A Deceptive Philosophy

Hosea 1: 2-10
Colossians 2: 6-15

Have you ever heard the phrase, "That boy (or girl) was raised right."? It's an expression we use for people who have been taught manners, courtesy, gentleness, and respect. They are what some refer to as the old-fashioned values and as the years go by it seems like less and less of our people have the same values that the previous generations had.

When and how being respectful and kind went out of style is debatable, but it appears the whole country has been infected with this distorted sense of right and wrong. It comes from not being grounded and rooted in Jesus Christ. The writer of Colossians comes out and tells us what is wrong with today's society as a whole. We have swallowed a deceptive philosophy. We have allowed our traditions and values to be eroded in the face of technological advances and immediate access to news and information.

Sometimes it seems like the more we know about the world, the less we truly understand about it. We hear about a tragedy such as the Trayvon Martin case and everyone chooses a side and defends that side to the death with hearsay. Although the information is available, we have been exposed to so much information that we have allowed ourselves to be told what to think by our news channels and newspapers and our fellow facebook friends. We listen to the 30 second sound-bite instead of watching the three hour court interview and think we are educated on the subject.

Can you imagine how Jesus would have been portrayed in today's news media? With his long hair, white robe, and sandals he would have been pronounced a hippie or a new ager. With the radical words of forgiveness in the face of great pain, he would have been called a liberal anarchist. With his talk of love and commitment to God and country; he would have been called an old-fashioned conservative. The media would have had a field day with Jesus! They never would have been able to pin him down and so therefore he'd probably be considered wishy-washy in his opinions despite the overall theme of love, forgiveness, and acceptance that is the basis of everything he talks about in the New Testament.

They would have decimated his mother Mary for being unwed when getting pregnant with him. They would have made Joseph seem like a savior or a fool for marrying her and knowing the baby wasn't his own. They would have interviewed his siblings and looked for all of his weaknesses and all of his strengths. The media would have destroyed Jesus' family and privacy. A man who rarely got any of that to begin with would have had all of his peace taken from him if he had lived in today's time.

And we allow it. We gobble up the gossip magazines and we turn on the reality tv. We choose our news stations and defend its obvious bias toward one affiliation or another to the death. We no longer want news that shows both sides of the story equally. We no longer want the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We have become conditioned to a deceptive philosophy that everything there is to know can be told to us in short clips and news articles, and we now have enough information to form an opinion on someone we've never met and a situation in another country that we have never experienced.

Our old-fashioned values about courtesy and respect do not seem to hold any weight when we're busy making judgments about people and situations that we only know the bare bones about. Jesus encountered a woman one day, a Canaanite woman and as they talked, he basically called her a dog. His own Jewish bred bias' were showing through in that moment, he was after all, both fully human and fully divine. He had limitations just as we do.

The difference is that Jesus knew when to admit to defeat and he knew how to admit he was wrong. Think about that. God knows when to say, "I'm sorry, that was wrong of me." The proof is in the story of the Canaanite woman. Jesus just finishes saying, "I came only to feed the lost sheep of Israel. It is not right to feed the children's bread to the dogs." and she responds with, "Even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master's table!" It is in that moment that Jesus realizes he has done the wrong thing. He has allowed what was probably a long, hot day to keep him from seeing this woman as a sister and instead he allows his Jewish upbringing to raise a fence between them.

However, faithful people do not allow things like fences to keep them from the truth. This woman's faith allows her to humble herself before Jesus, knowing that it is only he that may save her daughter's life. In her humility, she makes Jesus aware of his excessive pride and in that moment Jesus sees that faith in God can be found in every human being no matter their station, their gender, their creed, their color, or their orientation. Faith is not something we just have but is a gift granted by God and cemented through the works and word of Jesus Christ.

This Canaanite woman had faith in a benevolent God who loved all of God's creation including some little woman and her sick daughter. Her faith reminded Jesus of his mission on earth. And her faith should remind us that we cannot think to know the world just because we have read about it. We do not know the people in the Gaza Strip and we do not know the people in Egypt. We do not know if Zimmerman or Martin or perhaps both of them were the culprits that night. However, we hear things and we decide that we have the ability to judge the situation and we stick to our decision with tenacity.

What we need to remember is that every media source has a bias and an agenda. They are appealing to a certain group of people in what they air and how they portray it. If we do not expose ourselves to more news sources we end up with a biased viewpoint.  Jesus shows us that. The writer in Colossians warns us against being so narrow-minded and also reminds us that truth comes from one source - God.

We need to ground ourselves in our love for Jesus Christ. We take too much comfort and pride in the things we think we know and how educated we think we are about the world. What I'm here to tell you is that we know nothing until we have lived it and experienced it. We do not know the hunger and desperation of the people in Gaza and how they may not be Hamas, but secretly they understand why Hamas does what it does since they all have been shut off from the world and resources and opportunities. We do not know what is like to be under a militant regime despite our grumblings that America has fallen downhill, and some people's thinking that the politicians are trying to take away all of our freedoms. The truth of the matter is that in the United States we have the power to fight back if that is true. Whether we choose to exercise that right or not doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

And therefore we have NO idea what it is like to live in a country where to rebel means your family is slaughtered while you are thrown in prison for life. We have no idea what is like to live in Mexico with the cartels and the poverty and how desperately the people dream for a better life and so they come to America. Instead we talk about how it's a mess down there and we need to put up some fences to keep those people away from us. Like America wasn't started with the same dreams those Mexican men and women are using to make their way here.

