This is the sermon for Matthew 5:21-37.
Do you know who Aron Ralston is? About seven years ago, Aron Ralston was a 27 year old out door enthusiast who loved rock climbing in the desert southwest. One Saturday morning, he got up early and began a hike that would change his life. He was in the Blue John Canyon of Utah, having a great day of solo hiking, he fell down a slot canyon and a boulder fell on top of him, trapping his right arm. He was unable to move the boulder to escape and finally, after over five days, he freed himself by amputating his own arm. This little adventure is the story line of a movie that is showing right now called 127 Hours. Yes, I went to see it. And no, I did not see very much of that part of the film.
You can guess why I would want to see the movie though: Because in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says a pretty shocking thing: If your hand causes you to sin - cut it off. Better to enter heaven without a limb than to have your whole self consigned to hell. I’ve always been horrified by this saying, and I hoped that the movie might give me a new angle, a new perspective on this outrageous action.
Both the movie and the passage of scripture are less about amputation and more about transformation. They are less about the hand than they are about the heart.
I’ll get back to the movie in a minute, but let’s look at this challenging scripture together first:
In this passage Jesus is attempting to describe the kind of right- life that God desires for us and from us. He’s contrasting his vision with that of people who are focused on obedience to a set of laws or religious guidelines. But he doesn’t do it by sweeping the law aside or minimizing its importance. What Jesus does instead is to expand the range of God’s authority in human life - to blow up its importance, and to make larger and more voluminous the area of life that matters to God.
He does it 6 times altogether: The first four re-casting of the Law are in our passage for today. The last two - which are sort of the climax of this section of scripture - are next week’s lesson. He uses a standard format - like some pronouncements have a formalized wording - e.g. “Whereas . . . this, whereas that, therefore be it resolved . . .” Jesus uses the rabbinic formula: You have heard it said . . . . . but I say to you . . . .
You have heard it said, “Thou shalt not kill.”
You have heard it said, “You shall not sleep with someone else’s spouse.”
You have heard it said, “If you want to end your marriage, you have to give your wife a certificate of divorce.”
You have heard it said, “Don’t swear to something that isn’t true.”
Then Jesus, in each case, spells out a much more rigorous, much more demanding, much more difficult - maybe - even - impossible! standard. Don’t kill is reinterpreted to say, “Don’t hold a grudge. Don’t insult or cast aspersions on another.” Don’t commit adultery is broadened to prohibit leering glances or lustful looks. Divorce law is rewritten to have only the very narrowest window of permissibility. And telling the truth under oath becomes a demand for integrity so stalwart that one’s word could NEVER be brought into question.
Wow. Do these enhanced commands, this righteousness on steroids, . . . have any impact on our life? Well we don’t take them literally. If you think about this a minute, it is pretty obvious: When you see an eye-patch - your first thought is probably, “Pirate” not “must be a Christian.”
But even though we don’t take them literally - we cannot and should not dismiss them. They deserve our attention. If Jesus says something this weird, it must mean he wants us to notice it. He must be trying to motivate us somehow. Jesus isn’t widely known for blowing off steam . . .
Of course! We’re not going to be motivated to amputate. No legal system worth its salt puts insults on par with murder. We don’t slap people in jail for calling their brother a fool. We don’t gouge out the eyes of those who ogle the freshmen and women on Green Street. We don’t cut off our hands if they give somebody the finger.
Jesus was up to something different -letting us know that God is concerned with our very selves. He desires an attitude that can’t be faked with a few surface gestures of civility. He wants to shape and change our hearts and our relationships.
All these examples Jesus gives are about right relationships. And Jesus’ command is that they be RIGHT. Not just POLITE.
Relationships with brothers and sisters, close friends, relationships with the opposite sex, marital relationships, even marital relationships that are on the verge of ending. Relationships with people with whom we do business, with whom we enter into contracts and to whom we make promises. In all these relationships, Jesus insists, God’s intention is that we should go beyond the bare minimum legal requirements for doing the right thing. We should do the right thing for the right reason, out of the right heart. We should act with perfect integrity and love. Right. Not just polite.
The gift of opened hearts and right relationships that please God is a gift that Jesus wants us to understand is offered to us. He uses vivid, even horrifying language, to tell us the value and beauty that God desires to see in our lives. But I hope that we can get past the grisly-ness of it to see and accept the larger and better life that is proffered in heart changing commands.
When Aron Ralston fell into that crevice in the rock in Utah, he was an OK guy. But sort of a jerk. You know the kind? You get the picture of someone who doesn’t really care about anyone but himself. He doesn’t do anything bad, but he doesn’t pick up the phone when his mother calls. He doesn’t tell anyone where he is going, even though that would make them feel better. He’s the kind of boyfriend who just can’t give the relationship much time or energy. He lets a woman who loves him drift away. And she tells him as she leaves, “Aron Ralston, you are going to be so lonely.” He’s not a criminal or a drug addict or a liar or a thief. But he’s profoundly stingy of heart.
So then he is trapped. All alone, knowing that he is probably going to die, he has the chance to think deeply about his life. And he thinks of his mother and his father. Of the co-worker he didn’t even care enough about to tell where he was going. Of the woman who loved him, whom he had used and discarded, like an old backpack. But, even more, he begins to think about his future - he begins to have visions of a son - a young boy who doesn’t even exist yet. These visions of the son he feels he is supposed to create, being together in the future - these experience transformed Ralston in a profound way. One reviewer said, “This story is a tale of massive transformation on a small, personal scale - of and individual’s life changing forever, over the course of five days.” Here’s what Ralston says, “My physical self was stripped away, but what was left were the connections with people in my life. When we are connected through love to other people is when we’re most alive and have our greatest sense of resolve and courage.”
And opening to those connections - allowing God to train and shape our hearts so that right relationships can arise - this kind of new life and transformation is worth an arm (and a leg). When he finally cuts his arm off - he’s glad. And, as a viewer, you share his sense that this is the absolutely right and joyful thing to do. You know that his life, and your life, is beloved by God. There’s something that touches your heart to see his heart grow so much. And the bigger heart is one that is filled with gratitude and love.
“When my mom first saw this film, she was holding my hand,” Ralston recalls. “The amputation scene is over and we all made it through, but as I hike out and the music builds, my mom’s squeezing my hand so hard I think I’m losing my other arm. We’re involuntarily rocking in our seats and she’s going,”Thank you, God! Thank you, God!” That’s what a beautiful gift this is.”
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day - hearts everywhere. God wants to give us a Valentine’s present - but we have to let him know that we want it. Will we accept that gift? Will today be the day that we recognize the need to let God transform our hearts, to move us from polite to right in our relationships with others. Will today be the day that we resolve to give up a grudge that cuts us off from relationship. Will today be the day we open our hearts to the friend who has wronged us, the person we desire but do not love, the spouse who is driving us crazy, the obligation we’ve been meeting, but just barely. Will today be the day we hear Jesus’ call to live - really live - the quality of life that God desires for us. A life that is Right. Not just polite, but Right.
Maybe today is the day we, like Aron Ralston, begin to see the beauty of human connection and the loving future God has planned.
