Temptation: That Crafty Persuasion Gen 2

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Temptation: That Crafty Persuasion

Lent 2A      3/8/2020 

            When my firstborn son was, I don’t know, 3? 4? 5?  He was talking well, anyway, and thinking things.  He came to me in the kitchen, and asked politely if he could have an ice cream sandwich - he’d eaten a good lunch, he would take it on the porch and not make a mess. (All this explanation should have been a clue….) I was so pleased with his politeness and thoughtfulness, that I said “Yes,”  thanked him for asking so nicely, and gave him an ice cream sandwich.  He went outside to the porch and ate it. When he was done, he returned  to the kitchen beaming, and explained - “I tricked you, Mommy!  Daddy gave me one, too!!!” 

I was angry, dismayed -  and strangely wanted to crack up laughing at how he was telling on himself.  Being a pastor and theologian, my brain goes odd places - I immediately knew that he had just eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  He was now his own creature, with the flush of having done something unique, and proud of his ability to think.  I knew that his dad and I would have to start being more aware now. 

My text today, as was read a few moments ago, is part of the saga of the early chapters of Genesis.  “In the Beginning” is the Hebrew name of the book, based on its first word.  I like the name “Beginnings.”  It’s a foundational book, explaining how things came to be as they are; or better, a way of putting forward the understanding of things through a trust and assurance of God’s involvement with it all.  How people and God and all creation are involved together.  How humanity is a commingling of the stardust of earth and the life-giving breath of the Divine.  How we find ourselves struggling with good and evil, mortality, feeling apart from God and longing to regain a wholeness that we intuit is there, and how difficult it is to eke a living on earth. 

All cultures have origin stories that give their people a basic orientation to how things are and try to answer the “why.”  I went on a quest to read lots of creation stories some years back, so I could hear our stories with a new ear, get past the literalism most of us were raised on, and get to the truths that are being communicated from way back. 

Genesis has 2 tellings of how God made things and how they are for us humans.  Each uses a distinct name for God.  Since we don’t read Hebrew (if we did the different names for God would be obvious), the English translation tries to show this by using various forms of God & Lord with capital first letters, and the all-capital LORD; sometimes combined as Lord God.    tIt’s not arbitrary - they are trying to show us the different traditions.  It’s interesting to know that as we read.  Those of you reading the Bible through right now, note the word and the spelling of  Lord and God as you read. 

The first telling of creation and God is the version with the wonderful refrain, “God saw that it was good,” and “the evening and the morning were the first/ second etc day,”  It’s actually quite an interesting study on biology - starting with water, land emerging, plants emerging, then sea life emerging, then animal life.  On what the story calls the 6th day, humanity is created in the image of God, male and female, no detail.  That is called good, too.  On the 7th day, God rests - the origin of Sabbath.  

The 2nd telling starts with the bare earth and the heavens, and God creates the human out of earthy stuff, dust, humus - and the life-giving Spirit or breath. Then in a few words God makes a garden for the human and makes lots of animals to try and make a companion to the human. Most Bible readers call this human Adam, and assume it's male.Not so! At this point the creature is a generic Human made from humus or Earthling made from Earth. It’s a play on words, and tells us what we are in our name.   Dust - enlivened by divine breath, Spirit. The translators made some assumptions here, in using the Hebrew word Adam as a name - a better name, in my humble opinion, might be “Dusty.”   That would translate the pun that identifies us.   Its interesting to note that in this story, God says that it’s NOT GOOD for Dusty to be solo.  If the various animals aren’t close enough companions, God takes a piece of Dusty & makes another dust creature.  In this way, the story tells us that the community aspect of humanity is important, that we need one another, and that sexuality and gender are a good part of the way things are.  That’s the situation we find ourselves in living in the world, and according to our faith, it's on purpose. 

This next part of the story has seen through a lens of cultural stereotypes by generations, and is a mis-interpretation that has led to much denigration of women.  In fact, the mis-interpretation does the same thing as the characters in the story - it throws blame.  People have read all sorts of things into the story that simply are not there - and used this story to justify putting down women, calling us the Devil’s gateway, wondering if we had souls, and blocking the use of our gifts in church.  In effect, they’ve acted out just what the human Adam and Eve do in the story - blame the other, try and justify and explain away misogyny, and avoid responsibility for it. In that mis-interpreting way, women are still held as temptresses, especially in a sexual way; even court cases this past year have blamed the woman for a man’s misbehavior.  

This is the text we read today is known in theology as “THE FALL.”

If you were reading a story where there are multiple doors and the character is given permission to open them all except one, what ALWAYS happens?  Yes, the character wonders why, wonders what could possibly be in that door, and eventually opens it.  In our text,  I can’t help but say, “What’s with that one tree?” and get curious.  That’s how humans are. The story calls it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and the story tells us it’s inevitable that we will learn this…..and that it will also make us grieve.  This is who we humans are, and this is the situation we find ourselves in, in life.  We know good and we know evil, and we are grieved by it; we can’t fix it, we try to get out from under it with blaming and justifying and avoiding because it's hard to admit.   The wholeness we seem to intuit and long for is only available through God, through Jesus, that human who was able to live in unity of spirit and matter, flesh and spirit, God and humanness. 

Like my son, all of us come to the point of knowing good and evil - & at a young age.  It looks promising, that getting what we want...and getting away with it.  And our sense of loss of innocence, our sense of guilt, our trying to wriggle away from it, follows on its heels. 

People who don’t feel this loss and wrongness of evil are sociopaths. 