We allow ourselves to become deceived by human perceptions and limitations. We forget God. We forget Jesus. We forget the Holy Spirit's guidance. We forget to be kind, gentle, respectful and courteous, those old-fashioned values we love seeing in others, but forget to use ourselves at times. It's time we get back to praying for people instead of judging and gossiping about them. It's time for us to show understanding and compassion instead of indifference and a lack of empathy. Every person we meet has a story that began long before we ever heard of them. We need to pay attention to the whole story and not just the 30 second clip we've seen so far before we make a decision about them.

We have hurt too many people by being hasty. Thankfully, Jesus shows us the way toward redemption and salvation. May we learn how to follow his ways.

Amen.

Are We Martha or Mary?

Amos 8: 1-12
Luke 10: 38-42

When Jesus decided to drop in on Martha and her sister Mary, Martha’s first impulse was to get something going in the kitchen. In doing this, she was being faithful to the tradition of hospitality begun long ago when Father Abraham welcomed three guests into his tent. Just as Abraham turned to Sarah to assist with the duties of hospitality, Martha expected Mary to do the same. Martha’s expectations did not include Mary’s plopping down on the rug at Jesus’ feet and leaving all the work for her.

That is however, exactly what her sister did. Mary was in no hurry to come into the kitchen. While Martha was flipping through cookbooks, boiling the water, chopping up the vegetables, and setting the table for three, Mary settled down at the feet of their friend and guest, attentive to what he was saying. In fact, by sitting at Jesus’ feet, Mary had taken the posture of a disciple. Who could blame Martha for banging a few pots and putting the plates on the table with steady thumps?

Perhaps Jesus heard the bustling around back there and, after a while, even the muttering. Martha was not a person who kept her feelings under a tight lid. Since Jesus was pretty sharp at gauging what was going on in people’s hearts, he knew what the muttering was all about, long before Martha’s frustration exploded into words, but he waited until Martha spoke.

“Lord,” Martha began, “don’t you care..” showing that Mary wasn’t the only one under scrutiny here – “don’t you care” she repeated, and then the gaze fell on her sister Mary, “that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?”

As a matter of fact, Jesus did not care. I like to think he smiled when he said, “Martha, dear friend, you are worried and distracted by many things.” This is an important moment to notice in the story. He is not going after Busy Martha, but Worried and Distracted Martha. He is speaking to his dear friend Martha, who has worked herself into a state of anxious distraction over the meal she wanted to have for him. She has focused her frustration not only on her sister but now also on her friend and guest, and lost sight of the one she significantly calls “Lord”. Jesus is gently calling her to refocus. Hospitality is not primarily about the food because what is more important is the focus on the guest and making them feel welcome and cared about.

Mary has chosen to focus on her connection to God who is the good in the world. Through Jesus we act with effectiveness and are grounded in love and compassion. You see, Martha has become so distracted in being hospitable that she has forgotten her guest and began to concentrate solely on her own needs and desires. As she prepares the meal, without any help from her sister, she begins to resent her sister and Jesus too. She resents the work she is putting in, and the hot kitchen that is making her sweat and ruining her hair and staining her clothes while Mary and Jesus sit comfortably talking in the other room.

In trying to make Jesus welcome, Martha inadvertently does the opposite with her distracted busyness. Mary has taken the time to ask their guest to sit down and put his feet up. She has inquired about his journey and all the people he has met along the way. She has taken the time to connect to Jesus and allow him to feel comfortable in their home. Martha has forgotten to take the time to connect with her guest before she began to get busy.

Now what can that tell us about our lives in the church? First of all, each of us has a role to fulfill. Some of us are excellent listeners while others of us are fabulous behind the scenes. We need to appreciate what each of us can do and not take it for granted. However, it is also a reminder to each of us that sometimes we get so focused on a problem or so caught up in that we have guests that we begin to scramble around to prepare a meal or get them comfortable, and we have forget to take a moment to connect with them.

We see this most especially in struggling churches when a new person arrives. Suddenly, the person is swarmed with people that want to show them the best places to sit and to show them the wonderful nursery in case they have children and the fellowship hall where all the pictures are and they are so caught up in doing that they forget to listen. Churches also do that with their programs and committees. If there is a problem we can address it by creating a new program! Or let’s have a meeting about it! Or better yet, let’s form a committee that is a subcommittee of that other committee.

We get frazzled and nervous and anxious and distracted, so we begin to do things. We run around with our arms in the air as our feet move us from place to place and our minds spin with words and grumbles and complaints. We become just like Martha when we need to be like Mary. There will be time for action soon enough. Sometimes the best thing we as a church and as individuals can do is to step back and do nothing. Sit down beside your guest and listen to where they have come from and where they are heading. Sit down and discuss with the people having the problem in our church and see what might be done before trying to do it. Listen and connect instead of acting without thought.

We need to reconnect. As a church and as people we need to stop doing things all the time and instead take a moment to listen. What does this church want for its future? What do you want for your life? How are we keeping ourselves and our church close to Jesus? Are we praying enough? Are we reading scripture and meditating on it? Are we praying several times a day and during our meetings and creating opportunities to talk about what we have learned?

Jesus rebukes Martha when she comes to him asking if he cares because of course Jesus cares about Martha and what she is feeling, but he does not care about the food she is preparing. That is just busy work. Jesus wants Martha to take time to be with him; to laugh and love with him instead of running around grumbling. Jesus knows his time on earth is precious and finite, just as our time on earth is precious and finite.