And I hope that we catch the vision that rocks us to the core, and tears from our hearts the cry, “Thank you, God! O thank you, God!”
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Just noticing
That today, after Wednesday Sunday School, the sky is still light. I am sitting on the back porch at 5:07 and it isn't dark yet. So maybe spring is coming after all. (It is, however, 13 degrees. Maybe it's not coming soon.)
Sunday, February 6, 2011
half a sermon is better than none?
Matthew 5:12-20
This is the last half of this Sunday's sermon. The notes from the first half aren't complete enough to post. You know - you are the light of the world.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sets forth a vision of the Kingdom of God, and invites people to participate in what God is doing to make that Kingdom a reality.
And I can’t sit down and shut up before touching on the often neglected portion of the passage we heard this morning: Jesus says to his followers, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will fall short of the kingdom.” I want to give a little shout out to my friends the scribes and Pharisees. They were doing their best to live out what they knew of God through the Law - the Torah - that they had been given as a map of the Kingdom. They were trying to live out God’s intention by minding, very carefully, the letter of the law. Jesus doesn’t fault them for that. And neither can we.
But Jesus is saying to his disciples, “You can do better than that. You have my life, my teachings, my example, my fulfillment of God’s vision to follow. You have me - the way, the truth and the life - to follow. You don’t rely on what are just words on a page. You have me to light your path. And you can do better than even the most rigorously faithful follower of the Law. I expect more of you. I expect something greater from you.”
Too often I fear, we afflict our spiritual lives with low expectations. We lower our sights for our own spiritual life, and we expect too little of the church to which we belong. There’s a new book out, called “What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still be a Christian?” The title is firmly tongue in cheek - it’s not about a small faith, but an argument that mainline moderate Protestant churches can actually offer a vibrant, grace-filled, life-giving faith that many people in our world are longing to find and embrace. I’m thinking about ordering a few copies of that book. Would anyone be interested in reading it and talking about it with me?
High expectations produce high quality results. Since it is Super Bowl Sunday, let me just quote from one of our secular saints, the person for whom the trophy for tonight’s game is named. Vince Lombardi said:
“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”
Lombardi was not an dewy-eyed romantic. Neither was Jesus. But they both knew that human beings, be they football players or followers of Christ, are capable of great things, if they are challenged with a worthy goal. “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
Maybe that is Gospel - that is good news - for us: We are told that we are the light of the world, so that we may be mindful of how our light shines. We are called to perfection, so that we may acheive excellence.
We don’t have a scoreboard to tell us how we are doing. But we have a table. To remind us of the goal and to keep our heads in the game.
In a few minutes we will come to receive a taste of the Kingdom that Christ has set before us. To raise our sights to the goal of the prize of the Kingdom of God.
Here we see, and touch and taste the Kingdom -
The bonds of sin broken.
Bread shared with hungry ones.
Life poured out in forgiveness and grace.
This is the goal and purpose of the Christian life:
For here the prophet’s words are fulfilled: God says, “You shall call, and I will answer. You shall cry and I will say, “Here I am.”
This is the last half of this Sunday's sermon. The notes from the first half aren't complete enough to post. You know - you are the light of the world.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sets forth a vision of the Kingdom of God, and invites people to participate in what God is doing to make that Kingdom a reality.
And I can’t sit down and shut up before touching on the often neglected portion of the passage we heard this morning: Jesus says to his followers, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will fall short of the kingdom.” I want to give a little shout out to my friends the scribes and Pharisees. They were doing their best to live out what they knew of God through the Law - the Torah - that they had been given as a map of the Kingdom. They were trying to live out God’s intention by minding, very carefully, the letter of the law. Jesus doesn’t fault them for that. And neither can we.
But Jesus is saying to his disciples, “You can do better than that. You have my life, my teachings, my example, my fulfillment of God’s vision to follow. You have me - the way, the truth and the life - to follow. You don’t rely on what are just words on a page. You have me to light your path. And you can do better than even the most rigorously faithful follower of the Law. I expect more of you. I expect something greater from you.”
Too often I fear, we afflict our spiritual lives with low expectations. We lower our sights for our own spiritual life, and we expect too little of the church to which we belong. There’s a new book out, called “What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still be a Christian?” The title is firmly tongue in cheek - it’s not about a small faith, but an argument that mainline moderate Protestant churches can actually offer a vibrant, grace-filled, life-giving faith that many people in our world are longing to find and embrace. I’m thinking about ordering a few copies of that book. Would anyone be interested in reading it and talking about it with me?
High expectations produce high quality results. Since it is Super Bowl Sunday, let me just quote from one of our secular saints, the person for whom the trophy for tonight’s game is named. Vince Lombardi said:
“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”
Lombardi was not an dewy-eyed romantic. Neither was Jesus. But they both knew that human beings, be they football players or followers of Christ, are capable of great things, if they are challenged with a worthy goal. “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
Maybe that is Gospel - that is good news - for us: We are told that we are the light of the world, so that we may be mindful of how our light shines. We are called to perfection, so that we may acheive excellence.
We don’t have a scoreboard to tell us how we are doing. But we have a table. To remind us of the goal and to keep our heads in the game.
In a few minutes we will come to receive a taste of the Kingdom that Christ has set before us. To raise our sights to the goal of the prize of the Kingdom of God.
Here we see, and touch and taste the Kingdom -
The bonds of sin broken.
Bread shared with hungry ones.
Life poured out in forgiveness and grace.
This is the goal and purpose of the Christian life:
For here the prophet’s words are fulfilled: God says, “You shall call, and I will answer. You shall cry and I will say, “Here I am.”
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Skydiving
When she talked about sky-diving her face lit up. She said when she dives it is the most intense and alive thing she's ever experienced. I was just floored by the difference in her. Amazing. I was so struck by how passion - for something anything? - transforms life. Every person has the most ineffable beauty inside them, manifested when their body and soul meet the experience that unleashes their passion. (Too long a sentence.) Passion makes people beautiful.
Somehow, the fact that there is a community of people who share this experience, understand one another's passion, this is important, too. She mentioned "community" several times. That in itself is sort of unusual for a young (30ish) person. To have and acknowledge a community as being an important aspect of their identity.
So I've been thinking about sky diving. Here's what I wonder: Is that sense of being able to put oneself in a situation of being totally out of control how we put ourselves in touch with our truest and best selves? And others? It seems to be a metaphor for faith, in one sense. You prepare. You prepare as if your life depended upon it. You aren't sloppy or careless in rigging the chute. And you rely on others. She rigs parachutes for other people. They completely depend on her to get it right. She doesn't fly the plane. She depends on someone else to do that. But the pay off is that you go up into the sky and throw yourself out of a plane and then you fall/fly, totally in the hands of gravity and the air - things you couldn't control, no matter how hard you try. And letting yourself GO is such an incredible high that it matters more than the fear (she said sometimes she cries on the way up!) or the discomfort (it's cold up there) or the possible loss of even your life. It changes how you see your life. That's what she said. It changes everything.
