What Does Forgiveness Even Mean?

• What Does Forgiveness Even Mean? 

• Genesis 50: 15 - 21; Matthew 18: 21- 35  

Forgiveness is not a popular concept in the culture today. There appears to be a deep seated fear that others are getting something for nothing, and worse, others are getting a benefit that I am paying for. When this is your mindset, “Law and Order” seems like a return to justice, where you get what you deserve, and nobody gets a free ride. 

The brothers of Joseph and his technicolor coat are worried. They believe that Joseph, who they sold into slavery - only for him to become rich and powerful in Egypt, is likely to pay them back ‘evil for evil’ now that their father has died. 

It is probably a fair assumption. There can be little more humiliating than to be beaten, stripped, and sold into slavery by your own brothers. At some point, there ought to be a payback, it is only fair. 

Peter asks Jesus how many times does he have to forgive his brother. Peter even suggests seven times, as though that were the limits of his imagination. Here Jesus blows his mind by saying seventy times seven, which of course, is a number not worth counting. (At some point we will talk about the use of numbers in the Bible, and why arithmetic is the least useful way to deal with them.) For today, lets just agree, seventy times seven is too many to count. 

Forgiveness shows up a lot of times in the Bible, so I think we can agree that this is important to the God we love. I would suggest, that God forgiving us, is what makes it possible to love and trust Jesus. If God were truly a righteous and demanding judge, not a one of us could bear the inspection of God. 

Let us say that God is so good, that God will not keep a count of all of our sins. Really, I do not believe God would accept the quality of life that is required to keep track of slights, insults and violations of the law of love. I mean think about it. It is miserable just to watch what is reported on the News each night, how overbearing must it be to be all-knowing? Why waste precious life energy over keeping track of insults? 

We know that God cares because, well, the best way to say it is - Jesus. Jesus was born in human form, walked among us. The love of God evident in Jesus gives us confidence that God is love and life, and not devoted to retributive justice. 

Joseph, who was wronged by his own brothers, is now in a position to “teach them a lesson.” He could make them pay for the wrong they had done. Clearly Joseph sets a model for us when he claims that the harm done to him was used by God to save God’s people. A good and generous God turned evil into a blessing. That is a lesson worth learning.  

You and I are never completely good or bad. On our best days we are both strong and weak and are responding to mixed motives. I have always believed that we are not truly mature until we can see and appreciate both sides of an argument, and hold both of them to be good - at the same time. 

I had lunch with a gentleman a couple of years ago now, and he embodied this kind of thinking in a new way for me. He explained that he was greatly pained by the anger and distrust between politicians today. 

I told him I remembered a time when a conservative and a liberal could have a beer, and emerge with a new appreciation of what the other had been trying to say. He countered, “I know that a conservative and liberal should be able to sit together and emerge with an idea that had never occurred to either of them before.” 

He then explained that he and his wife have traveled the world with their friends. His best friend is a very liberal and active person. He himself, is a local leader in the Republican Party. When his friend decided to run for the State legislature, he took a year off of work to organize and run his friend’s campaign. His Republican friends thought he had lost his mind. 

His explanation was very simple. “This is the best man I know. He loves this country as much as I do, and maybe more. I know him to be fair and hard working. He would be a much more reliable representative in the State House than any other person I know.” 

Do you see what he did here? He changed the discourse from ideology, and political gain, to integrity and concern. It is not about perfection and winning the day, it is about doing what is best for the community and the world and trusting the one with the greatest integrity.

You know, God forgives you. I do not believe that Jesus died on the cross to change God’s mind about humans. I believe that Jesus came to earth to change humanity’s understanding of God. The crucifixion is God’s way of standing with all of those who have never known justice. It is God’s way of saying that life in not fair, and there is no place too dark, too forlorn, for the presence of God to be with the ones God loves. 

So if God forgives you, when will you forgive yourself for being imperfect. Tom Hunsley and I laughed at how we looked over the Stewardship Campaign literature, and failed to recognize that there was no line for names to be included on the pledge card. Perfection is such a high standard. 

In fact, perfection is only a goal, a target. To live with the expectation of perfection is not helpful or healthy. When the LaSalle County Nuclear Power Plant was finally at the point of being licensed for power operation, the initial class of reactor operators and supervisors were required to take examinations administered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. At that point, I was the lead instructor for licensed operators. 

The man who was the head of the Operations Department also needed to license. He was an Annapolis graduate, a retired Naval Officer with wide experience in the Nuclear Navy. He possessed an intense attitude, only surpassed by his vast engineering mind and experience. He could be hard to deal with, and expected great dedication from those who worked for him. 

