Sunday, June 20, 2010

Father's Day Sermon Union Church @ Bay Ridge

Sermon inspired by a visit to my father....

Trusting You to Grow and Go


Happy Father’s Day.
On this day, my dear Lord, still our hearts. Let the Spirit’s voice guide us to what we need to hear from your word. Accept our humble request to have your words guide our hearts and minds. Amen

I say Happy Father’s Day but June is the month we celebrate many things. As a matter of fact there is a month to celebrate just about everything. Just to name a few June itself happens to celebrate:
Adopt A Shelter Cat Month
Audiobook Month
Children’s Awareness Month
Dairy Month
Dairy Alternative Month
Effective Communications Month
Entrepreneurs Do It Yourself Marketing Month
Fireworks Safety Month
GLBT Pride Month
Great Outdoors Month
International Men's Month
Lane Courtesy Month
National Accordion Awareness Month
National Black Music Awareness Month
National Bathroom Reading Month
National Candy Month
National Dairy Month
National Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month
National Iced Tea Month
National Papaya Month (also, again in September)
National Rivers Month
National Rose Month
National Safety Month
National Seafood Month
National Soul Food Month
National Steakhouse Month
Perennial Gardening Month
Pharmacists Declare War on Alcoholism Month
Rebuild Your Life Month
Sports America Kids Month
Student Safety Month
Turkey Lover's Month
Potty Training Awareness Month

So fathers be honored that you are even remembered for a day in this crowded month of celebrations and awareness!!! Our own church, the PC USA has set aside this day as “Men of the Church Sunday”. Our denomination’s website, pcusa.org tells us “Men of the Church Sunday is set aside to recognize the gifts and contributions to ministry that men have made in every congregation and to give thanks for the witness that men make in the home, the workplace, community and church.” Very politically correct. Well a part of the logic is to be considerate of men who are not fathers in the church, to include the ministries of all men in the church of which fatherhood is one. And make no mistake about it parenting, fatherhood is a ministry.

I remember hearing once about a six year old boy who found out on the playground that his father was not his natural father. I was told that this young boy ran from the playground’s fields crying his eyes out. He was confused, scared; his whole world had been turned upside down. He felt as if he had lost any idea of who he was, where he belonged, who his people were so to speak. It is amazing the depth a six year old can feel in his moment of crisis. He ran to his grandmother’s house, where all of the family gathered in good times and bad.

When he ran through the front door his grandmother asked from the back kitchen, “Whose child is that coming in my house slamming my door?

He couldn’t speak. Between being out of breath from the running and the crying and at six not yet having the words to articulate what he wanted to say, he just ran to the kitchen and sat at the table crying.

“Child, what’s wrong with you?” his grandmother asked giving him a glass of milk she started to pour as he came through the door. “Drink this, now. Calm down and tell me what’s wrong.”

The milk was cool and felt good. His words finally came back to him and he said, “They told me on the playground that my dad is not my dad!”

Grandmother knew the secret would come out someday but did not expect it would come out this way. But she took the young boy by the hand and walked him to the living room. They sat down on the couch and she squeezed him tight and said, “Boy, don’t you go listening to what those kids say to you.” She sat him on her lap and looked into his eyes saying, “Just what do you think a father is? Those kids don’t know nothing about what a father is. They are just learning some gossip about what they think a father is. A father is someone that loves you, takes care of you when you are sick, puts a band aid on your knee when you fall, feeds you, goes to work for you, sits and watches those silly cartoons you like so much. A father is someone you can look to and know that no matter what he is gonna be there for you, even when you least expect it. Do you know anybody like that?”

The young boy looked up at her and finally found his smile, “Daddy?”

“That’s right baby, your daddy does all that for you and even more you don’t know about. If those kids on the playground told you that God didn’t love you like a father loves his children, would you be running in here carrying on like this?”
“No, ma’am”

“Your father chose to love you. When he asked to marry your mother he told her “I want to love this boy like he’s my own. He’s a part of you so he is a part of me. He didn’t have to do that you know. You are blessed child. You know who your father is. Now go on in the kitchen and let’s get some cookies for that milk you left on my table.”

As the grown man retold this story, I couldn’t help but think that’s how many people see God’s grace. God chooses to love us, no matter what. God is there for us even when we don’t know it. It certainly helps me pray the Lord’s Prayer in a different way when I say, “Our Father, who art in heaven….”

Jesus’ love manifests itself as a father’s love in our text today. Here we have a man filled with so many spirits it calls itself Legion. It is ironic that it chooses to name itself after a Roman military unit. A legion is about 2,000 soldiers left to keep the peace in Roman occupied territory. Luke’s audience would have heard that there were at least 2,000 demons inside this man. But Jesus goes to this man to reclaim him, to let him know that his father knows who he is. Jesus reclaims the man and lets him know that there is one who will always be there to say, “You are my very own, no matter what others may tell you.” Jesus reclaims this man without a home and says you have a home in me, you have a home in our father.

