here in upstate NY)…. we can’t help but be reminded of those who were on this continent before our ancestors were, and who taught our European ancestors how to survive here. I wish the rest of our story with the native peoples stayed at that level of harmony we celebrate at Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately it didn’t, and we still have weeks like this past one, where unrest and racial discord showed up at our local university. The good will of Thanksgiving holds a hopeful picture that I hope inspires us.  May it be so. 

May the reality of God and Christ as King of all that is be a part of our lives this week, and enrich our thankfulness as we consider the love and grace God has towards us and all creation.   AMEN.