I'd like to live like that. I'd like to experience my life as totally in God's hands and out of my own. And I'd like to live it in a community that shares my passion.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
January 2 Sermon (Matthew 2:13-23)
Erin and I took a ‘free day” in Bethlehem, and headed up from Nativity Square, via a long shop lined street, up to the Milk Grotto. This is the place that commemorates events around the story that we read today - of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, Herod’s violence aimed at destroying the babe.
This is the Milk Grotto - or this is the church built on top of the limestone cave that is the Milk Grotto. The extra Biblical story of this place is that when Joseph was warned in a dream to take Mary and Jesus and get the heck out of Dodge, they were on the road when Jesus woke up hungry. And so they stopped so that Mary could nurse him in a little limestone cave. The story is that a drop of Mary’s milk dropped onto the cave, and that instantly, the interior of the cave turned pure white, by contact with Mary’s holy milk.
Well - that’s not a Protestant story. Or a modern story. Or a believable story. But it is an interesting story - especially for Erin, whose job includes encouraging new moms to nurse their babies. And for me, who just loves religious stories featuring women. So Erin and I went there and had a good time, looking at the art and seeing the limestone grotto. And marveling at the line of folks who were waiting at the gift shop to buy little packets of limestone dust - to be ingested as a cure for “women’s problems”.
We had a grand old time, exploring this quirky, exotic corner of Bethlehem. And I often think of that fun adventure. So when we finished, we walked back down the street toward the center of town. Young men holding strips of postcards tried to sell to us as we walked by. A couple of store owners addressed us as we went by, asking us to stop and look at their shops. We politely declined. La. Shukran. I used the Palestinian sign language for polite “No” - shaking two fingers low.
And then something happened that still haunts me. A child, a little boy, appeared and walked in front of us, begging. Just as I had only two or three Arabic words, he seemed to be able to say only, “Dollars. Please. Please.” It wasn’t what he said that I remember, though. It was his thin little arms and child’s hands, making the gesture for money. (rubbing fingers with thumb) And the face - two black eyes and bruises - black and yellow and purple - something horrible had happened to that little boy. Maybe he ahd fallen down. Maybe he had been in a car wreck. Maybe . . . but the most likely explanation was that he had been beaten. Oh my God. Erin and I didn’t know what to do.
The encounter only lasted a minute. Maybe less. And when he went on to someone else, we said very little to each other. What do you think happened to him? Erin is trained to recognize child abuse. He looked beat up. Who would do that? What do you suppose . . . Could we have helped? It was so disturbing. And, no matter what you do in a situation like that, you wonder if it was right. And I feel bad. Because what I really wanted to do is scoop him up and hug him, which would have been another assault.
It was kind of as sick as I felt on that trip. And we didn’t tell anyone about it. And we haven’t talked about it since we have been back. The day went on. We had other adventures. We ate felafel and went for a very enlightening taxi ride. We saw the place where Jesus was born, and explored the Arab market. We haggled, unsuccessfully, for a good price for a taxi ride home, and when we didn’t get it we started walking back to Beit Jala, only to accidentally stumble on the Arab bus stand, where we were able to catch a ride that took us right to our guest house for only fifty cents. It was a good day. With one little disquieting moment.
I don’t like to think about that incident. But this story brought it back.
Because here, too, there is a quaint and intriguing story and sandwiched in there is something so horrifying that I have a hard time reading the words out loud to you. Child murder. Mass murder. Baby boys ripped from their mother’s arms and killed in front of their eyes. Honestly, as a mother, this story shakes me to the core.
What is it doing here? Why is it part of Holy Scripture? What do we make of it?
One way to approach it is to work your way around it, eyes carefully averted. After all, The Slaughter of the Innocents is sandwiched between two stories of how God helped Joseph and Mary protect baby Jesus against a threat that would have derailed salvation history. In the first few verses, Joseph is warned in a dream to take Mary and the baby and flee Bethlehem. And in the last verses, a little bit of divine relocation program places the Holy Family in a new home. There is surely a sermon in that. A sermon about how God meets us in our moments of triumph and urges us to move on, plants us in new places.
I kind of like that message - that lots of times in life, we’d want to linger in the afterglow of a wonderful moment, but God is always beckoning, warning, urging us on. Our lives are lived best when we follow our dreams and let God be at work.
That’s the good news of the “frame” of this story. Pay attention to your dreams. Trust God’s plan. That would make a nice New Year’s message.
If not for that interlude, in which Herod kills the babies.
So what do we do with that? What do we do with that, as we begin a New Year?
It would be nice if we could think - oh, that only happened in Herod’s day. But that dog won’t hunt. If only in the back of our minds, we know that children are still dying because of evil rulers, power hungry potentates, Herods.
The World Health Organization has estimated, through the use of limited country-level data, that almost 53,000 children died worldwide in 2002 as a result of homicide.8 Not all of them at the hands of warlords and despots, but some. Alot, actually.
Save the Children a reputable source for figures on children in need around the world reports that Sadly, one child dies every three seconds largely from preventable and treatable causes due to the lack of basic health care. Not because we don’t HAVE the resources to provide it, but because the governments of this world allocate resources so badly.
40 million kids are deprived of an education because of war.
Another 30 million or so are perpetually hunger and malnourished - while we throw away enough food - and eat too much food - to more than feed them.
This is not “just the way things are”. The evil of the world is not part of God’s plan. The evil of the world is, on some level, the fearful, furious response of worldly power to Jesus’ inbreaking. There is opposition - fierce and brutal opposition- to the message of Christ and the coming of God’s kingdom on earth.
And innocent people - children - mothers - parents - families - communities get hurt.
And how awful is that?
Well. It’s awful. So what’s the good news? Well. I think there is some. That Jesus actually is the New Born King. We don’t have to answer to Herod. Jesus has come - Emmanuel - God with us. And God loves children. We have a loving and creative God among us, and with His help, we can make a difference and protect and nurture the world’s children. The Christ child grew up and lived a life of simplicity and compassion that shows us there is a better way.
Last Sunday’s paper had two stories that leapt out at me:
One was about an agency that helps the victims of child abuse heal and deal with what has happened to them. Here’s the headline: Help for the innocent. Turn the page and there is a story about an ordinary mom who has invented a water filter: Mother’s work saves thousands in Haiti. Let me read you something here: Fifteen years go, Lisa Ballantine was a stay-at-home mom who had never traveled outside the U.S. In 2000, her entire family sent a life-changing year as missionaries in the Dominican Republic. “I’m a Christian, and I believe my life is to serve other people,” she said. She came home, read the story, God’s fingerprints are all over this one.
But you don’t have to read the newspaper to hear about people trying to protect and cherish the world’s children. Listen to Jeri and Kirk talk about what they did in Malawi. Ask the Lauchners about the young African man they have sponsored for years. Talk to my Mom about how Presbyterian Women has focussed on projects that save mothers and children. Talk to Erin about her work with teen moms. Ask about Abraham’s Tent - the afterschool program for children in refugee camps in the West Bank - which began with start up money from this church - this Presbytery - the people who sit with you in these pews. Visit with Michael Trout or Terry Pratt, and find out why they spend a lot of Wednesday afternoons hanging out, listening and talking with Philo kids. That’s far from an exhaustive list of child protective actions. It’s just a reminder that there are lots of ways to do God’s will, to respond to children’s needs.