Human history is full of both those who strive to do well, who have compassion and care about others than themselves, who seek peaceful ways of living together, who seek kindness, who seek the good for all - these Scripture calls the fruit of the Spirit.  Human history is also full of those who take what they want with violence, only seek good for their own tribe, glory in brutality and conquering, using all kinds of justifications and blaming.  If we can’t see these two things fighting within ourselves, we can at least see it in history.  Humans have eaten of the tree of good and evil.  And the lure and attraction of the evil are large - it feeds our desires, and tries to answer our feelings of insecurity. 

The faith stories of Scripture go on to tell us that God has always sought to provide a way of restoration of the relationship between us and God, between us and others, between us and all creation.  Showing us who God is through creation is a way; giving The Law was another; coming in flesh in Jesus was yet another.  The Jesus who we worship shows that perfect awareness of Spirit and flesh, living totally with God while being human.  The possibilities of the Kingdom of God attracted many followers among those humans around him - and also created hatred and fear in those who thought they were happy doing things their own way.  So Jesus was killed, rejected by the Empire which he criticized.  And God vindicated him by raising him in a new creation, what the Scripture calls a Second Adam, the start of a new thing that we are all invited to enter and enjoy.

I like to read a guy named Frederick Buechner, and among the wise things he says is that the Gospel is bad news before it is good news.  The bad news is that we know good and evil, and that evil is difficult to withstand.  In fact, it's really hard to look at ourselves and admit how much we do is self-motivated, how much we do because of our basic brokenness, no matter how much we desire and long for the good.  Yet without that admission, without that looking into the mirror and seeing our knowledge of good AND evil , we can’t get to where the gospel becomes, in fact, good news - that we can be made right with God through following Jesus, saying yes to Jesus’ invitation to repent and step into the kingdom of God, to take the path of following Jesus as our path, and learning from him.

These stories tell us what we are like, and show us that we have all eaten of that tree of good and evil, then show us that God has made a way for that longing for healing and wholeness are freely available.  The invitation is to look at ourselves honestly, with God’s help; and to turn in the direction of following Jesus, with God’s help.  May God’s Spirit strengthen us and enlighten us.  AMEN.

Temptations: Seeking Worth in All the Wrong Places Lent 1-A

The Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Temptations:  Seeking Worth in All the Wrong Places

Mar 1, 2020    Lent 1A

Welcome to the first Sunday in Lent. 

These weeks leading up to Holy Week are traditionally a time of introspection, prayer, confession, examination of our spiritual commitments to God, and pondering the obedience and self-giving of Jesus our Christ.  Traditionally, it’s been a time of taking on a sacrifice ourselves- a partial fast, or giving up something to experience perhaps just a little of what Jesus experienced in the desert.  Jesus’ time in the desert reminds me of the Native American Vision Quest, where a person goes to a deserted place to fast and pray some days, seeking a vision to guide them.   I’ve seen pictures from Native American artists showing Christ on a vision quest, with prayer flags, dream catcher and sage.   It's interesting that Buddhism also has Sidhartta Gautama enduring three similar temptations as he sat under the bodhi tree, before he found enlightenment and became the Buddha.  There’s some good articles online about that if you want to look them up. 

According to our Holy Writings, God’s Spirit leads Jesus into this wilderness experience between his baptism and the beginning of his ministry.  It's this time of testing that gives Jesus the strength of his call, this vision of who he is and what he’s to do, and the strength to endure and understand.

I see a theme of temptation in the Scriptures of the next weeks, so we will be looking at those things that can derail our spiritual lives in the next weeks.  So today let’s look and ponder together the nature of those temptations or tests that Jesus faced. Like much Scripture, they sound literal, but when we think of them, they become something much deeper.

 Jesus’ first temptation, that of making bread when he was obviously very hungry, represents the way bodily desires, although good and made by God, can also get in the way of seeking the spiritual life; especially when seeking them becomes our purpose instead of seeking God. These material things become our security instead of security in God; we mistake our security and worth as found in these things rather than finding our security and worth in God.  We wouldn’t have to be total hedonists to have bought into the idea that the meaning of life is found money and things, or to mistake the seeking of these things to replace the seeking of God.

Social scientists tell us that commercials have changed in the last decades, from telling us that their product is good & better than other products, to telling us our lives will be fulfilled & meaningful with their product.  They’re not so much selling us a reliable car and good service, as they are selling us a view of ourselves as cool and slick and a babe magnet if we buy their car.  They don’t so much sell us a floor cleaner that gets up the crud in the cracks and corners, as they do sell us a view of ourselves as a competent and attractive woman who uses their product and has a full life, a nice house, nice clothes, a handsome spouse and cute kids.  Otherwise we are empty losers at life, and insignificant in the universe. 

What????   And people buy it!!!  That using x or y product will fill our deep spiritual desire for worth, meaning and value.  If we think about it, we know we can’t ever satisfy spiritual hungers with material goods.  Affluence is not the answer to spiritual desires.  But it’s all around us and we sink into this way of thinking rather unconsciously.  It's an easy answer, more alluring than the discipline of a spiritual journey.  A writer I admire went so far as to call malls our new American temples, where we gather and do things together, and give our money - in hopes that we will be seen as worthy and our lives seen as important and good.  It sounds ridiculous when I put it like this, doesn’t it?  Yet, yet, how much does that cool new gadget or bigger TV or updated computer or a new “look” in clothing, or a bigger car or house - how much have these things taken over our brains and desires, our use of money?  Even if we have to go into debt?  Advertisers are good at manipulating us - it works- it sells. 

My personal opinion is that the lure of affluence is a major failing in America. I think it has sidetracked our culture, and led to a wider gap between the haves and the have nots, and made it almost a moral or ethical sin to be poor.  It sidetracks much of our spiritual desire for God.  Not that good food and good relationships are bad, not that hoping for a good family and nice things is bad - God’s creation is good. It's just not the answer to a spiritual need, and it’s not a substitute for seeking God. 