Part of the exam was written, and part of the exam was an oral exam, administered while walking through the vast complex of the power plant. I found John in the hallway after the written portion of the exam. “How did it go, John?” I asked cheerfully. With a panicked look on his face he replied, “I don’t know. I did not answer everything correctly. I realize now, I made some mistakes.” “But over all it was good, right?” I said, trying to be encouraging. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can never tell what is good enough when it isn’t all right.” My heart went out to him that day. He suffered so because he was human. 

The poets, among them Leonard Cohen, have often commented that “There is a crack in everything, and that is where the light gets in.” If we were able to be perfect, we would never need to know God, God’s love, and trust God’s forgiveness. Joseph told his brothers that in spite of their terrible evil, God was able to make a blessing for them, and make them a blessing to the world. Part of the problem with being a billionaire is never needing to say you are sorry or face your imperfections, and the light has a hard time getting in. 

Until we forgive ourselves we will never be able to forgive others. Think of the times you have failed, come up short, behaved badly or let others down. Recognize that God was with you, and forgave you in that failure. God blessed you enough to learn from that moment, and do better.

As you think of the times that others have hurt you because they were careless, or even if you believe they were being cruel, know that God has forgiven them. God has forgiven them. Until you decide to let go of your hurt and anger or disappointment, some part of your soul will be withheld from God’s grace. 

When you find it in your heart to forgive your own humanity, you are in a position to model Joseph and forgive those who have sinned against you. You do not forget the pain. You do not accept further abuse. But you release that part of your soul where pain and anger are fed, and make yourself more fully able to love and be loved. 

This is not the last word to say about forgiveness, but it is enough for now. It is always tempting to try to put 10 pounds into a 5 pound bag, and a Sunday sermon can never be more than a 5 pound bag. 

So let us walk away with this part of God’s wisdom. God loves you and forgives you. God wants for you to love God back - as completely as you can, so you must forgive yourself. It is better to love and be loved than it is to be perfect. Trust me on this, It is better to love and be loved than it is to be perfect. Amen. 

Benediction

Benediction 

• Romans 13: 8 -14; Matthew 18:15-20  

I once was a part of a church that was very reluctant to have anyone other than members use its facilities. The kitchen was littered with signs saying, “Do Not Use This,” “You Must Replace That”. Everywhere you turned there was another imperative, usually written in large, block, capital letters. 

A new church start I advised for a short time, spent its first two years, worshipping in - first a private barn, and then a downtown community center. They were all very happy and very excited. When they purchased a building and began to repair and renovate the facility, a whole new set of conflicts presented themselves. The pastor felt like her job rapidly changed, and she needed to swap her preaching gown for a stripped shirt and a whistle. 

In contrast with that, I was told by a person newly joining a church I was part of, that at the church they left because they moved, new members were issued keys to the church property. Membership in that place, meant an immediate sharing in the joys and responsibilities of their common life.  

If we look carefully at the scriptures, we see especially in Romans, a challenge to the expectation that religion done rightly is largely about being obedient to the rules. The apostle Paul is pretty clear that being an expert in applying the law to others made him a mean person and a threat to the Jesus movement. It was only after he got knocked off his high horse and lost his eyesight that he began to see correctly. 

While the people of the Texas coast try to get their lives back together, and there are huge wild fires raging in the West, and another major hurricane bearing down on Florida; the administration took aim at the Dreamers, folks voluntarily participating in a program that gives them limited status to live in the US where they have been raised. And conservative pastors released the “Nashville Statement.” 

The “Nashville Statement” is a fourteen point manifesto identifying homosexuality and the acceptance of homosexuals as a measure of Christians giving in to the pressures of a modern liberal society. The document is legalistic and mean spirited. 

You and I are becoming accustomed to recognizing a call to “Law and Order” as a code word for avoiding the trials of relationship and protecting the privilege of those in power. In the case of the Evangelical movement in America, their prominence is waning. Their alignment with the extreme political wing of the Republican Party, has exposed the costs of negotiating religious influence for political gains. Slowly, the evangelical establishment is recognizing their position of privilege is slipping. This motivates reactive attacks on others, as a rallying cry to hold the line in the sand.  

I feel like this unfiltered emotional reactivity is the hallmark of the worst of our social media culture, where the masses claim the “God given right” to express virulent and frequently uninformed opinions, and clutter the conversation with lies and half-truths. These are trying times for those of us who aspire to be close to God, and share God’s love with this tormented creation. 

You and I live in this culture. We recognize that our own tradition has a history of trading our moral authority for power and privilege. We get it. We have the same inclination to fight to win, even though in our heart of hearts we know we are called to love our enemies. It is just so hard to be loving in the face of direct and intentional attacks on our integrity. 

What ever can we do? How do we keep our minds stayed on Jesus? One human response to stress is to simplify our focus. We might carve the 10 commandments in stone and make them the law of the land. You know, simple; direct; applies equally to everyone. Unless, you were raised to know God in any other than the Judeo-Christian tradition. Unless you have come to believe that God is still speaking, and stone is unresponsive.  