Can you imagine? Here is this naked, homeless man. When they try to handcuff him for his own safety, he breaks away and runs into the wilds. He is so displaced that the tombs are his shelter. He lives among the dead. Do you notice something different in this encounter that Jesus has with one who is possessed? This is one of the few instances, where the person has no one coming to Jesus on their behalf. In another encounter a father comes because the demons cause his son to go into seizures. But there is no one for this man. As a matter of fact the text tells us that this man did not live in a house and when he is freed from the demons Jesus tells him to “Return to your home”. The words for house and home are the same in this Lukan passage; oikos. The translation we read helps us to understand that there is a difference between a house and a home. For this unnamed man, a house is a place to live and a home is a place to belong. Oikos doesn’t just mean house or home. It symbolizes a whole way of living. Oikos, home or house, is the place where you belong, the place where you are among the people that claim you as their own, a place where everybody knows your name. So you see the man that lives underneath the demons is a lonely man, with no one to love and no one to love him. Until Jesus comes along….

Now I would be remiss if it didn’t tell you today that scholars also interpret this encounter politically. They say that this is a metaphor for how Jesus challenges the Roman Empire. They say that even the Roman Legions are afraid the Messiah and that Jesus will send them back to where they came. Back to where they have no real power, where they can’t steal from those they have conquered, back to where they can’t use and manipulate people as they will. Back to where they are the ones stolen from, where they are used and manipulated; back home. The demons asked not to be sent to the abyss but the abyss after all is, the home of the demon in ancient mythology. So Legion does not want to go home.

Scholars say that driving the demons into the unholy swine is an insult to Roman authority by this Jewish man named Jesus and that their swift demise in the sea is a threat by Jesus to the status quo. They say that is why the people are so afraid of Jesus and ask him to leave. It is a powerful interpretation of Jesus as a resistance leader against the Empire. And it has its place in church life, teaching us to always fight for what is right, address the powers that be, to be prophetic when we speak of the consequences of wrong doing. We can indeed speak up and let those people know that we are recognized as children of the Most High God and will torment until you leave the body of the innocents we are called to protect. Yes, I rather like this resistance interpretation. It gets me fired up!

But I can’t help but go back to this man possessed, this solitary tormented soul that in its most depraved condition finds a way to reach out to Jesus. My God, my God. What a blessed assurance that Jesus is indeed ours. You see I have no doubt that when we reach out to Jesus that Jesus will reach right back out and grab our hands and pull us up from the sinking sand. I have no doubt that Jesus will step out on land and meet us right where we are, just has he met this man from Gerasene. I have no doubt when we meet him there will be no need to speak for Jesus knows all about out troubles, and that he will guide till the day is done. You see there’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus, no not one, no not one. I have no doubt that when Jesus meets us he will see us as we are and command whatever is unclean to leave us.

But the thing is, and ah here’s the catch, we have to be the ones to come to Jesus. Just as this demoniac met Jesus and fell down before him we have to be the ones to come to Jesus in prayer and humility. Do you see how Jesus works in this text? There is a whole conversation going on that is not recorded here in Luke. Just like Elijah looked for God in the wind and the earthquake, so we concentrate on finding the power of God in the casting out of demons. But there is a conversation of sheer silence going on in this text. From the moment Jesus meets this “Gerasene Demoniac” he is in conversation with the man behind the demons. He is telling that man, “Hold on just a little while longer, everything will be alright.” He is telling that man, “Hold on, help is coming.” Like a nurse in triage Jesus is keeping the unrecognizable man in touch with reality, his identity. While the team of God the Father and the Holy Spirit work on detaching the demons, fixing what is wrong, Jesus is holding that man’s hand asking him, “What is your name? Who is your family? Do you now what time it is? Can you tell me who is the author and finisher of your faith? Do you recognize the Father in me?” Can you hear the silent conversation that Jesus is having with this man’s soul while all craziness goes on about them? You see that’s what happens if we just go to meet him. I’ll go even one further, all you have to do is turn your eyes upon Jesus. Just look toward him, think on him and he will meet you the rest of the way.

Now I know in this age of technology, psychiatry, psychology, pharmacology, neurology, typology and biology we have explanations for what was once considered demonic possession. But I tell you today Legion is alive and well. They are alive in our doubts, our fears, our misgivings, our hatreds, our inability to forgive. Those demons are alive when we roll over in bed on a Sunday morning rather than going to worship with our church family. Those demons are alive and well when we hold on to the very things that we say we trust God to handle. Those demons are alive and well when we can’t be honest with ourselves about our failings, our opportunities to grow.

So the demons are met, handled and down in the bottom of the sea. The people are afraid of what’s coming next and so they eagerly asked Jesus and his followers to get back on the boat they came on and go somewhere. As my mother says, “You don’t have to go home but you have to get up out of here!” But Luke leaves us with one more thing. He leaves us with a tender moment between Jesus and this man. After these things, there is an exchange between Jesus and this man that I see in my mind’s eye. (Improvise: Close your eyes and see. See the face, the pleading eyes welled with tears, the grateful spirit.)