The urge to save children’s lives, and to mitigate the hurt they suffer innocently, is a Christian reaction. The Christian reaction. Not despair. Not revenge. Not getting even. Not killing some body else’s babies. And not ignoring. Saving. Helping. Comforting.
The story of the slaughter of the innocents can turn into good news if it moves us to do what lies within our power - and our power is considerable, my friends! - to respond as Christians to children in peril.
We can’t do that if we are caught unawares. If our surprise overwhelms our ability to respond. That’s what happened to Erin and me. We weren’t ready. We didn’t expect to encounter brutality and pain on our little tourist-y adventure. Well. The story of the Slaughter of the Innocents is a way to prepare Christians for evil in the world. We can’t be all “happy clappy” all the time, expecting that God will take care of everything and everyone without any action on our part. Maybe this story is a way for us to begin to think about what we can and will do to safeguard and cherish the innocents God so loves.
It’s good news if we recognize that the year we have ahead of us will be richer, more faithful and more important if we improve, not just our own lives, not just our own situations, but make a difference for the innocents who we see suffering.
What does God have in store for YOU? is inextricably tied to the question
What kind of a year will you help to make it for the innocents?
This is the Milk Grotto - or this is the church built on top of the limestone cave that is the Milk Grotto. The extra Biblical story of this place is that when Joseph was warned in a dream to take Mary and Jesus and get the heck out of Dodge, they were on the road when Jesus woke up hungry. And so they stopped so that Mary could nurse him in a little limestone cave. The story is that a drop of Mary’s milk dropped onto the cave, and that instantly, the interior of the cave turned pure white, by contact with Mary’s holy milk.
Well - that’s not a Protestant story. Or a modern story. Or a believable story. But it is an interesting story - especially for Erin, whose job includes encouraging new moms to nurse their babies. And for me, who just loves religious stories featuring women. So Erin and I went there and had a good time, looking at the art and seeing the limestone grotto. And marveling at the line of folks who were waiting at the gift shop to buy little packets of limestone dust - to be ingested as a cure for “women’s problems”.
We had a grand old time, exploring this quirky, exotic corner of Bethlehem. And I often think of that fun adventure. So when we finished, we walked back down the street toward the center of town. Young men holding strips of postcards tried to sell to us as we walked by. A couple of store owners addressed us as we went by, asking us to stop and look at their shops. We politely declined. La. Shukran. I used the Palestinian sign language for polite “No” - shaking two fingers low.
And then something happened that still haunts me. A child, a little boy, appeared and walked in front of us, begging. Just as I had only two or three Arabic words, he seemed to be able to say only, “Dollars. Please. Please.” It wasn’t what he said that I remember, though. It was his thin little arms and child’s hands, making the gesture for money. (rubbing fingers with thumb) And the face - two black eyes and bruises - black and yellow and purple - something horrible had happened to that little boy. Maybe he ahd fallen down. Maybe he had been in a car wreck. Maybe . . . but the most likely explanation was that he had been beaten. Oh my God. Erin and I didn’t know what to do.
The encounter only lasted a minute. Maybe less. And when he went on to someone else, we said very little to each other. What do you think happened to him? Erin is trained to recognize child abuse. He looked beat up. Who would do that? What do you suppose . . . Could we have helped? It was so disturbing. And, no matter what you do in a situation like that, you wonder if it was right. And I feel bad. Because what I really wanted to do is scoop him up and hug him, which would have been another assault.
It was kind of as sick as I felt on that trip. And we didn’t tell anyone about it. And we haven’t talked about it since we have been back. The day went on. We had other adventures. We ate felafel and went for a very enlightening taxi ride. We saw the place where Jesus was born, and explored the Arab market. We haggled, unsuccessfully, for a good price for a taxi ride home, and when we didn’t get it we started walking back to Beit Jala, only to accidentally stumble on the Arab bus stand, where we were able to catch a ride that took us right to our guest house for only fifty cents. It was a good day. With one little disquieting moment.
I don’t like to think about that incident. But this story brought it back.
Because here, too, there is a quaint and intriguing story and sandwiched in there is something so horrifying that I have a hard time reading the words out loud to you. Child murder. Mass murder. Baby boys ripped from their mother’s arms and killed in front of their eyes. Honestly, as a mother, this story shakes me to the core.
What is it doing here? Why is it part of Holy Scripture? What do we make of it?
One way to approach it is to work your way around it, eyes carefully averted. After all, The Slaughter of the Innocents is sandwiched between two stories of how God helped Joseph and Mary protect baby Jesus against a threat that would have derailed salvation history. In the first few verses, Joseph is warned in a dream to take Mary and the baby and flee Bethlehem. And in the last verses, a little bit of divine relocation program places the Holy Family in a new home. There is surely a sermon in that. A sermon about how God meets us in our moments of triumph and urges us to move on, plants us in new places.
I kind of like that message - that lots of times in life, we’d want to linger in the afterglow of a wonderful moment, but God is always beckoning, warning, urging us on. Our lives are lived best when we follow our dreams and let God be at work.
That’s the good news of the “frame” of this story. Pay attention to your dreams. Trust God’s plan. That would make a nice New Year’s message.
If not for that interlude, in which Herod kills the babies.
So what do we do with that? What do we do with that, as we begin a New Year?
It would be nice if we could think - oh, that only happened in Herod’s day. But that dog won’t hunt. If only in the back of our minds, we know that children are still dying because of evil rulers, power hungry potentates, Herods.
The World Health Organization has estimated, through the use of limited country-level data, that almost 53,000 children died worldwide in 2002 as a result of homicide.8 Not all of them at the hands of warlords and despots, but some. Alot, actually.
Save the Children a reputable source for figures on children in need around the world reports that Sadly, one child dies every three seconds largely from preventable and treatable causes due to the lack of basic health care. Not because we don’t HAVE the resources to provide it, but because the governments of this world allocate resources so badly.
40 million kids are deprived of an education because of war.
Another 30 million or so are perpetually hunger and malnourished - while we throw away enough food - and eat too much food - to more than feed them.
This is not “just the way things are”. The evil of the world is not part of God’s plan. The evil of the world is, on some level, the fearful, furious response of worldly power to Jesus’ inbreaking. There is opposition - fierce and brutal opposition- to the message of Christ and the coming of God’s kingdom on earth.
And innocent people - children - mothers - parents - families - communities get hurt.
And how awful is that?
Well. It’s awful. So what’s the good news? Well. I think there is some. That Jesus actually is the New Born King. We don’t have to answer to Herod. Jesus has come - Emmanuel - God with us. And God loves children. We have a loving and creative God among us, and with His help, we can make a difference and protect and nurture the world’s children. The Christ child grew up and lived a life of simplicity and compassion that shows us there is a better way.
Last Sunday’s paper had two stories that leapt out at me:
One was about an agency that helps the victims of child abuse heal and deal with what has happened to them. Here’s the headline: Help for the innocent. Turn the page and there is a story about an ordinary mom who has invented a water filter: Mother’s work saves thousands in Haiti. Let me read you something here: Fifteen years go, Lisa Ballantine was a stay-at-home mom who had never traveled outside the U.S. In 2000, her entire family sent a life-changing year as missionaries in the Dominican Republic. “I’m a Christian, and I believe my life is to serve other people,” she said. She came home, read the story, God’s fingerprints are all over this one.