The second temptation Jesus faces, testing God by throwing himself off a high place and forcing God to catch him, is harder to parse for me.  It has something to do with a rather simplistic and “proof-texting” use of Scripture, like You said the angels would catch me, so prove it!  Testing God, and with a simplistic understanding of Scripture.  Perhaps, even more, trying to manipulate God. 

One of my fave stories on my daughter is from when she was 3 or 4, and learning her powers.  She came up to me and began stroking my hair, telling me I’m such a good mommy, the best mommy, and so pretty, such nice hair.  So now can she have  roller blades?  I broke up laughing  - she was SO obvious in her manipulation. She got better as she got older….trying to make me do what she wanted, especially as a way to see if I loved her more than the boys. Everything was a test.  Who did I love most?  I worked to make her know how much she was loved and to trust my love - and I resisted the attempts to manipulate me.  If she didn’t trust my love, I couldn’t prove it.  And my love for her didn’t mean I would always do what she wanted. 

I wonder if this temptation isn’t a similar thing between us and God. The Tempter says to Jesus, IF you are the son of God, make God do what this Scripture says for you!  Jesus evidently sees through the ruse, and refuses to test God’s love, or his own worth to God.  Jesus rests securely in the knowledge of God’ love without framing it as a test and a manipulation.  We can fall into that, though - it’s subtle.  I prayed for a bike and didn’t get it - I’m not important to God like my friend who DID get a bike.  We all went snowboarding - why was I the one that hit a tree and have to recover for years? I prayed for my dad to live and he died - my friend’s dad recovered from his cancer - God must love him more, and not love me.  I prayed to get that job and didn’t.  And they hired a jerk - I was better than him!  Where was God’s justice?    Like we are insecure in God’s love unless we can cause God to do what we want. Like my daughter eventually grew into a more mature understanding of my love, we also have to wrestle with our misunderstanding of God’s love until we rest in it like Jesus did.

We Christ-followers are not immune to having things happen to us.  I had two infants who were born very ill - I prayed for them both - one died, one lived.  God was with me during my grief and anger over the loss, through the pain in my family.  I asked God some hard questions at the time, yet God didn’t leave me.  We came through it - yes I was changed, more insightful, it took a lot of wrestling, and good friends to hear me out.   

Jesus’ third temptation was the temptation of the power to make the world as he wanted it, with his own influence and power over people and events. The temptation to be a dictator, to establish a powerful kingdom that could wipe out those who disagreed, the power perhaps of outlawing any dissenting voice or calling it fake news. Taking away individual’s rights and choices, repressing whole populations who disagree. Political power, military power, power over - power over whatever and whoever.  It’s interesting that the Tempter can promise to give this to Jesus, IF Jesus turns aside from what he knows of God  and follows after the ways of the Tempter; instead of following the way of love, which is the way of God.  Carl Jung and others after him have said that the will to power is the opposite of love.  Not hate, but the will to power, power-over.  It reminds me of the saying that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

Seeking to live according to God’s power of love has so much less of the ego in it, so much less of the recognition and acclaim. The power of love sets aside the ego.  God’s power of love, that Jesus lived into, is shown in this communion meal we partook earlier - a willingness to set aside and not be fooled by the shallower promises of affluence, power or manipulation.  God’s power is love, and a love that is willing to lay down its life for a friend.  A love that trusts, that knows its own worth, that willingly places its faith in God’s hands no matter what happens.  A love that doesn’t insist on its own way, a love that never loses hope. 

Nobody ever said that faith was for sissies.  Living according to God, living in faith and trust, demands a wrestling and a struggle with temptations that are sometimes overt, yet often subtle.   We can fool ourselves so easily; it takes great strength and courage to rightly examine our motives and incentives, and still choose the way of God.  May the Spirit of God fill us and move us as we seek to live ever more in faith.  AMEN. 

Church #8: The Great Ends of the Church Transfiguration A

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Church 8:  The  Great Ends of the Church 

2/23/20   Transfiguration -A

            Imagine this conversation -  Honey, I’m home!  How was your day, dear?  Well, I went climbing this mountain with my friends & Jesus, and suddenly he started to glow, and a couple of famous ancestors showed up glowing, too, & they talked, and a voice out of nowhere said we should listen to this beloved person.  Then... it all disappeared and things were back to normal and we came back down.  How about your day?  Well, after work, I worked on our taxes and fed the kids….

What - that’s not a regular occurrence at your house?

This morning’s texts are pretty way out of the realm of normal for us. They're holy encounters with God, encounters out of the ordinary day-to-day things like, say, going to work, going to school, preparing meals, preparing taxes and so on.  If we were to have an encounter like the disciples had in these verses, we might feel...what?  Overwhelmed? Like we need to call a counselor quickly?   Like maybe we were asleep and didn’t know it?  Do we declare that these texts must be made up and not real, and so flatten out universe to the one dimensional, material? 

Most of the time, our experiences with God are within the sphere of normal.  Sometimes we have rather mystical experiences - I have. I've been pretty nervous about describing them for most of my life, then I said, “Why not?” Why do I think that God the Creator of all the material world, is then bound by the material world?   There have been Christian mystics and Jewish mystics and Muslim mystics and Hindu mystics in many ancient writings.  God is Mystery - and sometimes we are graced to get just a glimpse of how “other” and beyond our imagining God is. 

What makes me think I’m smart enough to understand all that God is, anyway?  I mean, I can barely use the words “quarks” and “energy fields”, which are a part of our science.  There is so much known now in medicine that is beyond my scope, and in other fields as well.  I had a friend from Virginia who went to work with Microsoft some years ago - he told me that he was really unable to explain his work in words that most people knew, and that the things they were doing would blow my mind.  Our best and newest scientists aren’t even close to understanding all the process of life that God designed. And I think I ought to be able to understand all there is to know about God?