So lets think about the 10 commandments. I take great comfort from the good King David, one of God’s very favorite of people, in the episode with Bathsheba, he managed to break nearly every one of those commandments. God did not desert him. Instead, God sent the prophet Nathan to tell David the hard truth, “you really messed up. You really, really messed up.” 

The commandments are not designed for you and I to assume control over the behavior of others. The commandments are to serve as a focus for our meditation. They provide a guide to understanding the holiness of God, and give us a structure for responding as faithful children of God, living in community with other children of God. 

Now I realize that any talk like this makes some folks feel that if we tamper with their understanding of laws and commandments, we are in fact saying that “anything goes.” It is the nature of emotional reactions; to extrapolate to the ridiculous as “logical proof” of the fallacy of the offending argument. 

I would very much enjoy attacking this kind of thinking from my snarky and sarcastic side. I am not proud of this, but I have a very well developed sarcastic side that still entertains me, though I do my best to only display it on rare and relatively safe conditions. 

The theological truth is that we learn best about God’s forgiveness when we mess up. Those times when our imperfections slap us in the face are the times when we best understand who God really is, and what forgiveness really means. But that is a sermon for another day. 

Today we are trying to shift our focus away from blind emotional reactivity, and focus instead on blessing. Several times in my ministry I have invited folks to offer a blessing or benediction over a meal or at the close of some church event. Often I get the reaction, “I am not ordained. I do not have a blessing for others.” 

So let us go after that thinking. You, the congregation, you are out in the world everyday. You go to work, and bring the presence of God there. You go to your exercise class, and represent God’s good love, care and attention on those you sweat with. 

This Community of faith is all dedicated to strengthening and encouraging your ministry. If you do not leave worship, and meeting, and choir practice, prepared to bless the world, we need to change how we do worship, and meeting, and choir practice. 

Tex Sample is an ordained minister, preacher and seminary professor. He famously told his preaching students that their first opportunities to preach will usually be the Sunday after Christmas, or some other low attendance Sunday where you will be “preaching to the choir.” “Never be afraid to preach to the choir,” he tells the students. “The choir is where a lot of the mischief starts, anyway.” 

So we honor God by singing our praises, and making our offerings, and hearing the scriptures and the scriptures expounded, the sum effect should be to prepare us to bless the world and be a blessing. 

I was thinking about this a lot this week. Thursday marked the 14th anniversary of my ordination. It is not a big number, but it celebrates a dramatic change that Martha and I made in our lives and our priorities. As we went back to school to begin this phase in our life, we received and shared countless blessings. We were helped in so many important ways. We were blessed, in order to be in a position to bless others. 

The common prayers we say in worship, are intended to provide you with thoughts and phrases you can use other places. 

To carry that a step further, I will invite you to sing my song “Benediction.” Again, it is a very simple melody. This time I will sing it through to you, giving you my blessing. Then you can sing it with me, singing it to each other. The clear intent here is to put the words of blessing in your mouth and on your lips, as you prepare to be a blessing. 

Benediction - by Pastor Chuck Maney 

May the peace of Christ be with you. May your spirit rest easy with his. 

Jesus always promised, when 2 or 3, are gathered in his name, there he is. 

I pray for you, one more blessing. May your heart be open to this. 

May you feel the presence, of his holy Spirit, every day and moment after this. 

Why Me?

Why Me? 

• Exodus 3: 1 - 15; Matthew 16: 21 - 28

If you are anything like me, you try to set up a collection of simple routines, define a set of “normal activities’” and those routines help us to avoid the kinds of self-induced problems that can make our days difficult and lead to embarrassment. 

Martha laughs when before I go out the door I go through my routine, do I have my keys, my wallet, my phone, and my bifocals not just reading glasses. It just makes it easier if everything is in its place before I start. 

When the torrential rains fell on coastal Texas, no one was permitted the luxury of routines or “normal activities.” Reality broke through the routine and demanded a new response, and different way of being. 

I was teaching reactor operators at a nuclear power plant still under construction when the when the accident at Three Mile Island occurred. While the event was not very damaging in costs and radioactive release to the environment, we learned a great deal. We learned that operators can make a host of assumptions, and not see the reality. We can respond to the situation, we do what should help, and we expect it to work, and may be slow to recognize it is not working.

Several years after TMI, the terrible event happened at Chernobyl in Russia. As bad as that event was, it did not teach us so much because there were so many management and administrative failures that created the conditions for that event that it seems impossible for that to happen in our better constructed and managed plants. I am now too far removed to appreciate the impact of the Fukushima accident on power plant operations. My limited experience sees Fukushima as an event that challenges design assumptions in new ways. 

The Three Mile Island event, required sweeping changes to our Emergency Procedures, dramatic changes in operator training, and required an entirely different management style in off-normal operations than what the culture permitted and even expected before that. 