This summer we have been asked to take some time and listen to our hearts and listen to the people outside these walls of the church before we begin any major changes to what we do here. First, we must LISTEN to our community if we want to be able to CONNECT with them. We cannot assume we know what they need because other churches have tried that and failed. Now is our time to prove that we can stop with the distracted busyness and instead take a moment to talk and laugh and connect with the people we want to invite into our church home.

Grange Fair is coming up soon. That is a time when the whole community comes together to enjoy the fair and each other. That is a great time to start listening and asking questions of the people around you. It’s a great time to bring up how Trinity is making some changes and wants feedback. Ask your children that do not come often and ask your cousin who has never been here. Ask your neighbor who seems spiritual but never attends church. What would it take to make them come here? What is the most important thing they want from a church?

As a church that wants to welcome new people into it consistently, we need to stop running around grumbling and instead take a moment to listen. What does the outside world want from Trinity? What do we want for the outside world? And most important of all – what does God want for all of us?

Amen

Rediscovering Sam's Story

Amos 7: 7-17
Luke 10: 25-37

How many of you have heard the parable of the Good Samaritan more often than any other story in the Bible?

It is one of the most popular parables, and for a good reason. If we are looking for the heart of the Gospel message; if we want to know what is important to Jesus – this story tells us everything we need to know in 12 short verses. The problem is that we know it too well. It has lost some of its power because of how many times we have heard it spoken to us and to others.

When 9/11 occurred we were all shocked and horrified. We never thought anything like this could happen and there were movies made and songs written about how we will always remember this tragedy and where we were when it happened. Before 9/11 I used to hear about when JFK was assassinated; where my mom was at the moment she found out and how horrible it was to hear. But after awhile, although we do remember the impact 9/11 and the JFK assassination had upon us, it no longer shocks and wounds us. Time and the retelling of the story, reliving the memories take away the sharpness of the emotions we first experienced.

The same can be true of certain well-known passages in the bible. They become so familiar to us and so comfortable that we no longer hear them with the same intensity we did the first couple times we listened to them. What is there left to learn from the story of the Good Samaritan? We know everything we could possibly have learned from previous times of hearing it. There is nothing new here. Right?

Wrong. Instead of telling you a feel good story about a Samaritan who sees a man beaten up on the road and selflessly gives his time and money to making him well when not even a clergy person could be bothered, I want to tell you a different story.

I want to tell you a story about a man named Sam who was having a bad day. He woke up late for work, his boss yelled at him when he got there and docked his pay which means his children will go hungry tonight, and as he is walking home he can feel blisters forming on his heels from his new sandals. Sam is not a happy man. He’s hurting, he’s tired, and he just wants to get home and put his feet up, and forget this day ever happened.

How many of us can relate to Sam? I sure can. We’ve all had those kinds of bad days and it always seems like at the end of such a day, something else is bound to go wrong. Sure enough, Sam stops at the top of the mountain road to adjust his sandals upon his aching feet, and he watches a scene unfold before him. There is a clergy man walking down the road and he stops for a moment when he comes to a bundle of rags heaped on the side of the road. The clergy stoops over and looks at this heap of rags for a moment before looking around wildly. Sam watches as the clergy then looks up at the sky before deliberately skirting right by the bundle.

Sam thought that was odd. What was the big deal about some old clothes by the side of the road? He kept walking and as he did he saw another man, a Levite from the look of his clothes which is a man of great learning of Jewish law from the priestly tribe of Israel. This man also comes upon the bundle and stops for a moment. The Levite looks at the bundle, nudges it with his foot, and then jumps back before practically running down the road. How odd, Sam thinks.

Now Sam is much closer and he is very curious about what is beside the road. As he approaches he thinks he sees it move. This mystery has completely distracted Sam from his bad day. He is caught up in the moment. When Sam is beside the bundle of rags he realizes it is not what he thought at all, but a man badly beaten and bleeding. He was huddled into a ball like people do when they are seriously hurt or in pain. The ragged, bleeding man suddenly groans and Sam hears, “Help me.”

Sam has a choice. He could step back and pretend he never heard those words, and keep walking to his house where his wife would have a drink and dinner waiting for him, or he could help the man.

Let us take a step back for a moment and ask ourselves what we would do.

We just heard that a man who has promised to be God’s faithful, loving servant has passed this man by. We know that a Levite, a man from the priestly tribe and well versed in Jewish law has also walked away from the bleeding man. We know that the man is half dead and therefore whoever hurt him means business. What if they come back to finish the job and see us helping him and decide to hurt us as well? What if we help the man and he dies anyway? What if we help the man and we get blamed for his half dead state and end up in prison? It seems like no matter how we look at it, staying to help this guy is going to cause us nothing but trouble. It’s already been a bad day; why allow this man who was stupid enough to get beaten up and almost killed to ruin the rest of it?

We should walk on by. Just like the clergy and Levite guys. No one will know. No one will care. We’re Samaritans, this man is a Jew. We’re not friendly. We’re not allies. This man would spit on us if he was healthy. We should leave. Now.

Sam thought all of these things - just like we would think most of them. When we take a story we’ve heard many times before and reduce it to, “The Samaritan helped his enemy and we should be like him” we lose the power of the story. We forget the sacrifices being made. We lose the ability to sympathize with the Samaritan, with Sam.