But you don’t have to read the newspaper to hear about people trying to protect and cherish the world’s children. Listen to Jeri and Kirk talk about what they did in Malawi. Ask the Lauchners about the young African man they have sponsored for years. Talk to my Mom about how Presbyterian Women has focussed on projects that save mothers and children. Talk to Erin about her work with teen moms. Ask about Abraham’s Tent - the afterschool program for children in refugee camps in the West Bank - which began with start up money from this church - this Presbytery - the people who sit with you in these pews. Visit with Michael Trout or Terry Pratt, and find out why they spend a lot of Wednesday afternoons hanging out, listening and talking with Philo kids. That’s far from an exhaustive list of child protective actions. It’s just a reminder that there are lots of ways to do God’s will, to respond to children’s needs.
The urge to save children’s lives, and to mitigate the hurt they suffer innocently, is a Christian reaction. The Christian reaction. Not despair. Not revenge. Not getting even. Not killing some body else’s babies. And not ignoring. Saving. Helping. Comforting.
The story of the slaughter of the innocents can turn into good news if it moves us to do what lies within our power - and our power is considerable, my friends! - to respond as Christians to children in peril.
We can’t do that if we are caught unawares. If our surprise overwhelms our ability to respond. That’s what happened to Erin and me. We weren’t ready. We didn’t expect to encounter brutality and pain on our little tourist-y adventure. Well. The story of the Slaughter of the Innocents is a way to prepare Christians for evil in the world. We can’t be all “happy clappy” all the time, expecting that God will take care of everything and everyone without any action on our part. Maybe this story is a way for us to begin to think about what we can and will do to safeguard and cherish the innocents God so loves.
It’s good news if we recognize that the year we have ahead of us will be richer, more faithful and more important if we improve, not just our own lives, not just our own situations, but make a difference for the innocents who we see suffering.
What does God have in store for YOU? is inextricably tied to the question
What kind of a year will you help to make it for the innocents?
Monday, December 13, 2010
Star of Guidance
This is the third in an Advent series “The Stars Tell the Story”.
Scripture is Matthew 2:1-12, the story of the Wise Men’s Star.
What if the wisemen had GPS? There’s a Christmas card that depicts the three wisemen, on their three camels, ignoring the star over the stable and studying the little devices they hold in their hands. “We’re close!” they say as they pull up to the wrong stable. “Mine just said, “You have arrived at your destination.”
Lucky for us, the wise men were not guided by GPS - but by an alignment of the stars. We have no idea what they saw in the sky. I mean, there are theories, comet - planets - supernova - but we have no way to know. What we know about their guidance system is contained in this marvelous story. So let’s take a look at what the story tells us about what guided them on their journey to Jesus so long ago.
First of all, the story tells us they were guided by wisdom, not foolishness.
They were wise men. They were astrologers. We tend to think of astrology as a superstition - it seems silly to believe that what’s going on with the stars and planets has any effect on us as we go around making decisions, facing challenges, getting from yesterday to tomorrow. But astrology has been very important part of various cultures through history. Chinese, Hindu, Arab, Persian, Greeks, Mayans . . . they all had their versions of star studying and portent seeking. I was also interested to learn this week how some of the words and expressions we use carry some of their “flavor” from astrology. I’d never thought about the origin of the word “disaster” for instance: comes from the negative prefix: DIS and the latin word for star: ASTER. Bad star. Ill-starred. Comes from the time when bad events were thought to be brought on by bad “stars”. Same thing for FLU. “Influenza” was named that because doctors in the middle ages believed that epidemics could be caused by the bad “INFLUENCES” of planet and star alignments.
One article - OK- I’ll admit it, it was Wikipedia - cited a study that said 31% of Americans still believe in astrology. I find that hard to believe. At least 31% of me does. But I would believe that 31% of americans read their horoscope occassionally. I don’t do that. Because I realized that, without one ounce of belief, I still had stray thoughts that “explained” things through the little ditty I’d read. Oh, yeah, I’d say when I’d get irritated or annoyed: “Long buried resentments could surface today.” Or when I pigged out at lunch, I’d excuse myself by remembering: “Self-control will be harder today.”
It’s just silly. But I think it is a hint of how much we long to bring our lives into some sort of alignment with the larger and better purpose - some say “of the universe”. we say, “of God”. There is a human need to find something significant in our day to day. I think that’s a little star planted in us by God. The astrologers had a principle: “As in heaven, so on earth.”
We say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And I don’t think there is anything silly about letting ourselves be guided by what we think is heaven’s intent. In fact the message of Christmas is that Heaven has come down to earth so that we might SEE what human life is supposed to be about, how it is supposed to be lived, what Heaven intends human life to be. When we look to Jesus, we see God and God’s purpose for us. We see ‘heaven and earth’ together.
And being guided by that star - of deep wisdom - is very very wise.
Set our GPS on hope, not fear. The scriptures contrast the other people in the story with Herod. The wise men, Mary, Joseph - - - all of them acted out of hope. Herod acted out of fear. They sought the child. Herod feared the child. The part of the story we never read, but which is always there is that Herod was so afraid that he killed the children of Bethlehem. The difference between hope and fear is the difference between life giving and life affirming actions and violence and death.
Whe we decide to do something, or not to do something, we can check with ourselves: Am acting out of hope that God is going to act in the world, or the fear that God means us harm?
And to be led by hope.
The wise men were guided by the promise of joy - not the fear of sorrow. My favorite verse in this whole story is ‘when they reached the place where the child was, they were overwhelmed with joy and worshipped exceedingly’ I hope that each of us can remember a moment or two in life when we were led to exactly the right place, exactly the right person, exactly the right action. And we felt that incredible joy of being able to do exactly the right thing. At the birth of a child. At the decision to share our life with one person, through thick and thin. At the right job, or the moment to retire. The Christmas morning when we are all together with our family in Spirit if not in fact, and God blesses us with the joy of memories of the past and dreams of the future. These moments of joy - and the quest to experience them again - are the stars that can guide us.during this season and indeed, throughout our whole lives. Let the star of joy guide you.
And the wise men were guided by love. Always. Love. I know the word love isn’t even found in this passage. But love is there. And here’s how we know: The wise men brought gifts to the Christ child. Gifts are expressions of love. You can give without loving. But you can’t love without giving. This season of the year gifts take up alot of our time and attention. We can torture ourselves and others with the obsessive and never satisfactory quest for the perfect gift. I got caught doing this yesterday. I had to go to a Christmas party and take a white elephant gift for an exchange with a bunch of women. And I wanted my gift to be the one people fought over. I wanted the moment my gift was unwrapped to be the one when everyone there thought, “Well, isn’t that just the nicest! How I wish I’d thought to bring something like that!” Needless to say - it wasn’t like that at all. Basically, every gift was junk. Some of it was expensive junk and some of it was disappointingly crummy junk. But the gifts were not what the party was about. The party was about how much this group of women loves each other. The real gift was seeing pictures of grandchildren, and hearing about children’s weddings and even (this was a tough gift for me to appreciate!) hearing what medicine everybody was on now that we are all getting older and less able to cope without medical interventions. The real gift was that one of us, who had moved to Chicago, drove all the way down here to be with us.