There are all kinds of mysterious and mystical experiences around us - getting carried away by art or music or inspiration; birth and death, those liminal edges of life’s beginning and ending.  Realizing the delicate balance of various habitats, including the one that makes life on earth possible.  Life, material life, is amazing.  God is responsible for it - and God transcends it. 

This is so much a part of the message and the truth that we as a church are about - learning to see the world as God’s, with God’s purposes and God’s message.  Remember the Great Ends of the Church that we mentioned last week - here they are again - in bigger letters...

This understanding and awe of God is part of the “Truth” referred to in the Great Ends of the Church, “4. the preservation of the truth.”  The concept of “the truth” is, to me, the whole realization of God’s existence, that the world and all that is belongs to God, that we are created in God’s image and BY God; that we are also fallen limited and mortal, and thus in need of the love and restoration of God, forgiving us and making us new creations through the work of Jesus, who is the Messiah, or Christ.  Christianity is a total world view, or perspective, or a way of seeing and understanding all that is - existence, reality, what have you -  the ultimate big picture.  It's the place where we as believers stand and consider the universe & our place in it.  It’s the reality of God, in which we live and move and have our being. 

In other words, it’s what Jesus calls the realm of heaven or the realm of God.  It’s our reality, when we come to faith in God.

The 1st Great End of the Church says that our purpose here is, “the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind.”  This includes the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection - however, it isn’t ONLY the life,death and resurrection of Jesus!  Salvation isn’t just the personal turning to God in faith, for forgiveness.  That's part of it  - but we limit God’s purpose of saving the world if we stop there. What JESUS called the gospel is the announcement that, in his very self, the kingdom of God had drawn near, and it was time to acknowledge this, turn around, and begin to walk according to that kingdom.  Jesus’ view was that God’s will be done on earth, as in heaven. - it wasn’t about dying and going to heaven and leaving the world to rot.   God wants us walking according to the realm of heaven  while we’re here on earth - involved issues of justice, welcome, equity and honor among people, a caring and compassion for even the weakest and most powerless, a realization of our human tendency to go our own way, and a seeking of God’s Spirit to guide us.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say the message of Jesus is the only way our world is going to survive - be saved, in other words.  Humanity and creation.   

We humans now have the capability to destroy the world; and even if we don’t ever use our  nuclear capabilities, we can also ruin it by our actions; we can trash it and destroy its ability to sustain life.  Our storytellers and movie makers have told vivid tales of terrible ends, when inhumanity and evil prevail, when domination and terrorism have reduced the world to a virtually unlivable state.  We know what it looks like to have tyrants and dictators trying to tell us which people are okay and  which are undesirable, with holocausts and genocides almost wiping out scapegoated populations.  We know how to take advantage of people, take away their power and almost their humanity.  We know how to do evil.  We know the ways that lead to death.

The good news, or gospel, of God’s kingdom, is that there is a way that leads to life; there is a way that is good; there is a way of abundance; there is a way for people to flourish; there is a way for the world to be saved.  That WAY is what Jesus proclaimed - the way of spirit and flesh to be one, the way for humanity to live in peace with itself and the planet.  Jesus is that way.  Following Christ is that way.  This is a cosmic vision of LIFE that we are to proclaim - not just a get out of jail free card, not just a nice invitation to my church…  it is a vital and saving message that all people need to hear - there is a way of life, there is a way of salvation, there is a way that follows God’s intent.  It’s not militaristic victory, or a thing of winners and  losers -- it’s the whole world winning together in a whole new way. 

And that, my friends, is the gospel, the good news - that God’s way is a way of LIFE, and the only way that can indeed save the world.  The glory ofGod will be seen when all flesh can see it together- when the Beloved Community of humankind is walking according to the WAY of Christ.  

It’s our call, as the church, to be telling about this and living this out - those other Great Ends  of the Church about promoting social righteousness and exhibiting the kingdom of heaven to the world.  We’re supposed to be about picturing this radical peace-making community, this welcoming and inviting community, this community where relationships are righteous altogether.  It’s not easy without the help and guidance of God’s Spirit in us, because the temptation to fall back into our old “normal” is hard to resist, and tricky in getting its way.  That's why we need each other to make this community a place of shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship, as the final Great Ends declare. 

It’s not an easy thing to step into a different picture of what LIFE is, while around us other and lesser understandings of life abound.  It’s not easy to live according to a philosophy and worldview that is often at odds with that we see in commercials and TV shows and movies, and which is espoused by politicians and other leaders.  Yet people do witness to this LIFE, people who we admire for their kindness, their compassion, their insight into human suffering, their concern for our planet home, their willingness to fight for human rights for all people. We can do it, too.  It’s hard for us to keep this perspective of Jesus unless we have a strong community around us.  We need one another - together we lift each other higher than we can go on our own, and support each other.  AMEN.

Church #7: Why Church? (Purposes) 2/16/2020 Epiphany 6A

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

Church #7: WHY CHURCH?  (Purposes)

2/16/20  Epiphany 6A    Acts 2:37-47

         

            Why is there a church?  Why do we gather in groups like this?  What are we supposed to do?  How are we more than just another society or club?  How do we decide what kinds of activities fit in with our purpose?  Why do you come to this congregation and not another one?   Why is being a part of a local church important to your faith walk?  Why do we need church anymore? 