Many of the choices we make in our lives are easy. No, I’m not going to run that stop sign. Yes, I’m going to feed my children today. No, I’m not going to eat that piece of pie. Every now and then, though, life throws us a curve ball. We’re going about our day and suddenly, we hear voices raised and then a thud and a crash. We come running out of our house or workplace to see someone beating another person with a baseball bat. No one else is around and it’s up to us. Do we help or do we pretend we saw nothing? Helping means sacrifice. It means possibly getting mixed up in something we don’t want to be mixed up in. Helping may bring harm to our body, our mind, our life, and our family’s life.

A few weeks ago, there was a man who saw a little girl drowning in a river. Instinct kicked in and the man dove into the river to save the little girl. The river was not deep and he hit his head and broke his neck, paralyzing him from the neck down. A couple weeks later, he died in the hospital with his family by his side. This is a true story. There is risk in being a hero. There is a cost to be paid. Sometimes we know what the cost is and sometimes we do not.

Sam chose to help the bleeding man. He picked him up and carried him upon his aching back with his blistered feet to the inn. He paid for food, lodging, and medicine. Then he promised to come back and pay for anything extra the man needed before going home to his family. Sam didn’t have the money to be able to do that, but he did it anyway. Not because it was just about being a good person. Not because the man muttered help me. Not because he watched two other men walk away. Sam helped because he saw himself in that ragged, bleeding man.

For the briefest moment, all those doubts and fears that were filling Sam’s mind cleared and he saw a human being in need, and he saw how easily that could be him laying there dying along the side of the road. Who would help Sam if this had been him? Who will help you when you wreck your car or when a fire begins in the basement of the house or when you’re getting robbed by gunpoint?

The people that help are the ones that do not see the differences in each of us. The people that make a difference are the ones that do not let doubts and fears keep them from being responsible citizens. These people are the ones who hope that if that was them laying there bleeding, someone would have compassion for them. They hope that another will see the human being and not their skin color or the way they dress or their accent or choice of sexual partner.

Jesus reminds us that we are not only called to pray for others, but to have mercy upon them. Mercy requires sacrifice and forgiveness and love. Sam the Samaritan stopped his internal monologue of complaints about his crappy day and his crappy life to see the pain of someone else. He allowed someone else’s hurt to be more important than his own. He sacrificed his happiness and well being to make another comfortable and protected.

It’s not something we like to hear, but that is what Christianity is about. It means sacrificing our own happiness, health, and well-being when we see someone in need. Jesus did it for us, and now we do it for others. That is what it means to be a Good Samaritan.

Amen. 

Jesus' Expectations

2Kings2: 1-2, 6-14

Luke 9:  51-62

What do you want from your church? What do you expect from your fellow church members and your pastor? What do you expect from your community?

We all have expectations and desires for the way we want things to go here. Some we can make happen, and others may never happen. Today in Luke we read about the cost of following Jesus, and how sometimes Jesus shows us that our expectations are not his expectations. We read about how a whole community rejected Jesus not because of what he taught, not because of how he looked, not because of who others had proclaimed him to be, but because his face was turned toward Jerusalem and they were against all the people that lived there. The Samaritans and the Jews were not always friendly with each other. They had major divides in their religious beliefs that kept them from seeing each other as people; people with something to offer.

Jesus and his disciples approach this community and at first they walked in to a friendly crowd. Then someone asked them where they had been and where they were headed next. As soon as the words, “We’re on our way to Jerusalem” came out of the men’s mouths, the people shut down. They turned and walked away. Nothing mattered except that this man and his disciples were headed to a completely different place than the Samaritans thought they should be headed.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Who do we turn away from because of where we think they are headed? Who do we treat with less respect than they deserve because of what we believe about them? How are we failing to be Jesus Christ to those that walk a different path than us?

The disciples were angry at the immediate rejection of Jesus by the people. They looked to each other and they began to grumble like people do. Then they began to gather in groups of two or three to share their complaints about these awful, rude Samaritans. Finally, all of them were feeling hurt and betrayed and upset so they turn to Jesus and say, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven and destroy them?”

That’s some serious hurt the disciples are feeling. In the three years they have been with Jesus they have learned tolerance and love from him when everyone else wants to stone sinners and throw Jesus off cliffs for daring to teach with authority. They have learned how patient Jesus is with those who do not understand his message, they have heard his wisdom over and over again. Yet, when faced with these rude people who have hurt their pride, everything inside of the disciples rebels against what Jesus has taught them for three years. They want retribution. They want vengeance. They want to hurt these people as much as they have been hurt!

Sound familiar? People who have not grown up or worked in a church have no idea how things go behind the scenes. The truth is there is a lot more dysfunction IN the church than there is outside of it. Perhaps because we don’t want to offend people and so we quietly complain about what Ms. Susie is teaching in her classroom or about Old Al who always snores in the back pew. We talk about how Clarise is mad at the pastor for something, but won’t tell the pastor because she doesn’t want to make waves, but she’ll tell everyone else that will listen so that eventually – the pastor WILL find out. We gossip about how Albert and June have joined this committee or that committee, but never show up. We complain about how we can’t get volunteers and about who hasn’t come to church lately and why that might be.

Then the quiet murmurs and gossip become something much bigger; it goes from two or three complaining to the whole church. The grumblings become louder, the complaints more forceful and it all becomes the cause of hurt and frustration as people act out against each other. They turn away from each other because they think they know where that person is coming from and they don’t need to hear anymore. We stop listening. We stop caring. We stop being Christians and instead become petty, hurt people. The disciples allowed their hurt for the way they and Jesus were treated to make them petty, mean people.