We can worry about how much we should spend, and whether the person we’re gifting needs or wants what we have decided to give. But the wise men brought gold, frankinscense and myrhh. Hardly the most soughtafter baby presents. I think it was Letty Russell who said, “If it had been three wise women - they would have brought diapers, blankets and a hot dish.” But the gold for a king, the frankinscense for a priest and the myrhh to ease suffering and honor death - these turned out to be right in ways that better, more practical gifts could never match. We can worry about “the right gift” Or we can be like the wisemen and just bring our best and hope that somehow, in ways we can’t foresee, the gifts will be expressions of love. We need to recognize that the relationships we cherish will be strengthened, not by the packages we wrap and unwrap, but by the act of giving a bit of our time, our money, our attention to others. That is love - giving something of ourselves. And it is a star that we can look to strengthen our relationships with God and the people with which we share our lives.
Being led by the stars of wisdom, or hope, or joy and of love is not as being directed to our destination by a GPS. I’ve got a minute here, so I am going to share a quote from the pastor of Christ Church in Philadelphia which makes alot of sense to me:
It strikes me that many a spiritual person today—from the doctrinally certain to the skeptically seeking—desire a religious life built upon GPS simplicity rather than “a star rises” complexity. So many of us want to be able to type into a little box, “I want to know God,” and have it tell us to turn right or left, say this prayer or that, read then verse then that one, and we will then arrive, easily, without being lost once. Or, being already in the fold, we want to type in, “Why do I feel alone,” or, “Why does the one I love suffer,” and have the answers spoken to us by a device we can turn off if we think we know better.
The wise men learned that the star draws but does not direct us. We must struggle to find our way. And, as they knew, there is no final destination, simply stopping points along the way where we rest and pray, and then gather our things and journey further.
As we journey further in this season, in our faith, in our life - we are invited to look to the stars to guide us. With the wise men, let’s let ourselves be led on - by the stars of wisdom, hope, joy and love. Let us pray.
Our heavenly Father, you who set the stars in the skies and placed us here on earth,
we ask you to guide us toward Your Holy Presence in Jesus Christ.
Give us Wisdom to seek your will on earth.
Give us the Hope that you are working for human good.
Give us Joy in the journey and always,
give us hearts so filled with your Love that they overflow during this and every season.
In the name of the Child of Bethlehem we pray. Amen.
Scripture is Matthew 2:1-12, the story of the Wise Men’s Star.
What if the wisemen had GPS? There’s a Christmas card that depicts the three wisemen, on their three camels, ignoring the star over the stable and studying the little devices they hold in their hands. “We’re close!” they say as they pull up to the wrong stable. “Mine just said, “You have arrived at your destination.”
Lucky for us, the wise men were not guided by GPS - but by an alignment of the stars. We have no idea what they saw in the sky. I mean, there are theories, comet - planets - supernova - but we have no way to know. What we know about their guidance system is contained in this marvelous story. So let’s take a look at what the story tells us about what guided them on their journey to Jesus so long ago.
First of all, the story tells us they were guided by wisdom, not foolishness.
They were wise men. They were astrologers. We tend to think of astrology as a superstition - it seems silly to believe that what’s going on with the stars and planets has any effect on us as we go around making decisions, facing challenges, getting from yesterday to tomorrow. But astrology has been very important part of various cultures through history. Chinese, Hindu, Arab, Persian, Greeks, Mayans . . . they all had their versions of star studying and portent seeking. I was also interested to learn this week how some of the words and expressions we use carry some of their “flavor” from astrology. I’d never thought about the origin of the word “disaster” for instance: comes from the negative prefix: DIS and the latin word for star: ASTER. Bad star. Ill-starred. Comes from the time when bad events were thought to be brought on by bad “stars”. Same thing for FLU. “Influenza” was named that because doctors in the middle ages believed that epidemics could be caused by the bad “INFLUENCES” of planet and star alignments.
One article - OK- I’ll admit it, it was Wikipedia - cited a study that said 31% of Americans still believe in astrology. I find that hard to believe. At least 31% of me does. But I would believe that 31% of americans read their horoscope occassionally. I don’t do that. Because I realized that, without one ounce of belief, I still had stray thoughts that “explained” things through the little ditty I’d read. Oh, yeah, I’d say when I’d get irritated or annoyed: “Long buried resentments could surface today.” Or when I pigged out at lunch, I’d excuse myself by remembering: “Self-control will be harder today.”
It’s just silly. But I think it is a hint of how much we long to bring our lives into some sort of alignment with the larger and better purpose - some say “of the universe”. we say, “of God”. There is a human need to find something significant in our day to day. I think that’s a little star planted in us by God. The astrologers had a principle: “As in heaven, so on earth.”
We say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And I don’t think there is anything silly about letting ourselves be guided by what we think is heaven’s intent. In fact the message of Christmas is that Heaven has come down to earth so that we might SEE what human life is supposed to be about, how it is supposed to be lived, what Heaven intends human life to be. When we look to Jesus, we see God and God’s purpose for us. We see ‘heaven and earth’ together.
And being guided by that star - of deep wisdom - is very very wise.
Set our GPS on hope, not fear. The scriptures contrast the other people in the story with Herod. The wise men, Mary, Joseph - - - all of them acted out of hope. Herod acted out of fear. They sought the child. Herod feared the child. The part of the story we never read, but which is always there is that Herod was so afraid that he killed the children of Bethlehem. The difference between hope and fear is the difference between life giving and life affirming actions and violence and death.
Whe we decide to do something, or not to do something, we can check with ourselves: Am acting out of hope that God is going to act in the world, or the fear that God means us harm?
And to be led by hope.
The wise men were guided by the promise of joy - not the fear of sorrow. My favorite verse in this whole story is ‘when they reached the place where the child was, they were overwhelmed with joy and worshipped exceedingly’ I hope that each of us can remember a moment or two in life when we were led to exactly the right place, exactly the right person, exactly the right action. And we felt that incredible joy of being able to do exactly the right thing. At the birth of a child. At the decision to share our life with one person, through thick and thin. At the right job, or the moment to retire. The Christmas morning when we are all together with our family in Spirit if not in fact, and God blesses us with the joy of memories of the past and dreams of the future. These moments of joy - and the quest to experience them again - are the stars that can guide us.during this season and indeed, throughout our whole lives. Let the star of joy guide you.