            These are great questions to ponder in a transitional time, these kinds of purpose questions and why-do-we-do-what-we-do questions. We can get stuck, you know, just doing things because we ALWAYS did them! You all know that story about the young couple that were hosting their first larger family dinner?  Well the wife goes to put a ham in the oven and first hacks off the smaller end where it comes down closer to the bone, and the husband asks her why she’s doing that, it’s hard work.  She says, “That’s how my mom did it - I’m copying her.”  So the husband asks his mother-in-law why she always cut that end off the ham, as his mom never did it.  The mom says, “That’s how I learned it from MY mom.”  So the husband approaches the grandmother now and asks why she cut the end off the ham like that.  She answers, “Well, I didn’t have a big enough pan for the whole thing and we were too poor to buy another one.” 

            See, there are lots of things in our lives that we never question - it’s just the way it’s done, period.  Why do churches worship at 10 or 11 on Sundays, when the rest of our work days start ? earlier?  Yes, it gives us more leisure for a nice breakfast together - but the original reason was so the farmer folks could get morning chores done before cleaning up for church.  Back when the countrysides were more agricultural….   They moved to the cities, yes, and kept the old church time - there’s no holy reason why church is at 10 or 11. Why do we put the sermon and the offering where they are in our worship service? Why are we organized like we are? There IS a theological reason why we worship on Sundays - it’s because every Sunday is a “little Easter,” the day Jesus was raised.  

            So I chose this week’s scripture that describe the very first gatherings of Christ-followers, those who came to faith in Jesus from Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost - the day the Holy Spirit of God came on those apostles and filled them with the power to speak the gospel.  And what does it say about their gathering after they were baptized?  

-       They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching ie learning

-       They devoted themselves to fellowship - ie being together

-       They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread (eating, maybe the Lord’s Supper, too)

-       They devoted themselves to praying

-       They held all things in common, selling their possessions and distributing the proceeds to each one as they had need - wow, a radical re-distribution of goods so that everyone had enough.

-       They spent much time together in the temple - again, together, and at a worship spot

-       They praised God - probably reading Scripture, singing, praying more

-       They had the goodwill of the people ie they got along

-       Day by day, God added to their number those who were being saved.  GOD added.. I think that’s an important way of describing how they grew.

           

            On through the book called The Acts of the Apostles, and in the letters of Paul,more is told about these early gatherings of believers. Their situation was this - they were a real small minority and doing something brand new.  Their faith and way was not the way of the culture - they were mixing slaves and owners, Jews and Gentiles, and looking out for the poor.  They followed a man who had been killed by the Romans. They had a real need for supporting one another in this new path, this new WAY.  Most of them hadn’t known Jesus, and had to learn.  They had to work out what following Jesus would look like in their countries and cities.  They were breaking family & religious traditions.  That made their connections important and close. 

            The ways of faith and church that we know have a long history, and have been important in our western culture; in fact some Christians today confuse being Christian with being American.  In some countries, the culture and the faith are more visible distinct - and our culture might yet be that way pretty soon. But by and large the church hasn’t been persecuted much here, and we haven’t been a minority, ...although that’s changing, too.  By and large, Christ-followers haven’t had too much difficulty being both a believer and an American. If anything, the affluence of white Christians and Americans, and the confluence of interests in our civic lives and religious lives, has often made us pretty comfortable and complacent in our faith. It really hasn’t been a huge challenge…..   Maybe this situation is actually as dangerous to our faith as was the persecution of the early church by the Romans.

 And once again, my prediction is that this complacency is already having to change.  I think the whole capital-C Church is going to have to re-look at how we follow the WAY of Christ in our era, how we practice our faith, how we see ourselves as church, and what it means to us to be Christ-followers.  The era that we live in now is not the era of my parent’s life, nor really the era of most of my life, at least the era that seminary prepared me for 35 years ago.  We can’t expect to do the same things, in the same way, and have church be like it was.  We face challenges now that weren’t imagined in earlier days. Like those early believers who had to figure out how to live in Jesus’ way in their culture, we have to do this, too.  Every age does, actually, because the world is always changing.  We need to think about what following Christ looks like in 2020, and how we are going to live the gospel in this time.  

We can’t blame the Boomers, and we can’t blame the Millennials or the Gen Xers, or any specific generation.  No blame throwing…  but the situation exists for us now, whatever generation we re in - THIS is the time of our following of Christ, THIS is our leg of the race; and we need to hear and heed the leading and guiding of God’s Spirit. 

Well, okay, I got a little carried away.  It’s just that I mourn the decline of Bible literacy, I mourn the decline of church attenders, I mourn the lack of a distinct word of love and faith spoken to the world. 

I think it's the time for some creative re-imagining, a time for asking God to help us take a new look, a time for us older leaders, in our wisdom, to listen to upcoming leaders.  I think it’s time to get past things like racism and sexism in the church, a time to try some innovative structures.  As well as a time to dig into our Holy Scriptures and the experiences of our faith ancestors, and listen for God.

We don’t, of course, have to reinvent the wheel - many of our forebears have combed the Scriptures before us and attempted to distill what is said of “why church”, ie our purposes.  One telling I like is called THE GREAT ENDS OF THE CHURCH, which has been a part of the Presbyterian constitution since 1910, and found to be a helpful statement when we consider what we are to be about.  So I made a slide of them, too - and not surprisingly, they look a good bit like the things the early believers did when they gathered:

-        the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind;

-       the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God;

-       the maintenance of divine worship;

-       the preservation of the truth;

-       the promotion of social righteousness;

-       and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.

            We’re going to look at these in the next weeks, as we begin our Interim tasks gathering in small groups to talk, looking at our community, hearing from local leaders, listening for God’s Spirit to speak to our hearts about our future.  I’m hoping that these sermons will work with the tasks, and the tasks with the sermons, to help move us forward.  I hope you will talk with me and each other about these ideas.  AMEN.

Church #6 What Do Salt & Light Have In Common? 2/9/20 Epiphany 5A

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

What Do Salt and Light Have in Common?

