The Tragedy of Power or the Power to Love?

  1 Kings 21:1-21

It was John Dalberg-Acton, or Lord Acton, English historian in the late 19^th century who said, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”.  This now famous phrase was part of a dictum that he wrote denouncing Pope Pius (9^th) IX’s dissemination of the doctrine of the papal infallibility, or in other words very simply put, the pope is never wrong.  Lord Acton is saying that absolute power will never produce honest practices. 

 

When one person has that much power in his or her hands it is quite possible that eventually they will fall into corrupt ways of business, of life, of relating to people.  Perhaps if I mention Watergate, Enron, BP, Bernie Madoff, even fabled King Midas you begin to get the type of power that Lord Acton was referring to.  History is full of these kinds of sad and unfortunate stories where power ultimately goes to someone’s head and the use of a legal system is used to harm others who are expendable to the person who has and who wants more power.  Ethics, morals and principles are thrown out of the window.  But this is nothing new.

 

Two weeks ago I started a sermon series on the prophet Elijah from the first and second book of Kings.  As you remember God called him to prophecy during the reign of King Ahab and his wife Jezebel around 860 BCE, two very selfish, disturbing and Baal-worshipping people who ruled the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  Elijah didn’t have it so easy but prophets never do.  One of my Old Testament professors began his lecture on prophets by saying, ‘be glad your daddy wasn’t a prophet!’

 

Let me reintroduce you to King Ahab and his co-conspirator Jezebel!  Today’s story of this royal couple will send a chill up your spine and if it doesn’t well, then….see me later.  It is an ancient illustration of a powerful person and his tragic failure to use his power for good.

 

The title of this particular passage from 1 Kings is ‘Naboth’s Vineyard’.  Ahab lives in Samaria, the capital of Northern Kingdom and he has a winter palace up north in the Jezreel Valley where it tends to be a bit warmer. That’s where Naboth lived.  Here now 1 Kings Chapter 21 beginning at the first verse….

 

Later the following events took place: Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. And Ahab said to Naboth, ‘Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.’ But Naboth said to Ahab, ‘The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.’ 

 

Ahab went home resentful and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him; for he had said, ‘I will not give you my ancestral inheritance.’ He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat.

 

 His wife Jezebel came to him and said, ‘Why are you so depressed that you will not eat?’ He said to her, ‘Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, “Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard for it”; but he answered, “I will not give you my vineyard.” ’ His wife Jezebel said to him, ‘Do you now govern Israel? Get up, eat some food, and be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.’

 

So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal; she sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city. She wrote in the letters, ‘Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth at the head of the assembly; seat two scoundrels opposite him, and have them bring a charge against him, saying, “You have cursed God and the king.” Then take him out, and stone him to death.’ The men of his city, the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them.

 

Just as it was written in the letters that she had sent to them, they proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth at the head of the assembly. The two scoundrels came in and sat opposite him; and the scoundrels brought a charge against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, ‘Naboth cursed God and the king.’ So they took him outside the city, and stoned him to death. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, ‘Naboth has been stoned; he is dead.’

 

As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, ‘Go, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.’ As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab set out to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

 

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession.

 

You shall say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: Have you killed, and also taken possession?’ You shall say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood.’

 

Ahab said to Elijah, ‘Have you found me, O my enemy?’  He answered, ‘I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel.’

That’s some story.  You see Naboth was a good citizen, he tended his vineyard that had been passed down to him from his ancestors. He was not just being stubborn or obstinate when he refused to hand over his vineyard to Ahab.  Israelites tried to prevent inherited property from passing out of the family, it’s more detailed than that but for now, Naboth had very valid reasons for not wanting to sell his property to Ahab.

  

And Ahab, what a baby!  I mean, come on, he went to bed and wouldn’t eat because he didn’t get his way?  He sounds like some sullen and pouty two year olds I’ve known!  But his beloved Jezebel, his ‘caretaker’, seeks him out, she just doesn’t let him pout.

 

Now knowing conniving Jezebel’s devotion to the Baal’s, her addiction to power, and her devious nature, this is story takes a nose dive that is not good.  She very underhandedly hires two hit men to take Naboth out.  Scoundrels!  Jezebel!  And a very great injustice!  Naboth loses his life in this convoluted set up and Ahab as we see takes the land.

 

Jezebel, in this story, is the embodiment of a certified sociopath; she’s without any conscience, scruples or ethics.  Sadly we know there are people like that in this world.  But along comes Eliahu, Elijah.  Remember him?  This is a sermon series on the prophet Elijah.  Elijah is sent to Ahab who by now is in his ‘new’ field and Elijah is sent to let Ahab know that what he did has some very grave consequences.