But Jesus tells him to return home and declare how much God had done for you. And the man goes away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. This touches my heart. In the sheer silence of their conversation, Jesus knows this man better that any of the people who have watched him suffer all those years. Jesus trusts him to keep on growing, trusts him to go and witness, trusts him to spread the good news. How powerful that must have been to this man who for so long was neither clothed nor in his right mind. Jesus said to him, “I am trusting you to grow and go”.

You see on this day, the father’s day message is simple. Do like Jesus, meet the children of God you encounter as Jesus did this day. Don’t be afraid of the silent conversations that lets them know, “Hold on. Know that I am always here with you.” As children of God we all need to hear Jesus saying, “I am trusting you to grow and go.” This Father’s day, if someone asks your child, “Do you now anybody who believes in you like this?” May all God’s children look up and answer, “Daddy.”

Thursday, June 10, 2010

I Will Always Be With You

Always, Wanting Memories
“And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20b

“But…Jesus, you already left us once. Please, don’t leave us again, please,” someone must have been thinking. Traumatized once by the death of their loved one, here are the disciples once again bereft of the Beloved, bereft of a brother, bereft of Jesus. You see here in Matthew, the writer tends to the miracle of the resurrection beautifully. But that same writer doesn’t seem to know that much about the human heart. At least in the other gospel accounts of post resurrection, Jesus walks with his followers, he talks with them. At least in the other gospels he them, “you are my own.”
But not Matthew; no in Matthew only Mary and the other Mary are blessed with a face to face encounter with an angel, only Mary and the other Mary get to see Jesus. And what a time they have! It is Jesus who greets them. It’s not that he just says hello, but he greets them excitedly, with happiness, like long lost friends. He is glad to see them. I get a kind of sublime joy when myself I think about it. To be seen by Jesus. Oh, to live a life so well that when he sees me face-to-face he will smile at me like a long lost friend.
But in Matthew’s account Jesus does not go to the others. The others must come to him. After the resurrection, they rely on the word of two Mary’s and on a rumor spreading about city that that the tomb was empty because they stole Jesus’ body. But they get up and walk. They walk the 90 miles from the city of Jerusalem to Galilee. Something inside urges them to go, even those who don’t believe go. Some go in anticipation, some go to prove the believers wrong, some go because they have nothing left to do but go.
90 miles…they go on a ninety mile journey to see…well to see what? That is long walk to think, remember, to relive the teachings and the miracles. It gives them time to think of the little things, big things. Things like how much you’ve grown in 3 years. Thinking on the things that made you laugh, made you dance, made you sing. Those moments of listening to Jesus on the temple steps, next to the columns when amongst the crowd, when it felt like he was only talking to you. Makes you think of how it all started when this man looked you in the eyes and said, “Follow me.” It is a long walk.
Have you ever embarked on a journey like that? I don’t mean a 90-mile walk, but a journey with the memories of Jesus? Walking around this city I am reminded of Matthew’s Jesus. In those times we stand alone amidst the concrete, amidst the people, and we want to be Christ’s messengers of the good news. And yet…and yet there are times when we look around us and wonder, “Where are you Jesus? How am I supposed to do this without you?” It can be so overwhelming that at times you may find yourself just sitting on a park bench and, wondering how to do this work to which we have been called.
I mean, we’ve spent time with Jesus, heard of his stories, learned his lessons, read of his miracles. But then for some reason, as you sit there wanting memories to teach you, as you bow your head in prayer and a tear falls from your eye, it hits you. Jesus, is sitting right there beside you, around you, in your very heart. You realize that Jesus is the voice that whispers all you need to hear. And as you feel the Spirit near to you as your very breath, you start to see the beauty world with your own eyes. You start to see the world as Christ saw it when he walked this earth. He saw the best it could be. Ours is a world that is struggling to love each other into right being. We have been commissioned to do great things by Jesus, if we can just put into practice the law he gave us…love one another. Wanting to live in that memory helps us see the world just a bit differently as a place with so many blessed possibilities!! As we continue to reflect, may it be so.

Video is on facebook

Saturday, May 1, 2010

enjoy

http://unionindialogue.org/hearnowinthebody/
treetops dancing with slate roof brushing seductively against the stone wall oh the dance, the seduction of spring i'm here but you can't catch me--but entice me--chilly one morning, rainy the next, promise of warm sunshine by weeks end Spring...think i'm falling for you

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

S-Curve

In North Adams, MA there is a one of the most beautiful spots in the world. Many of us have seen it on calendars during the picture for the month of September. The spot looks out over the valley beneath Mount Greylock. There is a white steepled New England church that rises just beyond the multi-colored treetops. Oranges are spectacular, reds are resilient, yellows are zipping through the scene.
When you drive that road, you get to a point and see a restaurant in view. Hairpin curve....that is the s curve in the road that turns you around so that you can keep ascending the mountain. But that restaurant has a parking lot where you can stop to just say, "I am now in that calendar shot!!!"
Nothing really profound here, just stopping to notice that I am in the s curve of the hairpin right now! What a view....but wow, look up, look up, there is the mountaintop. But there is so far to go and so much to see in between!