2//9/20  Epiph 5A  

            Doug found a great graphic, didn’t he?  A salt shaker paired with a light bulb….

            At first look, these 2 brief parables don’t seem to have anything in common - I mean, light?  And salt?  It takes a fanciful graphic to put them together.  (Point to screen) Ah, rather, it’s their MEANINGS that are the same - 2 parables to say the same thing from a different point of view.  That’s Jesus’ point in using them. 

            I’m still in my sermon series about the church, and these two illustrations from Jesus are actually quite a challenging call to us as the church in the world.  Each and both challenge us as believers to offer a gift to the world, to offer the benefits of God’s love and God’s kingdom to the world. A gift that’s like salt, a preservative and a seasoning; a gift that, like light, enlightens the darkness and shows the way.  AGAIN, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we are hearing that faith is not just something that will protect us from hell and get us to heaven - no, my friends, faith is a calling for right now, no matter our age, no matter our country, no matter anything - as Christ’s followers, the CHURCH, we are to make a difference right now and right where we are.  We are citizens of another country - God’s realm, God’s kingdom.  We are ambassadors for God in a world of people that pretty often act as if God is either remote, unconcerned, or nonexistent.  We are to walk the Jesus path while we’re alive, and show that it is different, that it is possible, and that it is good. 

            Let’s take the illustrations in order - salt.  My salt shaker sits just above my stove - I’d have it on the table, but my cat likes to knock it over and sometimes knock it off the table.  As salt is something that we might have to watch, letting people salt food at the table is more and more the norm, rather than salting things as we cook.  As it sneaks in in all kinds of pre-packaged foods, we often get a lot without knowing it.  Salt is in almost everything, because it makes foods taste better.  It ENHANCES flavor.  In the old days, salt was also used as a preservative.  It kept meat and fish from going bad, so people could keep the meat around until the next hunt or the next slaughtering time.  Nobody had refrigerators, or even ice boxes that used large blocks of ice.  Salt, or brine, was used.  Humans HAVE to have a certain amount of salt - when athletes take heavy exercise and sweat a lot, they may take salt tablets to renew their bodies, keep water in. I remember taking a salt tablet on a long hike at Girl Scout camp.  Our blood, which is similar to sea water, is salty.  So it’s important to our human life. 

Syracuse knows about salt - our nickname is Salt City, because of salt being mined here.  We have Salina Street, which I initially wanted to pronounce Saleena, like saline.  Salt was important to ancient spice merchants - you may recall, from your English classes reading Shakespeare, that King Lear’s daughter Cordelia, when asked how much she loved her father, said she loved him more than salt.  She meant it as a huge compliment, but unfortunately he didn’t hear it that way….

So salt preserves things, and enhances things.  If salt loses its saltiness, Jesus says, it’s thrown out and no good; it’s good for salt to be salty. 

We the CHURCH, and we as believers, act as salt when we follow Christ, and bring the values of the kingdom of heaven into our culture and our society.  Try and imagine the world without the message of God that came through the Jewish people and Jesus and Jesus’ followers  -- think of what this tradition of faith in God has preserved in the world.  Yes, other religious traditions also have had ethical codes and wisdom.  Yet our 10 Commandments, the knowledge of God and the worship of God through the Scriptures of our Bible, both Testaments - these have had a HUGE impact on our civilization.  I don’t think it’s too strong a thing to say God’s teachings have been a preserver of society, a preserver of civility, a preserver of a way of behaving towards one another, a preserver of the expectations of respect and honor among people, even if they aren’t church-goers. And when the influence of faith wanes in individuals and societies, like it is in our current society, behaviors and standards collapse. And we get taken over by power-mongers, liars, barbarians, greediness, those who take advantage of everyone, and a total disregard for truth.  What makes people think of the good of others? What makes people have the courage of their convictions, and stand up to evil?  It’s faith. And the Holy Spirit of God working in souls.  Without the salt of the CHURCH carrying God’s message in our Western world, where would civilization be? 

As an enhancer of flavor, faith also teaches us that God the creator called everything “good.” The world, the universe, earth, people, relationships, trees and animals - God pronounced it all “good,” and urges us to care for it all.  This is foundational to the way we as people of faith look at the physical world.  The joys of life are enhanced by faith, and we enjoy this creation where God has set us.  We enjoy the winter skiing, skating, and snowmobiling, the scenery of snow on evergreens. The change of seasons, the blaze of color is the fall as well as the new greens of spring.  We enjoy each other, our friends, our spouses, our loves, our children and extended family.  These are all “good.”  The universe is not just a bunch of mechanical operations that somehow came into being, and despair is not a logical outcome.  God is in it, God called it good, God set us in the midst to love God and enjoy God forever.  (By the way, that’s the answer to a question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism - what is the chief end of humankind?)

So we are “salt” when we are living according to the truths of God, living according to the kingdom of God, living in faith.  We are preserving humanity from barbarism; we are enhancing our enjoyment of the gifts of God.  Isn’t that a cool way to imagine the gifts we bring when we follow God?

Okay, now the illustration of light. Light is the first thing God created, according to the creation story in Genesis 1. Let there be light!  And there was light.  Light has been important to humanity since the beginning - in order to see in the dark nights, in order to  know when to plant and for those plants to grow - plants “eat” sunlight, you know, it is their food; and plants are the beginning of the whole food chain.  We talk in illustrations and metaphors of light and dark all the time - that lightbulb that goes off over heads in cartoons when they have an idea, when they “see the light.” Our celebration of the birth of Jesus, who we call the Light of the World, is set at the winter solstice - the time of the longest darkness, and the beginning of the return of more light.  We have flashlights and hurricane lanterns to show what is out there, and reveal the path when we are lost.  Fire, even, that transformative thing that both lights and cooks.  All we need is a few hours when the power lines are down in a snow storm, in order to re-appreciate light.  I like lights to come on when I leave my office here at night to walk to my car.  