They truly wanted those villagers to suffer. Raining down fire is serious business! It will hurt the people’s homes; it will kill livestock and destroy the peace in the community, and may even kill the people themselves. The disciples didn’t care about the havoc they would create if Jesus said yes to their suggestion. All they could see in that moment of hurt and anger was that they had been treated disrespectfully and they were NOT going to stand for it! This was the last straw! No longer will these people treat them with ignorance because they would demand respect by terrorizing them.

It’s easy to feel superior as we read this story and think we would never be so hasty to hurt someone because of the way they treated us, but I want you to take a moment and think. Look back at this last week, at this last month, at your whole life. Have you never hit out because you’ve been hit? Have you never said awful words about someone, true or not, because of how they have hurt you? Have you never done anything that has caused another pain because you decided they deserved to be hurt?

We pass judgment on others constantly. We pretend that because we come to church we are more enlightened and more caring. It’s not always truth though. The truth is that we are just as human as those disciples and sometimes things get to be too much and we strike back. We retaliate and we escalate the problem further with our actions.

Jesus reminds us that this is not the way we are to behave and it is not the way the church is to behave. He rebukes the disciples for their thoughts and angry words and then simply walks to the next village where they would be received warmly. That village lost out that day, not Jesus or the twelve! Jesus would have come to them and taught them the word of God. He would have healed their illnesses and removed their infirmities. He would have cast out demons and blessed their homes. But because all they could see is that he was headed to a place they hated, they turned away from all the goodness and blessing he offered them.

Jesus teaches us that we are often too hasty with our judgments and because we judge so harshly we miss out on so much while causing more problems for ourselves. We do it in our private lives and we do it here at church. We judge and condemn, and then we exact retribution. Jesus shows us that if we would forgive those that have hurt us and simply walk away from them, that we not only are the better people for it, but the one that hurt us are left without a foot to stand on.

As soon as we hit back, we give the person who hurt us justification for their actions. We give them leverage and the ability to keep hurting us. If we ignore them, if we forgive them, if we talk about it with them – we take the power away from them, and put it back into our own hands. We are in charge of our destiny. We are in charge of how we behave. There will come a day when we all stand before the Lord and we will look back at our life. Jesus will turn to you and ask, “Why did you do this?” and how, HOW will you justify the way you acted and reacted to those around you?

Think about when your children and grandchildren stood before you when they had fought with their brother or sister, or done something wrong, and you asked them “Why?”. I want you to think about their responses. The sullen look, the pout on their face as they mutter, “Well, SHE started it!” or “I didn’t mean to do it!” is that what you will say to Jesus? Is that how you will justify treating others with disrespect and making them hurt? Or will you stand there silent and humiliated because you knew better but couldn’t control yourself despite the many years you sat in these pews listening about love and forgiveness? Are you so different from the disciples who stood beside Jesus day after day, and couldn’t see past their indignation to remember the lessons he had taught?

I understand how hurt becomes anger and anger becomes bitterness. I understand how hard it is to walk away from those that have hurt you. I’m not always good at it myself, but Jesus unequivocally tells us that is what he wants us to do. Walk away and let Jesus do the judging. That person will also stand before Jesus and have to justify how they hurt YOU. Remember that and take comfort that you do not need your retribution today, that Jesus is the great equalizer. He makes us all equal and therefore that person’s day will come to be judged and they will be sentenced. Do not hurt others just because you have been hurt. Do not reign fire down upon those who would turn you away because of who and what you are.

Do not be like them. Be like Jesus.

Amen.

Judge Not, Lest You be Judged

Galatians 2:15-21
Luke 7:36 – 8:3

Hospitality. Love. Forgiveness. Grace.

Each of these can be found in this story of Simon, Jesus, and the sinful woman. These are all things we need throughout our lives and they are what Jesus offers to us and asks us to offer to others as well.

The story begins with the need to eat. We all need food to survive, and it was a well known practice in ancient times to offer hospitality to the visiting travelers, especially the ones that were well known. Jesus is invited to come for a meal at Simon the Pharisee’s home. This suggests that Simon was not completely against Jesus and his teachings like many of the Pharisees were and it tells us that Simon wanted to get to know Jesus better. What better way than through a nice, civilized dinner?

As Jesus is sitting at Simon’s table, dusty and weary from the long day of walking, healing, and preaching a woman slowly approaches. We only know a little bit about this woman. She heard that Jesus had arrived in town and where he was eating his meal. We know that she is a sinful woman and that everyone in town knows she is sinful. We have no idea what makes her sinful. Some have read this text and suggested she was a prostitute. I disagree. The bible has no trouble calling a woman a prostitute when that is her profession, but the writer does not do that here.

What we do know is that whatever this woman’s sin is; it is public and known by everyone. How awful that must have been! In a society that reveres lawfulness and purity, to be known as an openly sinful person must have been agony. It immediately made her an outcast and despised. No clean person would want to be around her and that would mean she’d have trouble supporting herself. Every day she would have been cursed at, perhaps spit upon, looked on with contempt and superiority by the others that lived in the town. She was unclean. She was unworthy. She was beneath their notice.