In today’s scriptures, Moses has one of those God experiences that change what he knows of God, and what he expects of himself, because of how God interacts with him. And Jesus tries to prepare his disciples for a new way of living with a new way of relating to him. 

The passage from Exodus is a defining moment in understanding the relationship between God and humanity. God reveals the divine identity and orientation of God towards the rest of us.  

In the bush that burns and is not consumed, no ashes to ashes for the eternal creator, we get a glimpse of the power and majesty that is God. God creates an invitation to get the attention of Moses. Moses, like anyone with a task that involves long hours alone, welcomes the diversion. 

God immediately raises the ante on this exchange. Moses is called by name. He is instructed to remove his sandals, God is not going to be dismissed as a casual tourist attraction. This is the first step of entering into a relationship, a relationship that has costs as well as benefits. 

Just as an aside, as a welcoming church, we would like folks to feel free to take a part in our worship and fellowship. But we also need to make clear to ourselves that to be in an enduring relationship with God and each other, there will be costs as well as benefits. And we can expect that it will get a little personal, and that, is why it matters. We do need to avoid pressing new people into responsibilities, until we first show them the joy we have in serving others. But I digress.  

Moses is no saint, mind you, when God calls out to him. Moses is a murderer in hiding. He killed an abusive Egyptian guard, and then escaped far away from the reaches of civilization into the wilderness of the Arabian peninsula. Here he was welcomed and married into the family of a pagan Holy Man, whose flock he was tending. Lest we get too concerned with ethnic and racial purity, note that Holy Moses, a criminal in hiding, was in a mixed marriage. 

God then declares his relationship through the ages with people of faith. God declares that the voices of the suffering people have moved the heart of the Creator. Now committed to action, God selects human beings - namely the man Moses in this story - to act in the world for justice. God does care and God does act, but through people of faith, not in impersonal magic acts. 

For his part, Moses resists. “Why me? Who am I to confront Pharaoh? To which God responds, “I will be with you.” 

Bless his heart, Moses persists. “But if I go to the Israelites and say God has sent me, and they say, ‘Who is this God that sent you’ - what can I even tell them? 

Here God gives the divine name to Moses. The Jewish people avoid pronouncing the name “Yahweh” as a sign of respect. This is the root of songs and poems about “the Holy name.” They teach that in the act of breathing, the movement of air in and out of the body, breathes the sacred name of God. 

So then the name of God, often translated as “I Am,” or “I Am Who I Am,” or sometimes - “I Will Be What Is Needed;” is rightly identified with the totality of Being, of Existence, of Life itself. In fact the Hebrew name of God (audible breath) is the first and last word uttered from our lips. 

The call of Moses captures the beauty of the relationship between the all-knowing and empowering divine; and humanity, in our limitations and insecurity. It declares that for the divine to interact in matters of justice for the oppressed or hurting; flawed, impure, imperfect humans must act as accompanied by the divine presence. 

For all of his resistance, Moses understood his call. He was supported by the wisdom of his father-in-law Jethro, a man of God in his own right. Moses grew as a person - as his relationship with God became more involved and more trusting. 

12 to 15 hundred years later, the person Jesus of Nazareth, acted as teacher and guide confronting the institution that grew up out of this initial relationship. The Temple priests now served God, and also negotiated a peace with the local authorities including the occupying Roman Army. 

Jesus warns his closest disciples that this confrontation was about to get very violent. Peter, who could never figure out what he thought until it came out of his mouth, tries to refute what Jesus is telling him. Jesus shuts him down. 

Then Jesus tells Peter, and us, that the love of God is not free. Love by its very nature - makes us vulnerable. Love by its very nature, is personal. Love, by its very nature - draws us nearer to God. 

Does Jesus mean we are all going to be crucified? Not all of us will be martyred, at least not today. But he does mean that we should stay true to our principles and resist the temptation to negotiate away our beliefs simply to keep the peace, or share in the power of the establishment. 

I believe our identity in God is built on the “image of God” imprinted on us as a Creature. It does not depend on our good looks, witty conversation, or even our persuasive charm. While our mothers may love us down to our very souls, God’s love for us is latched to the soul. Our social presence is valuable only as an expression of our soul’s relationship with the divine. 

This spiritual sense, invites us to leave our ego needs aside when we take our sandals off and approach the fire of God. We are first a child of God. We recognize the eternal nature of God, which hints at the eternal portion of our relationship with God. 

We have been chosen, by name, by this eternal God, into a relationship that is never ending. You were chosen, because God loves you. You cannot earn that love. You do not deserve that love. I don’t think you can even refuse that love - only choose to pretend like it does not exist. 

Like Moses, we may be lead to confront injustice - and feel like it is too big, it is beyond what we can change. That only means we are so accustomed to doing it “on our own” we fail to anticipate the presence of God, who will empower us to confront and move beyond the next hurdle. 