And the wise men were guided by love. Always. Love. I know the word love isn’t even found in this passage. But love is there. And here’s how we know: The wise men brought gifts to the Christ child. Gifts are expressions of love. You can give without loving. But you can’t love without giving. This season of the year gifts take up alot of our time and attention. We can torture ourselves and others with the obsessive and never satisfactory quest for the perfect gift. I got caught doing this yesterday. I had to go to a Christmas party and take a white elephant gift for an exchange with a bunch of women. And I wanted my gift to be the one people fought over. I wanted the moment my gift was unwrapped to be the one when everyone there thought, “Well, isn’t that just the nicest! How I wish I’d thought to bring something like that!” Needless to say - it wasn’t like that at all. Basically, every gift was junk. Some of it was expensive junk and some of it was disappointingly crummy junk. But the gifts were not what the party was about. The party was about how much this group of women loves each other. The real gift was seeing pictures of grandchildren, and hearing about children’s weddings and even (this was a tough gift for me to appreciate!) hearing what medicine everybody was on now that we are all getting older and less able to cope without medical interventions. The real gift was that one of us, who had moved to Chicago, drove all the way down here to be with us.
We can worry about how much we should spend, and whether the person we’re gifting needs or wants what we have decided to give. But the wise men brought gold, frankinscense and myrhh. Hardly the most soughtafter baby presents. I think it was Letty Russell who said, “If it had been three wise women - they would have brought diapers, blankets and a hot dish.” But the gold for a king, the frankinscense for a priest and the myrhh to ease suffering and honor death - these turned out to be right in ways that better, more practical gifts could never match. We can worry about “the right gift” Or we can be like the wisemen and just bring our best and hope that somehow, in ways we can’t foresee, the gifts will be expressions of love. We need to recognize that the relationships we cherish will be strengthened, not by the packages we wrap and unwrap, but by the act of giving a bit of our time, our money, our attention to others. That is love - giving something of ourselves. And it is a star that we can look to strengthen our relationships with God and the people with which we share our lives.
Being led by the stars of wisdom, or hope, or joy and of love is not as being directed to our destination by a GPS. I’ve got a minute here, so I am going to share a quote from the pastor of Christ Church in Philadelphia which makes alot of sense to me:
It strikes me that many a spiritual person today—from the doctrinally certain to the skeptically seeking—desire a religious life built upon GPS simplicity rather than “a star rises” complexity. So many of us want to be able to type into a little box, “I want to know God,” and have it tell us to turn right or left, say this prayer or that, read then verse then that one, and we will then arrive, easily, without being lost once. Or, being already in the fold, we want to type in, “Why do I feel alone,” or, “Why does the one I love suffer,” and have the answers spoken to us by a device we can turn off if we think we know better.
The wise men learned that the star draws but does not direct us. We must struggle to find our way. And, as they knew, there is no final destination, simply stopping points along the way where we rest and pray, and then gather our things and journey further.
As we journey further in this season, in our faith, in our life - we are invited to look to the stars to guide us. With the wise men, let’s let ourselves be led on - by the stars of wisdom, hope, joy and love. Let us pray.
Our heavenly Father, you who set the stars in the skies and placed us here on earth,
we ask you to guide us toward Your Holy Presence in Jesus Christ.
Give us Wisdom to seek your will on earth.
Give us the Hope that you are working for human good.
Give us Joy in the journey and always,
give us hearts so filled with your Love that they overflow during this and every season.
In the name of the Child of Bethlehem we pray. Amen.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Stars of Promise
Sermon Start -
Genesis 15:1-??
Look up - count the stars -
From this week’s news: The universe may glitter with far more stars than even Carl Sagan imagined when he rhapsodized about billions upon billions. A new study suggests there are a mind-blowing 300 sextillion of them, or three times as many as scientists previously calculated. That is a 3 followed by 23 zeros. Or 3 trillion times 100 billion.
The estimate, contained in a study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature, is based on findings that there are many more red dwarf stars -- the most common star in the universe -- than once thought.
"We're seeing 10 or 20 times more stars than we expected," van Dokkum said.
When van Dokkum and Conroy crunched the incredibly big numbers, they found that it tripled the estimate of stars in the universe from 100 sextillion to 300 sextillion.
That's a huge number to grasp, even for astronomers who are used to dealing in light years and trillions, Conroy said.
"It's fun because it gets you thinking about these large numbers," Conroy said. Conroy looked up how many cells are in the average human body -- 50 trillion or so -- and multiplied that by the 6 billion people on Earth. And he came up with about 300 sextillion.
So the number of stars in the universe "is equal to all the cells in the humans on Earth -- a kind of funny coincidence," Conroy said.
newspaper article says there are far more stars than astronomers knew about before. It’s not that the stars are countless. But you have to count them a long, long time to get them all.
That’s why God used the canopy of stars in the night sky to communicate to Abraham the almost infinite promise of God’s goodness and love. He made Abraham a promise, that he would have a large family, which would be blessed and that through Abraham’s kin, the world would be blessed. And when Abraham asked how he was supposed to believe that, considering that he didn’t even have a son - heck, he didn’t even have a daughter at this point! - God took him outside his tent, into the desert night, and had him look up and try to count the stars. He said, “You can be sure that I’ll make your family as numerous as the stars in the heavens. And they will shine as bright.”
God swore by the stars - made them a sign of his faithfulness and steadfast love. In Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo is proclaiming his love, he says, “Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear . . .” to which Juliet replies, “Oh, swear not by the moon, the inconstant month, which monthly changes in her circled orb, lest thy love prove likewise variable.”
God doesn’t use the moon to talk to Abraham about the promise. He points to the stars.
Stars were a sign of God’s promise to Abraham - to make Abraham’s family a great nation - to use this particular people to bring about God’s plan for humanity and the earth.
As time went on, (and on and on) it became clear that Abraham’s family, though they had a special relationship with God, were not willing and/or able to redeem the world.
They got sidetracked. They fought amongst themselves. They forgot to trust God’s promise. They messed up. Instead of bringing light to the world, they started living in the shadows themselves.
And the only part of the promise they remembered was the part about their particular tribe being blessed - chosen - special. They forgot the part about being a blessing to the world. But they remembered and they hung onto their own specialness and often fell into the trap of worshipping their own “specialness” instead of the God.
Whenever that happens, God’s faithful promise is in peril. It looked as if the plan is fatally flawed. The stars . . . the shining . . . not going to happen.
And yet, a promise is a promise. And God had promised a night sky’s worth of descendents to Abraham, to make a huge clan that would bless the world by living in it as God’s family. God doesn’t renege on his promises. But when he finds that one way of fulfilling them is not possible, he finds another, better way to make the promise come true. So God sent Jesus to be born, live and die in order to redeem the world and expand the family of folks who are God’s childen.
That’s what Christmas is - a more complete, better way for God to form a community that loves Him and shows his Love to the world. The New Testament is clear that now it is you and I who are God’s people - the ones God has chosen to bless and to be a blessing.
The “blood” relationship of being descended from Abraham became less important than the relationship made through Jesus’ blood on the cross. This is what John the Baptist said to the religious folks who came out to the desert to see what he was up to: “Don’t think you can say, “Oh, we’re children of Abraham. God can make children of Abraham out of these rocks.”