 

And here ends the story…but we are left hanging.  Why? Because it’s not an ending that we want or clamor for.  The t’s haven’t been crossed nor the i’s dotted.  No one looks good or I should say innocent except for Naboth who was the victim in all of this.

 

This is not an easy text to sit with because we want justice and there isn’t any.  We want a new day, a new regime but for now it appears that Ahab (or Jezebel) is victorious.  Ultimately we want a God of love but for now God exacts punishment.  And please do remember what I said about an ‘Old Testament angry God’.  We look at this scripture in the context from which it was written and how people in the 8^th century BCE. 

 

Elijah is sent by God to condemn Ahab.  Elijah had a choice, he could have run away from God but didn’t.  He was called.  He believed.  He did what God asked him to do even though he didn’t like God’s message or what he had to do.  This message is harsh….although we do know that God has told us not to covet, and not to kill, and not to worship false gods.  It’s spelled out pretty clearly in the 10 Commandments. This is the tragedy of power, when the actions and intent of a person like Ahab are materialistic, self-aggrandizing and with so little regard for life itself. We must not be complicit in the evil perpetuated by the Jezebel’s and Ahab’s of this world.

 

All of our actions have consequences.  From the clothes on our back, to the food we eat, the way in which we conduct our lives – our actions effect others. We know sweatshops thrive.  We can buy fair trade.  We can be wasters of energy.  We can be consumers of clean and efficient energy. We can hoard our resources.  We can share with others what God has given us.  The choices we make have the potential to induce a tragedy of power or the power to love.   

 

Discerning between the two is the demanding work of faith. 

 

Today we will be performing the exacting work of faith as we conduct business at our Semi-Annual meeting.  There are no “those people who are trying to” (you fill in the blank).  We are not divided into factions or camps because to look at it that way has already divided the church which is your greatest fear.

 

Rather it is all of us, together with differing opinions that can be expressed openly, with the greatest integrity, without anger or malice.  It is not ‘they are trying to do this, or they are trying to do that’, it is how are we going to come to consensus in the spirit of collaboration to proceed into our future as a fiscally responsible, Holy Spirit infused church.  We are the body of Christ and we will seek to find the face and heart of Christ in all that we do.

 

My role as your Interim Senior Pastor is to hold up a mirror so that you can see more clearly.  Some of you will walk away today content and some discontent, that’s the nature of consensus.  However remembering that we all love this church, we all want to right in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ hopefully will give us the strength to persevere through this challenge and envision a stronger church for the future. 

 

Just as we have been given the power to hate, we have also been given the power to love.  The power to see. The power to hope. The power to dream that God’s justice will flourish.   The choice is up to you.

 

May God grant to us the strength and power to love more often, to love deeply, to love through challenging times as well as through times of abundance and grace.

Amen.

 

A Touch of Faith, A Touch of Healing

Mark 5: 21-43

 You might think that in the Gospel of Mark all Jesus does is to get into that old wooden fishing boat with his disciples, catch a cool breeze and cruise to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, not a very long distance really.  He does that a lot but not because he was an avid sailor!  It was because throughout the Gospel Jesus is on the move; here, there and everywhere taking his message, miracles and ministry wherever it needed to go and to whomever needed or wanted to hear it, and, honestly, every so often he needed some ‘down’ time which the sanctuary of that maritime vessel provided him.

Today’s float over the sea was specific.   Jesus leaves the country of the Gerasenes which was Gentile territory and crosses over to the Jewish side of the country.  He’s now back among ‘his people’, fellow Jews, which makes a difference in this story in whom, by Jewish purity laws, Jesus could touch and not touch, who was clean and unclean. 

Hear now the fifth chapter of Mark beginning at the twenty-first verse:

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”

So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”

Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.”

And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.  Amen.

Jesus embarks from the boat and immediately is surrounded, even crowded in by people.  Jairus falls at Jesus’ feet and out of sheer desperation begs Jesus to come to his house and heal his daughter.  His poor twelve year old daughter was at death’s door, she hardly had a start in life and now she was so sick, in fact, she was dying.    I think we have all been in that same place as Jairus, that is at the point of desperation when one of our loved ones or perhaps ourselves have been gravely ill.  How fervent and impassioned, perhaps even pleading our prayers become for a miracle of healing.  We hope.  We trust.  We pray.  Maybe we even fall to our knees like Jairus. Jesus takes note and follows Jairus to his home.

But the crowds.  How hot and humid it was, the rays of the Galilean sun were relentless.  And the people pushed and pressed in on Jesus as he slowly tried to make his way to Jairus’ home.  They weren’t making much progress when Jesus felt the power serge from him.  He turned around and said, “Who touched the hem of my robe?”  The crowd halted, a hush gripped the air.