Talk like this from - near the pulpit - does not sound the same as we used to think about God. Like Moses, and the disciples of Jesus, and even the power plant operators, we are being invited to claim a new understanding and responsibility in our relationship with God and with reality. 

Community UCC, do not be afraid. Trust the personal encounter you have with God. God is with us. We are called to represent the radical hospitality that is the love of God. It is more than we can do by ourselves, and it is only what we do together. It is beyond the understanding of many good folks around us. Once God reveals how generous God’s love is, we can no longer pretend that we are the same as we used to be. 

As we gather around the communion table this morning, let us deeply appreciate the presence of God in our lives, whispering our names - just as we breath the name of God. Let us sense in the sacrament of Jesus - how God is embodied within us - to carryout God’s love and justice mission in the world. 

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Yes! Yes! Yes! 

In my understanding of the scriptures, the closer our relationship with the God of Creation, the more closely we become identified with God’s care for creation. We are especially invited to “see” the way others are being mistreated, and “hear” the call to represent God’s good love for all. 

In January of this year I took a tour of the Holy Land lead by Richard Blackburn, the director of the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center. I had taken classes from the Peace Center before. The promotional literature promised meetings with peace activists on the ground, so I thought I had a good idea of what I was in for. 

Each morning we would meet, and Richard, who has a passion for classical painting, would highlight the places we were to see during the day, and how they have been captured in the classical art of the West. Each evening we were scheduled to meet with folks actively engaged in addressing the Israeli/Palestinian issue. 

We traveled as far south as Hebron, went east to Jericho and the Jordan River, and spent time in the north in the region of Galilee including Nazareth. You can expect me to make frequent references to the places I went and the things I have seen as we share observations of the scriptures in our time together.  

I obviously did not understand much about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank before arriving. What I thought I knew was either wrong, or terribly shallow. The Occupation is oppressive, it is de-humanizing. I believe the Israeli Occupation provides an insight to the conservative movements in Europe and in the US today. It is an example of how easily we can systematize oppression of others. 

The Israelis do not use the word Occupation. When the issues are raised, they change the subject. They talk about the divine right of the Jews to ‘own’ the land as written in the scriptures. They comment on atrocities committed by other Arab countries. They talk about ‘Law and Order’ protecting good Israeli citizens from uncontrolled and random attacks by the Palestinians. I now consider appeals to “law and order” as code words for protecting the privileges of the people in power. 

If you would show the first picture please. The Israelis do not talk about the 19 ft. concrete wall that surrounds the town of Bethlehem, only four miles from Jerusalem. The Israeli Army controls all movement into and out of Bethlehem. It is possible for a Christian born in Bethlehem, to never in their life be given permission to visit the holy sights in Jerusalem. 

The picture here is of a boutique hotel opened this year, but after my visit, by the international artist “Banksy” - which invites Israelis in Tel Aviv to have an experience of what the Occupation means. “The Walled Off Hotel” is advertised as the hotel with the worst view in the world. 

The next picture is another portion of the wall around Bethlehem. There are more than 1900 miles of concrete walls, controlled 24/7 by armed security provided by the Israeli Army, and constructed to control the movements of the Palestinians within the West Bank. 

Jerusalem is a city that was divided in the United Nations 1948 Plan, assigning a portion to the new Jewish state, and a portion to the local inhabitants. In the War of 1968 Israel took control of Jerusalem, and though no international group acknowledges the authority of Israel in the city, the city and national government are systematically demolishing Palestinian homes and repurposing the land for Israeli projects. 

In the next picture we see the Temple Mount - the traditional site of the Jewish Temples, is home to the Dome on the Rock, the glorious Muslim Temple and Shrine was originally built in 691. The current Dome dates to 1023CE. The Western Wall at the base of the Temple Mount is the holy place where prayers take place. 

This next picture is taken from the Mt. of Olives looking at the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount with the Old City of Jerusalem, enclosed by the stone walls - restored in the early 1600s by the Ottoman Empire, which preserved many of the historical sites. 

The Mount stands at the west edge of a sharp cliff, the Kidron Valley, with a full view of the Mount of Olives directly to the east. The Garden of Gethsemane is at the base of the mount. A remanent of the Garden stands next to the Church of All Nations in this picture here. The oldest of the olive trees in the Garden is a mere 800 years old. 

About halfway up the hill is the church of Dominus Flavit. This is taken from the gospel of Luke 19:41-42, where Jesus looks over the city and cries, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, If only today you knew the way of peace.” Dominus Flavit means the Lord cries, or maybe better, the Lord’s tears flow. In retrospect, this best captures my experience of the Holy Land today. 

My experience of the Holy Land was different than I had imagined. I love having a sense of the geography of the city of Jerusalem and the distances between the Upper Room, the Chief Priests home where Peter denied knowing Jesus, and the path of the passion. 