This week my car had an issue with the lights, and I got pulled over and told my car had no tail lights. That was scary, because I had to drive on 81, and I was fearful of cars coming up on me and not being able to tell I was there - fortunately my blinkers and flashers were working, and I drove home with my flashers on.  And got my lights repaired.  Many roads don’t have street lights around here - being a suburban girl myself and used to street lights everywhere, nights are pretty dark - good lights on our cars are vital.

So we believers, we faithful ones, we Christ-followers, we are to be like lights.  We are to illumine what is here, show the truth, light the path of life for the world.  Shine light on lies, shine light where darkness is taking over in injustice and injury.  Shine light on what is good, what are the true purposes of living.  Shine light for those who are confused, who have let the shadowy things lead to bad decisions.  Shine light for those who are struggling to make it at all. 

We can’t be salt or light if we are not ourselves living according to what God has said, seeking to walk closer to Christ, seeking God’s wisdom in prayer and meditation.  We will lose our saltiness and hide our light under a cover if we are let other concerns overwhelm our faith.  Our calling is to live our faith and help bring God’s message to preserve the world and show the way.  We live up to these illustrations of salt and light when the Spirit of God is working in our own lives - working to reveal places we need to open more to God, nudging us to walk more in God’s light ourselves.  We need the Spirit’s courage and strength  - and wisdom - if we are to stand up to bullies and racists and sexists and polluters and liars and cheaters; if we are to tell the truth of our souls when so many don’t; if we are to be the person God created us to be, if we are to live the wholeness and the depth of personhood that God is calling us to.  So today, and this week, hear the challenge as well as the invitation from the Scriptures, and from our savior Jesus the Christ -   Be salty. Show light.  Walk with God.  AMEN.

Church #5 The Church Doesn't Need Us to be all the Same 2/2/20

Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser

The Church Doesn’t Need Us All to Be All the Same

2/2/20  Church #5   1 Cor 12 – not lectionary

            11:00 on Sunday mornings as been called the most segregated hour of the week.  That comment is talking about race. I’d expand it to include almost any kind of diversity, because finding a church home has become a process of finding a place we’re comfortable… which inevitably ends up being with people like ourselves. People who look like ourselves, people who are economically like ourselves, people who think like we think, people who know how to get along like we do, people whose theology is like ours, and so on.  We like to find a place where we “fit,” because often diversity makes for having to have many long talks, many heavy discussions, having to adjust ourselves to the way other people do things, and often feeling uncomfortable.  Our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers, by being geographically assigned to a certain parish, had to deal more with diversity than we Protestants, who enjoyed church shopping fo a place where we fit without too much trouble - and there were a lot of choices.  Many Roman Catholics now feeling freer to go to different parishes where they like the priest or the way things are done, instead of staying in their geographic parish and waiting out the current priest’s tenure.  

            I have a lot of sympathy for looking for a good fit in a church home - I mean, as my own theology changed, I gave up on my Baptist roots; and I enjoy sitting under a pastor whose sermons I respect and whose theology is similar in ways important to me.  And over the years of searching for calls to various churches, I’ve learned to be upfront about my theology in my search documents, and avoid the fights that would emerge once they started hearing my sermons.

            Yet while I understand this seeking of people like me, I’m not totally happy that churches are this way.  Because it seems to me that the message of Christ speaks the best when it speaks across lines of diversity, and the equality and worth of all people in Christ’s body the church, and Christ’s kingdom.  I mean, it normal for us humans to seek out the comfort of “people like me.” 

            Sometimes when I’m fed up with church wrangling, and when the Presbyterians keep batting an issue back and forth every year in the national gatherings, I (halfway) joke and say I’m going to start my own church and name it, “The Church of People Like Me.”  I did find a home in the Presbyterian Church (USA), where I feel I am respected for who I am and can talk on an even keel with people; people who respect the calling of women to ministry, for example; people who are not listeralists when they read Scripture, for another example.  We’ve got a range of viewpoints in the denomination, and a good system of finding excellent language that focuses on our places of agreement about what is important to faith.  While we’re still mostly white folks, we are addressing issues of racism and seeking to minister together. 

            The early first churches founded by the apostles and disciples of Jesus, of necessity were broadly egalitarian - those who followed Christ in a city were a small minority, and met together to grow and learn and support each other despite differences like being Jews and Greeks together, some being slaves and others wealthy.  So the message of God’s welcome to all people     was visually and obviously being lived out.  Not that it was easy….  Because it’s radically different from how humans tend to slip towards homogenous tribes.  Because it calls for a different way of living and loving each other -  not just tolerance, but essential oneness.  In the early days, the Christ-followers are said to have shared everything, so that no one knew a lack; the poor and the powerless were cared for by those who had more of the world’s goods.  But this turned out to be difficult to maintain as time went on and the culture around them pressured  them to live like others of their kind.  It may be naive of me,  yet I wish the churches of today evidenced more of this radical oneness. 

            On top of these cultural, class and ethnic distinctions, the apostle Paul goes on to recognize yet another kind of diversity - the diversity of what he calls spiritual gifts, the inclinations and talents of certain people which go towards the whole life of the church.  In fact, the apostle Paul says that the Holy Spirit does this diversity on purpose, so that the church will have everything it needs to build each other up, mature and spread the gospel.  Paul writes that these gifts are given “for the common good,” not for individual glory.  And that the purpose of these gifts is the building up of the body of Christ.