Unbelievable!  Unbelievable the disciples thought, here we are in the middle of all these people and Jesus could isolate and feel one little touch?  Unbelievable.  What about Jairus’ daughter?  We thought we were on the way to his house.  You see by now Jesus was used to interruptions.  We can appreciate that right?  You think you’ve got your entire day planned and boom, something happens and your agenda goes right out of the window.  In ministry we call it, the Ministry of Interruptions because interruptions happen at the most inopportune times and it’s usually in those distracted moments that God’s incredible grace pops up and asks us to pay attention and give of ourselves.

 

The woman, already feeling life flow back in her just from touching Jesus robe, cowered because she knows she did the unthinkable.  She, a hemorrhaging, ritually unclean woman touched Jesus and in that touch told him the whole story and truth of her life.  It was a remarkable witness to her faith.  “What faith!” Jesus says. “Go be about your business in peace, you’ve been healed.”  If only healing were that simple, right?

The crowd was stunned, and confused and Jesus was still speaking and…. I wonder if he had forgotten about Jairus’ daughter?  Word filters through the crowd that the daughter had died, no need for Jesus to come.  Jesus overhears. And, as theologian and preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor says, “Jesus preaches his shortest sermon ever: Do not fear, only believe”.  He hadn’t forgotten after all. 

“This daughter of Jairus is only sleeping, she’s not dead like you say” Jesus says.  Jesus risks ostracism once again from his own people as he crosses the threshold of her room and goes to her death bed. 

He reaches out and takes her young, limp hand and says quietly, “Talitha cum!”.  “Little girl, get up”.  And she does.  And, as typical 12 year olds would do she probably rubbed her eyes, giggled and chowed down what she was given to eat and asked if she could go to tell her girlfriends.  

 These two miracle stories hold so much for us to reflect upon.  A story within a story wherein both stories have several parallels which would have deepened the interest for first century readers.  Back in the day, miracle workers were a dime a dozen.  Jesus, of course, was not some two bit magician but gave all of the credit to God for his work.  His powers and ability to work miracles came from above.  The synagogue authorities were very concerned with the religious laws that Jesus seemed always to be defying.  Jesus was not so concerned that he was ‘breaking’ the law.  Rather he believed that he was expanding, recasting, amending, and revisioning the law for a more just world for everyone.  So in addition to the miraculous healing there were all sorts of nuanced meanings embedded in the stories.

Jairus’ daughter and the hemorraghing woman’s stories have fairytale endings.  They are lucky enough to receive full and total healing direct from the source.   But we know that full and total even dramatic physical healings such as these rarely occur like that.   So what happens when our expectation for healing doesn’t happen or our healing turns out to be much different then what we were hoping for?  That question begs a more profound question and that is, what does it mean to be healed?

All of us are in need of healing from time to time in our lives.  From a physical healing of a devastating illness to an emotional healing from the stinging effect of a lost relationship.  From a scarred healing of a traumatic incident to the mental healing and health from prolonged years of abuse perhaps even we are in need of healing from division’s and disarray due to a lack of clarity.  None of us will escape life without some sort of hurt or sickness in it but with God’s attentive touch we will heal.

It just may not be in the way that we have been hoping and praying for.  It’s those doggone expectations once again that will trip us up every time.  Sometimes we may have to look for the way in which God heals us in the less obvious corners of our lives with a touch of faith bolstering us so that we can open ourselves up to other possibilities for living.

Franklin, a man with diabetes, I met him when I did some chaplaincy work at an area hospital.  He was on and off, mostly off about controlling his diabetes.  He said he prayed hard and even promised God with ALL of his heart that he would change and do what he needed to do to get the diabetes under control.  He was hurt, angry and bitter and felt let down by God when he found out his foot need to be amputated.  He thought God had no listened to him or just didn’t care about him. 

Well, the weeks and months of rehabilitation proved to be a physical and spiritual healing however.  He realized that even without a foot or ‘complete’ body that his life was whole and filled with blessing.  Now he participates in walks for diabetes and even does some education for others.  Healing came to Franklin, just not in the way that he wanted…but he got so much more.  He witnessed to others of the healing power of Jesus Christ.  He was, in fact, inspirational. 

John Pilch a Scripture professor at Georgetown University has done a lot of writing on healing and particular, healing in the New Testament.  He says, “Healing is the restoration of meaning to people’s lives no matter what their physical condition might be.” 

After something devastating happens to us, after recovering from serious disease, after we have been lifted out of the depths of depression something changes.  After the woman stopped hemorrhaging and the blood flow was restored, after the girl was raised from the dead, their lives were changed.   Healing does occur and life is not the same.  We are changed.  We see differently.  We hear differently.  Things that never mattered before now do and things that mattered before we find out are really not that important.  Life takes on a different meaning and it’s something that only God can provide.  Be open to the many ways in which God heals and makes better our lives.  Therein lies the miracle of healing for our lives.