With my new awareness of the oppressive occupation, much of the “holiness” of the Holy Land failed to miss my heart. I was too full of compassion for the living souls than to have my heartstrings tugged by the rocks of ancient days.  

I realize that the movement of most tourist groups are controlled in such a way that the Occupation seems invisible. My trip was special because we sought out the company of the oppressed. 

I did have an emotional moment of connection. Late in the trip, we were touring the area at the north end of the Sea of Galilee. Of the many churches/tourist stops, was a facility dedicated to the Primacy of Peter. It is a Catholic shrine celebrating Peter as the first among the disciples. 

The principal feature of this site is the church, constructed on the beach of the Sea. There is a large rock and the church was built for the rock to be both inside and outside of the church. Tradition says, the resurrected Jesus stood on this rock to call to the disciples as they fished, and where he served them roasted fish for breakfast. 

My tour group gathered inside of the sanctuary, and said a prayer that highlighted Peter and his role among the first disciples. There was no hymn selected for this particular stop. With the permission of the tour group, I lead them in singing a song I wrote, that highlights the relationship between Jesus and all of us, his disciples. It was part of a collection of songs I wrote about the season of Advent during a sabbatical in 2010. 

Richard Rohr, is a Franciscan priest who directs the Center for Action and Contemplation. The CAC is dedicated to inviting people to have an encounter with the divine, in a spirit where contemplative prayer becomes the impetus to act in the world to honor God’s love by working for justice. 

Rohr loves to say that Christians were in such a rush to put Jesus on a pedestal and worship him we largely missed his point. We made the Jesus movement into a religion of believing the right things and worshipping Jesus, which he never asked for. Instead Jesus asked us to “follow him.” Jesus asked us to behave in ways that demonstrate and share God’s love for all of Creation. 

The origin of this song is rooted in an Illinois Conference Women’s Retreat at Pilgrim Park more than 10 years ago. My wife Martha and several women from the church in Spring Valley attended. The focus of the retreat included saying the Lord’s Prayer in several different forms. The changes are based on cultural perspectives and highlighted areas where there are different ways to see God. 

For the next year, we used a different “Lord’s Prayer” each month. I will not lie to you, the congregation HATED it. We did love the translation of “Amen” by Eugene Peterson, the translator of the Bible into current North American English, as “Yes! Yes! Yes!” That is what I captured in this song, so it would continue to be a part of the faith language of the congregation. 

Let me invite you to sing this song with me now. It is a “call and a response,” I sing a line, and you sing it back to me. You can never get lost. The tune is very simple. If you are dependent on the printed word, we are going to try to project the lyrics up here. 

The Dog Days of August

The Dog Days of August 

• Psalm 67, Matthew 15: 10 - 28 

It is late August. The kids are headed back to school, and we are happy about that, except that it “feels” too early. Part of our brains are more comfortable with school starting in September, even after Labor Day. 

The reality is based on simple logic and not on our collective feelings. High School football cannot start practice or have games except within so many days of the start of school. Football teams have regular season and conference games, then the best of them enter the playoffs. Many school districts start school to accommodate the state football championships on Thanksgiving weekend. 

We can know all of that, and still wish that school started in September. It is kind of hard for human beings to let loose of their usual patterns. Feeling the need to change can make us “cranky.” The psalmist says let God bless us all, and may all the earth praise God. In our heart of hearts, we visualize a world that is all Christian, knowing, loving, and serving God - with the same understanding that we have. 

The reality is different. God loved the Creation long before Jesus the Christ made his historical appearance. There are several traditions of knowing and loving the God of Creation with roots different from our tradition. God has used those traditions to bless creation, and continues to do that. It still may not “feel” right, but we know the reality is sometimes different from our feelings. 

You and I share a faith in a good and loving God, and embrace an understanding of the nature of God as revealed in the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. While a piece of my heart embraces the platitudes about the faith that I was raised with, I recognize that the reality may be different from those old “feelings.” Once in a while I need to remind myself to actively trust in God’s blessings, and check my feelings against reality. 

My personal faith evolves over time. As a person who is a second career pastor, I was relatively settled in my ways when I went to seminary. I began seminary when I was still working full-time. The usual three year program took me four years. I graduated when I was 52 years-old. In wrestling with church history, and theology, I emerged changed. 

One of the biggest changes I had to make was to accept my own feelings, and learn to evaluate how those feelings matched up against reality. I have tried to check my automatic emotional reactivity, and see if my emotions are rooted in a healthy love of justice, or rooted in the sentimentality of my childish faith in a narrowly defined God and country. Seminary put me in situations where I dealt with the faith of Christians from Africa, and the Far East, and marginalized communities in the USA, and forced me to see the limitations of my white, middle-class, suburban upbringing. 