Perhaps that is why she was able to successfully get so close to Jesus. No one wants to notice the outcasts, the lowly ones in society in case it brings attention to themselves and their lives. When a person deliberately pays attention to the least among us, they bring unwanted scrutiny and gossip to their own life. They may even be made an outcast themselves and so it was imperative to ignore those people and to treat them harshly when they came near.

Who are the outcasts in our society? Who are the people you think of with utter contempt and disgust? Don’t pretend there isn’t some person or group of people that you cannot stand. Be honest with yourself and with God. Let’s go through the hot topics of our society. Illegal aliens. Welfare users and abusers. Government officials. Muslims. Gay people. Fat people. The Rich. The Poor. Models. Criminals.  Reality tv stars. Wall Street workers. Black people. Latinos and Hispanics. Japanese and Chinese people. The woman that always wins the blue ribbon and you come in second. The man that always gets promoted ahead of you. We have biases toward others. There are people we cannot stand and we treat them as Simon and that town treated the sinful woman – as beneath our notice and deserving of our contempt.

Finally, the sinful woman gets close enough to Jesus that she can actually touch him. She probably meant to take her jar of perfume and anoint his head which is the normal custom. However, she is overcome with tears. No one has ever treated her with kindness and respect, but Jesus does. No one has ever looked past her sins and seen the real woman, and cared. Jesus did. No one had ever forgiven her for her mistakes, no one had ever shown her a different way to be – but Jesus does and did.

Because of the way the tables are low to the floor, Jesus’ feet were the closest thing to her and her tears fell upon his dirty feet. The traditional custom when you invite a person into your home is to offer them water to wash their feet because it is a dusty land and sandals offer little protection. Simon had not seen to Jesus’ comfort. Simon was too busy judging Jesus and the woman to heed such a simple hospitality that shows respect and caring.

Put yourself in that woman’s place. She cannot stop crying, the tears are falling so fast that she literally takes her hair down and is now able to bath Jesus’ feet with her tears of gratitude. Then she kisses his feet, over and over again, before taking the costly jar of perfume and anoints his feet with it. That perfume may have cost her her next week of meals, but she takes it and she pours it upon him. She shows the hospitality and love that Simon had forgotten while he was busy judging everyone around him as inferior.

Who are we forgetting to help and love and accept because we’re so busy judging them as sinful? Who are we to consider another person more sinful than us? Do you never do anything wrong? Have you never done something you’re ashamed of and if anyone found out you’d be humiliated? Are you without sin? Are your sins less than another person’s that you can judge them so completely and without mercy? Would you want the world to know your sins and judge you that way?

Jesus understood what the woman was going through and he allowed her to show her love and appreciation for his mercy. Jesus knew what Simon was thinking and he had a message for him and for all of us that would think to judge other people. He tells Simon that there were two people who were given money by a lender. One had been loaned a little bit of money and the other a lot, but neither of them could pay the man back. The man graciously forgave both loans. Jesus asks, “Who do you think is more grateful?”

“The one who was forgiven a lot.” Simon replied. And Jesus nods his head and tells Simon, “Whoever has been forgiven little, loves little.” In other words, those of us that think we are better than others have not the capacity for love like the ones that know they are sinful and have been forgiven. In other words, those people who constantly forgive others for their waywardness, for their sinfulness know God’s love more than those of us that keep judging people because of what little we know about their lives.

None of us are perfect. We make many mistakes. The biggest one we make is our inability to see that there is no such thing as a saint. The contempt and disgust we bring upon others hurts them. It makes them feel less than they should. It is not love. It is not acceptance. It is not forgiveness. Therefore, it is not being a Christian. Jesus Christ is the only saint this world has ever known. Jesus Christ never judged a person based upon their sins, but on their willingness to change. He showed them a better way to live and he helped them to be better.

Do not judge others. Do not look down upon anyone because you do not want Jesus to look down upon you. What we should be doing is trying to help those people we have kept down. We should be trying to lift them up and show them the love and mercy that Jesus constantly shows us.

You may think you have legitimate reasons for being disgusted with another person or a group of people, but Jesus has just as much reason to be disgusted with you. The beauty of the Gospel is that he isn’t disgusted. Jesus loves you with all of his heart, with all of his soul, and with all of his mind. Jesus loves that person you hate - just as much, whether you like it or not.

The truth is that Jesus died for the whole world. We are called to share that good news and make sure to give everyone as many second chances as they need so that they get to heaven too. Whether we get along with them or not. Whether we agree with them or not. We are called to share that Gospel with them. We are called to share God’s love and forgiveness with them. Do not judge unless you’re willing to be judged yourself.

Amen. 

Come Out of the Wilderness

1Kings 17: 8-24
Luke 7: 11-17

Elijah is in the middle of the wilderness when he hears God’s voice telling him to go to Zarephath. Considering the country is in the middle of a drought, Elijah had to be excited to be told to get out of the heat despite the ravens that had been bringing him bread and meat while he was out there. The wilderness is a scary place to be, and when God takes us to such places, we are often there to learn something. Usually it is about depending on God for what we have been trying to do alone.

Elijah hears God’s voice and it says to go to this town that is in the country of Queen Jezebel who Elijah happened to be at odds with at the time. Elijah couldn’t have been too happy to hear that he was about to enter an enemy’s home turf, and then on top of that he is told to go see a widow. This wouldn’t have been welcome news if the country hadn’t been in drought, but it was even less welcome now.