            The passage we read from his first letter to the church in Corinth has a kind of list, and there’s another in his letter to the church at Ephesus.  The Greek word is charis, c-h-a-r-i-s; at some times in Christian history these abilities have been called charisms; and that’s where the word “charismatic” came from, in reference to people who spoke in tongues.  Paul, by the way, says that that is a rather lesser gift, and not to get bent out of shape about it, as people evidently tended to be rather flamboyant about it. 

            Anyway, spiritual gifts have become a topic of much writing in the recent years, with lists abounding and spiritual gift inventories available.  As the apostle Paul didn’t really write down exact definitions of the gifts that are mentioned, some speculation has entered the picture.  In our passage in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul mentions an utterance of wisdom and an utterance of knowledge, gifts of faith and healing and working miracles, prophecy and the discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues.  Later in this same chapter he names apostles, prophets and teachers, “helps” and administration.  In the letter to Ephesus he additionally names pastor and evangelist.  In the letter to the Roman church, he adds serving, exhortation, giving, leadership and mercy.  Some Christ-followers believe these charisms are only given out by the Spirit and have nothing to do with innate inclinations of personality types or talents.  I personally don’t see why God would ignore a person’s inclinations towards liking order, for example, and ignore the cultivation of that; or overlook a musical genius, or a sensitivity to others, or an innate ability to lead, or a poetic mind or an enjoyment of children.  We bring all of who we are to God; and God uses us as God wills.  All that we are can be used for God’s glory.  Its true sometimes gifts show up in unexpected places - not just stereotypically in the wealthy or those from “good” families.  People are amazingly unique, and there is certainly a hand of God at work in finding gold even when it’s pretty hidden and unexpected. 

            I’ve been intrigued with all the different ways there are to try and understand human personalities.  This didn’t come from my family’s inclinations - or maybe it did in the sense that I didn’t fit in well, and kept trying to figure it all out.  I enjoyed learning about the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, which was a popular tool that emerged from the writings of Carl Jung - it had a big heyday in seminaries as well as in business, the making up of work teams that would include people of different strengths.  Later I was intrigued by the Multiple Intelligence theories, which made an impact on education and Church School curriculum. I eagerly read the personality theories of Piaget, Erikson, Kohlberg, Transactional Analysis, moral development, emotional development - and the work of James Fowler who used these theories to look at faith development in people at various ages and stages.  That’s my bent, you see, trying to understand and figure out.

If we look at children, we recognize that some have the ability to concentrate more easily than others; some are more physically adept; some take to reading and others have to strain at it; some take to math and others don’t.  Some are good workers, some jump at any distraction.  I learned a new word this week - hyperlexia - the precocious ability to read words without prior training in learning to read, typically before the age of 5.  A friend posted about it, saying she finally had a name for what her mom told her about herself.  Mozart composed his first piece at age 5, and was performing at 6.  I remember being in college as a music major, and my professor had a 9 year old coming straight from soccer practice to play for us one afternoon - he played better than I did, effortlessly….I realized the boundary of my own ability right there - although of course I do enjoy and comprehend music in an educated way, I was a long way from genius. 

People called to ministry have different strengths - we can learn and strengthen our skills, and work on developing on our weaker places, but we are all different - except that we have heard the calling of God towards this place in the church.  Some can lead find-raisers, some are extroverted and go out meeting people easily; some have a more scholarly bent, some can learn the BIblical languages easily and can enrich how we understand our texts.  Some have a more natural empathy, some can organize offices while others work best with piles of stuff around them. Some are good with technology and others might be gifted educators.  Thank God that some people in the church are great with details and managing money, some are good with music  & others with children.  Some enjoy cooking and some enjoy organizing.  Some eat up the details of Bible study and others are known as powerful pray-ers.   Some have creative ideas, some make friends fast, some enjoy the caring of hospital visits.  Some like the hands-on of mission trips, some are skilled at how machines work and building things.  Some have a heart for mission in the world, and some have that urge to make the world better through civil involvement.  Some are good salt-of-the-earth folks that can be depended on for anything. Some are capable of deep insight into issues of justice and moral healing. 

The church needs us all.  All of us have a place in God’s church.  All of our abilities and gifts can be used for God’s kingdom.  And all of our differences are usable  for building up the body of Christ, and are given for the common good. 

The apostle Paul compares the differences in people’s gifts to the way cells in our bodies are shaped to form different organs and body parts.  A body can’t be all eyes or all hands, or all lungs or all toes.  Bodies are made of a huge variety of different parts doing their thing, and thus making the whole function.  It’s a good example of diverse people working together.

This last week at the MLK Jr event at Syracuse University, I was privileged to hear Dr. Raphael Warnock, who is currently the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, where Dr King as his father before him both pastored.  He made a point about the prophetic text we often read in Advent and Christmas, where the prophet exclaims that the glory of God would be seen by all flesh together.  He opened a new view on those words for me, because I’ve usually imagined that all people would be standing with open mouths and wide eyes when the glory of God is revealed.  All flesh shall see it together.  Dr. Warnock offered this turn of the crystal so to speak - that only when we humans are all one, all diversity embraced and all honored together, when all flesh is together as one, will we be able to see the glory of God - because it takes the viewpoint of all the parts of humanity to ever embrace the wideness of God’s glory.  Because while we are all in God’s image, God’s image is completed when all flesh is together as one.  That’s a great take on the words of the prophet, and I will never hear those words again without hearing that call to inclusivity as a prerequisite for seeing God’s glory.  We are indeed one body of Christ, in all of our ways of difference, and the call to us is to seek that oneness that overrides all diversity, and yet is fulfilled in the embracing of that diversity. 

 May it be so for us here at JCC.  May we value one another, and anyone and everyone that God sends to this gathering of Christ-followers.  May we be able to stretch our love and our understanding towards all persons in this community, and witness to the One Body of Christ.  AMEN.