Now, my feelings are valid. My upbringing was rooted in the love of God and nurtured by good, generous, well-meaning family and friends -  whose lives carry the evidence of faithfulness. But a mature faith, needs to leave room for growth. God is still speaking, and if I really intend to listen, then I need to expect that my more mature self, might be ready for more of God’s truth. 

I think we have an example of this in today’s gospel lesson. The evangelist Matthew makes an on-going case for Jesus as the new Moses. He is careful to present Jesus of Nazareth as a gift from God to elevate our understanding of God in contrast with the codified and law bound understanding of the Temple-lead Jews of his day. 

Here Jesus allows the immediate request of the Canaanite woman to challenge our claim to an exclusive access to God’s blessings. “It would be a shame to waste God’s blessings on the dogs” Jesus tells her. Talk about racism! Talk about lacking in cultural sensitivity! Talk about insensitive name calling! Talk about Jesus acting like a person of privilege to a person on the margins! 

Clearly we have heard the woman praised in sermons for holding her ground. “Still she persisted” in making a claim for her sick child to the renowned Holy Man. She is lifted up as a model of persistence in prayer. And Jesus shares the love of God with her. 

We could debate whether the human Jesus changed his mind, or if the divine Jesus staged an example of changing his mind for the benefit of the faithful. Lets just lay claim to the example Jesus sets for us. 

We can change our minds. The world does not stop when we see things in a new way. We can extend God’s blessings to others, even if they do not promise to repent, they do not promise to come to church, they do not promise to read the “Christian” Bible. We can and should, be a blessing to the whole world. 

Many of us were raised to think that the Bible stories are supposed to make us feel good about ourselves and our church. It is not quite true. The gospel stories, especially the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth - are supposed to encourage us TO DO good in the world, sharing the blessings of God with the creation that God loves. The shorthand for this is the expression; “the gospel should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” 

Our feelings are a valid indicator of where our emotional lives are, but honestly, they might not be rooted in what is true. For an extended part of my life, I held all of my feelings suspect. I over-reacted to the crass sentimentality that comprised much of my religious up-bringing. But when I do not acknowledge my feelings, they may be silently driving my behaviors in ways that can be damaging to myself, my family and my community. Behaviors rooted in an unexamined desire to feed pure ego needs have the potential for grave consequences. 

Today I try to recognize and appreciate my feelings, but also look for the real and deeper truths about the God I love and who loves me. Knowing that God loves me - and each person in all of creation - permits me to celebrate the Canaanite woman who was rejected, and still she persisted. Jesus shows me an example that I might change my mind, and then act to bless others, without consideration of whether they are worthy, and that challenges my sense of living out my faith. 

I stand among you today in Morton Illinois, and declare that Jesus loves every man, woman, and child in Morton, and the dogs, and probably the cats, too. It is our dogged duty to represent that good love, everywhere we go, even under the conditions that tend to make us cranky. God help us, we certainly need it. Amen. 

Being Fed or Feeding?

Just a thought I have been working through in my head. In our consumer oriented culture I hear people complain that they are thinking of changing churches "because they are just not being fed." And I get that sometimes as we grow our local congregation may feel too restrictive. But that is not always what these folks mean. So I believe a few questions need to be prayed about.

Is useful ministry being done in your church? Are you an active part of that ministry?

Do you have some personal need that you should talk over with your pastor?

Is it possible that God is trying to give you a nudge? Perhaps it is time to take off your bib, and put on your apron.

Just a thought I have been working on.

All in the Family

Genesis 25:19 - 34  Gospel: Matthew 13:1-9 

We think that coming to church is about each of us as an individual worshipping God. It is, but more than that, church - and all of life - is really about the relationship. When we use our God-given gifts to make relationships and keep them alive, we are living up to the image of God imprinted within us. I have long contended that the image of God in humans, is the ability to love and be loved. Usually I talk about these gifts in the context of the church, but these gifts and challenges are rooted in our families. The church is a good place to learn new things about relationships, practice them, and then take them home and into the wider community. 

During my seminary training I was introduced to Family Systems Theory developed by the psychiatrist Murray Bowen. Bowen’s Theory, identifies emotional growth and self-differentiation as being the key to peace of mind, but growth in this way best takes place within our family of origin. Differentiation is the ability to recognize and claim our own emotional lives, and not get “hooked” each time we or someone we love has their buttons pushed. We grow to own our own emotional space.  

Bowen would say that for humans to increase in emotional maturity, they need to be able to think and act logically and control our emotional reactivity, especially within our family of origin. It also says, when we get fed up with the way we are being treated, and go off in a huff, the amount of emotional growth that we are capable of, isolated from the family, is very limited. Our old patterns and limitations will re-emerge and we will find a substitute cast to play the roles of family members. But the subs are usually insufficient to help us grow out of the limiting old patterns.  