Widows were powerless people. Without a man to give her societal status, Elijah knew she would have very little to offer him in the way of comfort and sustenance in normal times, and even less during a drought. Elijah was probably tempted to stay in the wilderness with the ravens. There he knew what he was dealing with; he could handle the wilderness because he had been doing it for some time. This new journey God was leading him on just might be his death.

We understand what Elijah is going through in this moment. Think about where you are in your life right now. What is it that has been giving you problems lately? Are you going through a wilderness experience just like Elijah and Moses and Abraham have gone through? The wilderness is a place of struggle and testing. Wilderness experiences strip you of all of your defenses and leave you vulnerable and hurting. They force you to adapt and change. They require you to learn from your past mistakes so that you may move forward to something new and better. And until you learn to do that, you will stay in that place of struggle and hurting.

Sometimes though, we want to stay. Not because we like being miserable and not because we are having fun in these places. No, we want to stay because we know this place. We are familiar with the pains and the hurts and the struggles. We know how to navigate through these particular problems because they have plagued us our whole life in different ways.

For some of us, we love too easily and get our hearts broken. For some of us, we have been hurt so much that we doubt every person’s real intentions. For some of us, the wilderness is a place where we walk in circles like Moses and the Israelites, trying something new and making the same mistakes over and over again - perhaps in our work or our relationships or with our friends and family. Some of us are desperate to be accepted and so we pretend to be things we aren’t to get friends and lovers. Some of us refuse to trust and so we deliberately alienate ourselves from those who could hurt us. Some of us pick partners that hurt us emotionally or physically because we think we do not deserve any better. Some of us find jobs and careers that we know will keep us busy so we do not have to go home at night.

Every person in this room has a wilderness that they continually come back to. There is something in your life where you struggle and hurt and constantly return too. God does not leave us alone during these times. God sends us our own ravens to help us be fed and sheltered. And God also continually calls to us; trying to bring us out of this desert and back into a healthy life.

Sometimes we are so deep in our misery that we do not hear God’s voice. Sometimes we deliberately ignore that voice because we’re scared. We’re scared that as bad as it is right now, what the future holds will be worse if we move on. If we let go of what has been holding us back, we have to move forward and moving forward means change. Change is scary. Change can hurt, matter of fact, it often hurts.

What if it is worse than what we are going through now? What if we decide to leave our abusive spouse and end up homeless or with someone that is even worse than he or she ever was? What if we leave our job that makes us miserable and the place we end up is twice as bad? What if we go back to school and when we graduate we cannot get a job? What if we stop hounding our grandkids to come to church and they never again step through these doors? What if we take out that loan and cannot pay it? What if we have that surgery and it makes things worse?

Fear holds us captive in the wilderness. Fear paralyzes all of our good intentions and leaves us drowning in our current misery; trying to be content with what little we have in our lives. Let me remind you of something. Jesus never minded when the disciples doubted his words, what made Jesus absolutely furious was their fear. Doubt is healthy because it keeps us cautious, and helps us think and grow. Fear stops all growth. Fear stops all faith. Fear reduces us to nothing if we let it. Fear will keep us going around in circles, constantly miserable and constantly hurting.

Is that what you want?

It isn’t want Elijah wanted. When he hears God’s voice calling him to go to the place of his enemies and to a widow’s home, he went. I’m sure he grumbled and drug his feet, but Elijah went. When he got there it was even worse than he feared. The widow was gathering sticks to make the last of the bread she had so her son and her could die. She had given up all hope of living.

Elijah must have been ready to scream at God for bringing him to such a hopeless place, but he looks at this poor widow and he says, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and make your meal as you were going to, but first make me a small loaf of bread, and bring it to me. The Lord God will not let the jar of flour or the jug of oil to go dry until rain falls upon this land.”

Elijah’s worst fears, our worst fears seem to be realized when he comes upon this woman making her last meal. God has brought us out of the wilderness only to die in the enemy’s land! What trickery is this?! But Elijah summons up his faith; the faith that had brought him here to begin with, and he tells the woman and most likely himself to not be afraid.

Where God leads us is where we are meant to be. If God calls you to a new place or to something new it is because there is something for you there. It does not mean it will be easier than what came before, but it does mean that God will be faithful to you as you have been faithful to God. Elijah and the widow and her son do not go hungry. The jug of oil and the jar of flour are never depleted. Every morning there is enough to feed them. It wasn’t a feast, but it kept them nourished. God kept the promises made to them both.

God will keep the promises that were made to you. Listen to your heart. Truly listen. What is God telling you to do? Where is God telling you to go? What is God telling you to give up so that you may be free to accept something new? Open your mind to the possibilities and accept that although it may not be easy, God will not abandon you. If you remain faithful to God’s voice; you will be exactly where you are meant to go. You will be doing exactly what you are meant to be doing. Don’t let your fears paralyze you. Don’t let your fears reduce you to a shadow of who you really are and the person God sees when looking at you. 

Come out of the wilderness. God is calling for you.

Amen. 

Idol Worship

1 Kings 18: 20-39

 Galatians 1: 1-12

If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal is God, follow him.

Elijah throws down a gauntlet on this day to all the people who have been worshiping the god Baal because of the drought that had surrounded the land for the last three years. The Israelites were fed up with the drought and decided to follow King Ahab and Queen Jezebel’s lead and began to worship their gods in the hope that these additional prayers to another god would bring on rain to their parched land.