Friends, we are the rocks. We are heirs of God’s promise, not through Abraham, but through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are God’s special people. We are the ones who have inherited the promise that we will be blessed and we will be a blessing. So we’re going to do something together to symbolize that fact. Here. I’m giving you each a potato - because it looks like a rock. Each of you take a rock. Hold it in your hand. Not very shiny or sparkly, is it? Now take the knife and cut it in two. Take half of it and imagine a star on the cut face of the rock. You might want to draw the star, lightly, with a pencil. It could be a four point star, or a five point star, like the ones on your bulletin cover. Or a six point star, like the Star of David. Maybe you can envision a star with the same number of points as you have members of your family. The Star of Bethlehem, that I saw in the Church of the Nativity, over the place where Jesus was born was a fourteen point star. So a star can have any number of points. It doesn’t really matter. But take the knife and carve the edges of the potato away until you reveal the star shape. It will just take a few cuts. Then you can pass the knife to the person next to you. You’ll have little pieces of potato left over. Just put them on your bulletin until your pew is done, then you can put them in the little bag so we don’t leave a big mess here in the sanctuary.
And I know this will take some time. Let this time be a time of prayer, in which we ask God to seal the promise on our hearts. Maybe this will be a time to ask ourselves a crucial question: This Christmas - How is God’s promise to bless and redeem the world coming true in your life and the lives that you touch? We have some time now, and as we sing, and during the offering. Don’t rush. We’re on God’s time now.
And what I want you to do is to bring your star up with you when you take communion. After you have taken communion - shared in Jesus’ body and blood - shown through that ritual that you belong to him and he is part of you forever - then go to the table and and dip your star it in the paint and stamp one of the squares of cloth that I showed the kids during the children’s sermon. Like I told them, we’re going to make an Advent banner of stars.
And the banner will remind us that God’s promise to Abraham - sworn on the stars above - is now God’s promise to us: We will be blessed. And we will be a blessing.
Genesis 15:1-??
Look up - count the stars -
From this week’s news: The universe may glitter with far more stars than even Carl Sagan imagined when he rhapsodized about billions upon billions. A new study suggests there are a mind-blowing 300 sextillion of them, or three times as many as scientists previously calculated. That is a 3 followed by 23 zeros. Or 3 trillion times 100 billion.
The estimate, contained in a study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature, is based on findings that there are many more red dwarf stars -- the most common star in the universe -- than once thought.
"We're seeing 10 or 20 times more stars than we expected," van Dokkum said.
When van Dokkum and Conroy crunched the incredibly big numbers, they found that it tripled the estimate of stars in the universe from 100 sextillion to 300 sextillion.
That's a huge number to grasp, even for astronomers who are used to dealing in light years and trillions, Conroy said.
"It's fun because it gets you thinking about these large numbers," Conroy said. Conroy looked up how many cells are in the average human body -- 50 trillion or so -- and multiplied that by the 6 billion people on Earth. And he came up with about 300 sextillion.
So the number of stars in the universe "is equal to all the cells in the humans on Earth -- a kind of funny coincidence," Conroy said.
newspaper article says there are far more stars than astronomers knew about before. It’s not that the stars are countless. But you have to count them a long, long time to get them all.
That’s why God used the canopy of stars in the night sky to communicate to Abraham the almost infinite promise of God’s goodness and love. He made Abraham a promise, that he would have a large family, which would be blessed and that through Abraham’s kin, the world would be blessed. And when Abraham asked how he was supposed to believe that, considering that he didn’t even have a son - heck, he didn’t even have a daughter at this point! - God took him outside his tent, into the desert night, and had him look up and try to count the stars. He said, “You can be sure that I’ll make your family as numerous as the stars in the heavens. And they will shine as bright.”
God swore by the stars - made them a sign of his faithfulness and steadfast love. In Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo is proclaiming his love, he says, “Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear . . .” to which Juliet replies, “Oh, swear not by the moon, the inconstant month, which monthly changes in her circled orb, lest thy love prove likewise variable.”
God doesn’t use the moon to talk to Abraham about the promise. He points to the stars.
Stars were a sign of God’s promise to Abraham - to make Abraham’s family a great nation - to use this particular people to bring about God’s plan for humanity and the earth.
As time went on, (and on and on) it became clear that Abraham’s family, though they had a special relationship with God, were not willing and/or able to redeem the world.
They got sidetracked. They fought amongst themselves. They forgot to trust God’s promise. They messed up. Instead of bringing light to the world, they started living in the shadows themselves.
And the only part of the promise they remembered was the part about their particular tribe being blessed - chosen - special. They forgot the part about being a blessing to the world. But they remembered and they hung onto their own specialness and often fell into the trap of worshipping their own “specialness” instead of the God.
Whenever that happens, God’s faithful promise is in peril. It looked as if the plan is fatally flawed. The stars . . . the shining . . . not going to happen.
And yet, a promise is a promise. And God had promised a night sky’s worth of descendents to Abraham, to make a huge clan that would bless the world by living in it as God’s family. God doesn’t renege on his promises. But when he finds that one way of fulfilling them is not possible, he finds another, better way to make the promise come true. So God sent Jesus to be born, live and die in order to redeem the world and expand the family of folks who are God’s childen.
That’s what Christmas is - a more complete, better way for God to form a community that loves Him and shows his Love to the world. The New Testament is clear that now it is you and I who are God’s people - the ones God has chosen to bless and to be a blessing.
The “blood” relationship of being descended from Abraham became less important than the relationship made through Jesus’ blood on the cross. This is what John the Baptist said to the religious folks who came out to the desert to see what he was up to: “Don’t think you can say, “Oh, we’re children of Abraham. God can make children of Abraham out of these rocks.”
Friends, we are the rocks. We are heirs of God’s promise, not through Abraham, but through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are God’s special people. We are the ones who have inherited the promise that we will be blessed and we will be a blessing. So we’re going to do something together to symbolize that fact. Here. I’m giving you each a potato - because it looks like a rock. Each of you take a rock. Hold it in your hand. Not very shiny or sparkly, is it? Now take the knife and cut it in two. Take half of it and imagine a star on the cut face of the rock. You might want to draw the star, lightly, with a pencil. It could be a four point star, or a five point star, like the ones on your bulletin cover. Or a six point star, like the Star of David. Maybe you can envision a star with the same number of points as you have members of your family. The Star of Bethlehem, that I saw in the Church of the Nativity, over the place where Jesus was born was a fourteen point star. So a star can have any number of points. It doesn’t really matter. But take the knife and carve the edges of the potato away until you reveal the star shape. It will just take a few cuts. Then you can pass the knife to the person next to you. You’ll have little pieces of potato left over. Just put them on your bulletin until your pew is done, then you can put them in the little bag so we don’t leave a big mess here in the sanctuary.
And I know this will take some time. Let this time be a time of prayer, in which we ask God to seal the promise on our hearts. Maybe this will be a time to ask ourselves a crucial question: This Christmas - How is God’s promise to bless and redeem the world coming true in your life and the lives that you touch? We have some time now, and as we sing, and during the offering. Don’t rush. We’re on God’s time now.
And what I want you to do is to bring your star up with you when you take communion. After you have taken communion - shared in Jesus’ body and blood - shown through that ritual that you belong to him and he is part of you forever - then go to the table and and dip your star it in the paint and stamp one of the squares of cloth that I showed the kids during the children’s sermon. Like I told them, we’re going to make an Advent banner of stars.
And the banner will remind us that God’s promise to Abraham - sworn on the stars above - is now God’s promise to us: We will be blessed. And we will be a blessing.
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