I honestly think that efforts towards differentiation lay the groundwork for contemplative prayer, which enables our spiritual growth. In contemplative prayer we see and accept ourselves as we really are, in order to grow. When we learn to accept our own limitations, we are better able to live in community. We recognize that we are all in this together, and in fact, we are not our complete selves without being in community. 

Genesis is the first Book of the Bible. It consists of stories and traditions that describe where we came from, and how God was instrumental in making us the people we are today. Because we get our personal identity, and our cultural identity from our family relationships, Genesis is full of family stories. Like all families, the families in the Bible have some people with outstanding character, and there are characters who are outstanding examples of bad and weak behavior. Many are both. Because the culture of that day gave greater emphasis to men than to women, the stories of brothers get special attention. Cain and Abel come to mind. Today we have Esau and Jacob. The story of these men is detailed because they are a basic building block to describe personal and communal growth and spiritual development.  

Esau and Jacob are twins, but as different as night and day. One, an impetuous red-head with a ruddy complexion and massive amounts of body hair from the day he was born; and the other a mama’s boy who stuck around the house and made plans for the future. Let me remind you here in this story, and in the story of your own life and family, God loves both of these boys. One is a hunter and one is a cook, and God blesses them both. 

Religion has contributed to clouding up the interpretation of these stories. Over the years layers of interpretation have been added to these stories to encourage moral behavior. In many ways those layers become a distraction for people trying to find their way back to God. Esau might think he needs to shave and give up hunting to be pleasing to God, but it just isn’t so. Jacob may believe that he needs to make amends with Esau who has suffered because of his tricks. Jacob is closer to the truth, because it is about the relationship. 

The gospel story was not picked out to go with the Genesis story. This summer the lectionary invites us to touch base with the greatest hits of Genesis. I invite you to read through Genesis this summer, to remember the flow and the characters. 

In Matthew this week we have the parable of the sower. Ancient farming, as described in the gospel, is not a project scientifically constrained to maximize yield per resources expended. Here the farmer broadcasts the seed everywhere. The seed is flung by hand over land that has no preparation noted. 

Because today we see farmers planting seeds carefully and systematically, we know how to predict where the yield will be the greatest. I presume that God could do the same with grace. God could spend the greater part of attention and grace where it is most likely to produce the best results. There are some Christians who preach that God does just that, picks favorites for blessings, and identifies the rest for damnation. 

The gospel does not say that. The gospel says that God spreads grace and blessing all over the place. Not everyone is willing or able to respond to God’s grace, but it is there for the asking. Grace is pressed into our lives every day, at every turn. Even when we feel like we are being rejected and pushed aside, God is in that moment giving us blessings and calling us into relationships that will result in great gains of peace and love, both for today and tomorrow. 

So our brother does us wrong, and goes off in a huff. It is right to give him a cooling off period. But we have to find him and tell him that he is still our brother and we are willing to keep on talking. Esau and Jacob will split apart. But Jacob will not fulfill his destiny until he comes home. Esau will never fully forgive Jacob, and that will limit Esau’s availability to filling God’s purpose. The families of Esau and Jacob (the Edomites and Israelites) will be each other’s loyal opposition for the years ahead, but they need each other. 

Living a life of relationships means that we need to deal with change. Jake had proposed to young Gina, and was being interviewed by his prospective father-in-law. "Do you think you are earning enough to support a family?" the older man asked the suitor. 

"Yes, Sir," replied Jake, “I'm, sure I am." "Think carefully now," said Gina's father. "There are twelve of us..." 

The Bible has family stories, because the God of the Bible believes in relationship. We are family, with all of creation. The better we do at staying in touch with the families who raised us, the greater potential we have to grow in emotional maturity, and be at peace with ourselves. When we find peace in our hearts, we are better able to see the hand of God alive in our lives, leading us in paths of righteousness, even when we walk through the inevitable valleys of death and darkness.   

So today I would tell you, that no matter who you are, and where you are in life’s journey, the God of creation knows and loves you and is calling you to grow in emotional maturity in your relationships. I want to tell each of you, that there is always hope for reconciliation within your families. Reconciliation does not mean that you are expected to place yourself at risk for abuse. It does mean that you continue to be in relationship; keeping the conversation going. Doing your very best to be thoughtful and intelligent, and not allowing your emotional reactivity to corrupt your behavior. 

I would tell you that God knows that families can be difficult, and the Bible stories prove that families have always been difficult. But families are also the places where the greatest potential for growth and blessing are found. We are called to live up to the image of God within us, the ability to love and be loved is the very seed of God within us. Use the gifts of the church, the Bible stories, your prayers together, the guidance of your pastor, to continue to grow in emotional and spiritual maturity. And let us praise God for the generous and liberal seeds of grace and blessing he faithfully broadcasts over his creation. 

I have a song to close the sermon here this morning. I call it, The Pastor Chuck Theme Song, as my early ministry was rooted in dynamic issues of community relationships.