However, what they ended up doing is making the Lord very mad. Elijah comes to the King and Queen and asks them to assemble the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah to Mount Carmel. Elijah had a plan, and it was inspired by God. When all the prophets and the people of Israel had come up to Mt Carmel, Elijah stood before them and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal is God, follow him.”

For Elijah it was that simple, however it was not so simple to the people. Drought is hard. It makes food scarce and fires rage; it brings doubt and heartache to everyone. If God loves the people so much, why is the Lord letting them suffer like this? Perhaps it is better to worship all the gods in the hope one of them will answer since the Lord seems rather quiet lately in response to all our prayers.

Does this sound familiar?

I’ve prayed and prayed to God about this and I never hear a thing back. Is Jesus really listening? Does God care at all about me and my problems? Is Jesus busy helping someone else and doesn’t have time for me? Maybe I should stop praying and do whatever I have to do to fix the problem on my own.

We’re not so different from the people of Israel. We get fed up with God’s perceived silences as well. We turn to other things to help us cope with our problems, with our issues, with our troubles. We call it being logical and practical and sensible. Elijah wants nothing to do with the practical and logical and sensible. He has ultimate faith in the Lord and he assembles all of the prophets and the people to witness what the difference is between gods like Baal and the Lord God.

First, he tells them he is the only prophet the Lord has left compared to the 450 Baal has standing here today. Then he asks for two bulls and allows the Baal prophets to choose which bull would please their god. So they do and each prepare their bull by cutting it up into pieces and putting kindling around for a fire, but Elijah asks them to not light the fire yet. He tells them that they will each call on their god and see which one responds and lights the fire for the sacrifice.

Everyone agreed that this was a great plan and they began their work. The Baal prophets called upon Baal from the morning until noon for the god to light the fire at the altar with no response. After awhile, Elijah is starting to get a little fed up and begins to taunt the prophets. “Shout louder! Perhaps your god is busy or deep in thought or out travelling! Maybe he’s sleeping and needs to be awakened!”

Elijah did this for two reasons. He wanted them to believe that they had done everything they could possibly have done to make Baal respond if he was a true god, and he was also fed up watching these people worship a god that wasn’t real. They were worshipping an idol.

Sometimes when we are paying attention, we can recognize when others are worshipping idols as well. We see extreme examples in the news and social media all the time. When young girls swoon over singers like Justin Bieber and One Direction, and spend more time mooning over pictures of these young men than they do praying to God. When we see adults posting a constant stream of political hate on facebook instead of praying to God to unite our country. When we see grandparents more concerned with the tattoos and piercings their grandchildren have instead of praying the graduates will get a job after they leave university in this tough economy. When we see a person so engrossed in their smartphone that they miss what is happening around them like their child’s homerun or the hurt on their date’s face because they didn’t hear a word they just said. When a person is so consumed with making money or losing weight or spreading gossip or whatever it else that consumes people instead of being consumed by thoughts of God.

We create idols today just like the Israelites created an idol to worship during the drought. We don’t call them idols or gods anymore, but when we spend more time thinking about those things like what we will watch on television tonight or what we will wear to work tomorrow than we do concerning ourselves with what God wants we have created an idol. We too often think that these things can make us happy and satisfy us. The problem is that they do for awhile. For a little while it is enough to do these things and we will feel satisfied, but it is when the real problems come that we find ourselves turning back to God and wondering when we lost touch with the Lord.

Elijah decides that there will be no more idol worshipping. He is putting a stop to all of this talk about Baal ending the drought and being the true god. After a whole day of the prophets calling out to Baal without a response, Elijah ask them to follow him to the altar that had been torn down. He repairs the Lord’s altar and sets the kindling and meat on it. Then he asks them to pour water over top of it all. Not once, not twice, but three times until water has filled the trench dug around the altar and the kindling and meat are completely soaked.

Remember, Elijah is out to prove a point! He has them soak the altar because NO human could make that sacrifice burn with how much water lay around it. He has them soak the altar because it is a time of drought and Elijah is saying that this precious water will be used because he trusts in God to bring the rain to end the drought just as much as he trusts the Lord to light this fire today when Elijah calls upon the Lord’s name.

Then Elijah says a simple prayer. He calls upon the Lord with a two sentence prayer, heartfelt and plainly spoken. There was nothing fancy in what he said or did. He did not shed his blood as the Baal prophets did. He did not dance around the altar. He did not wear a fancy robe. He did not light candles or listen to certain music. He prayed. The Lord answered.

The fire of the Lord came down upon the altar and burnt everything. The kindling, the meat, the water in the trench, and the stones surrounding it – everything was consumed by the fire. Suddenly, the people fell to their knees and began to worship the Lord again.

God is not going to do the same thing here today to make you let go of your idols. Only you can make that choice. You know the things you worship more than you do Jesus. You know the things that you let consume your thoughts and days. You know the things that you have more faith in than you do the Lord. Someone asked me the other day how I have faith all the time. How did I get so blessed?

The truth is that faith is not something that is given. Faith is an action. It’s hard work. It’s a response to our belief in the Lord. The more we believe in God and what God can do, the more we find faith helps us through the rougher moments of our lives. It does not mean we do not doubt, but we do not let our doubts turn us to idols. And when we do find ourselves worshipping things more than we do God, our deep belief in Jesus is what helps us to recognize these failings and get back on track and back to being faithful to the Lord again.

Elijah asks them a question and I will ask you the same: How long will you waver between two opinions? How long will you try to worship both the Lord and material things?

Amen.