Amen.

Photos of the Sea of Galilee taken by Suzanne Wagner

Eliahu ha-Navi

1 Kings 17:8-24

Who has picked out your summertime reading?  There is nothing like having a good and juicy book to read while you sit comfortably in an Adirondack chair or laying in a hammock.  Well there is nothing better than summertime preaching because you can sit back and hear about the sagas found in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) or you can focus on the Jesus stories up in the Galilee. 

So you can think of the next few weeks as a sermon series and I’ll be sharing with you the saga of  the Prophet Elijah.  At the close of a Passover Seder, Jews open a door entreating the prophet Elijah to return soon with the Messiah.  When they do this they usually sing a song about Elijah:

Eliahu ha-Navi,

Eliahu ha-Tishbi

Eliahu ha-Gi’ladi

Bim’hera yavoh aylenu

Im Mashiach ben David,

Bim’hera yavoh aylenu

Im Mashiach ben David,

Elijah the Prophet, Elijah the Tishbite, Elijah the Giladite, may he soon come to us with the Messiah, son of David.

Eliahu, or Elijah is one of the great prophets of Israel in the Hebrew Bible.  He is known as a healer, a miracle worker, and a hero who stood up against evil kings and the false prophets of the Canaanite god, Baal.  The next few weeks we will focus on some of the stories about Elijah, King Ahab and his wife Jezebel until finally we hear the story of how Elijah passes his mantel on to Elisha who takes up the reigns as Yahweh or God’s prophet.

I do want to issue a word of warning – often the ‘God of the Old Testament’ is viewed as an angry God.  Don’t go there.  We need to understand these texts in the time in which they were written which is to say, it was a time when ethical monotheism was taking hold amidst a plethora of many other pantheistic religions each believing in many gods, with a small g and it was common belief that the actions of the people moved a god to do all sorts of things to them because of their behavior. 

The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament who is a God of salvation throughout time.

 Chapter 17 in the book of 1 Kings begins with Elijah’s announcement to King Ahab of a drought.  Ahab ruled the Northern Kingdom of Israel from 869-850 BCE.  He was not a nice king; none of them really were in the Northern Kingdom.  Ahab was the worst though.  In fact in 1 Kings 16 it says, “Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him.”  You see Ahab married Jezebel from Sidon. (Which is today, Lebanon) She was an outsider to Israel and brought with her the many gods of Baal.  She was bad news all the way around!!! 

The announcement of a drought was clearly a challenge to Ahab’s poor judgment and the Baal’s power. So, as you might imagine Elijah had to ‘get out of Dodge’ quickly after he issued the bad news.  God sent him first to Wadi Cherith where ravens brought him bread and he drank from the wadi, but then that dried up so Plan B had to be put into effect.  So here we begin today’s scripture….

“Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.’ So he set out and went to Zarephath.”

“When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.’ As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.’ But she said, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.’”

“Elijah said to her, ‘Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.’”

“She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.” 

“After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elijah, ‘What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!’”

“But he (Elijah) said to her, ‘Give me your son.’ He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the Lord, ‘O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?’ Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the Lord, ‘O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.’

The Lord listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, ‘See, your son is alive.’ So the woman said to Elijah, ‘Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.’”  Amen, here ends our scripture.

It’s curious that Elijah was sent out of Israel and into Sidon itself the very place where Jezebel hailed from, heartland of the Baal cult.  And this woman had no means of economic support because she was a widow and her gods, the gods of Baal, weren’t protecting her. That’s a real bad place to be in.  So she takes what’s left of her meal and oil and is going to make a final meal for her and her son.  There was nothing left for them, they were facing a drought of their own and soon their lives would dry up too.

What Elijah did took a lot of chutzpah, but then again he believed in the God of Israel and what he did by asking the widow  to make him some food with her very last morsels exhibited a lot of faith.  We can be certain that she did not believe in Elijah’s God, but we can surmise that she was hanging on to a thread of hope that Elijah’s God wouldn’t fail.   When you are faced with serious problems you will hang on to just about anything for hope.  This time she clung to the right thing. 

Elijah was a prophet whose job was to relay to the people within the borders of Israel and outside her borders the great and awesome power of the Lord God of Israel and to set them straight once again.  He prophesied a drought in Israel, and God showed compassion upon Elijah not only once but a second time and it is in that second act of God’s compassion that we see Elijah, through God, bring life back from death.  As Kate Huey, a UCC pastor says, “God rains mercy on a parched earth and dried-up lives.”  Indeed hope is restored.  

When we read stories like this, and there are so many others in the Bible and in everyday life, how can we ever doubt that God isn’t capable of restoring hope and life to us when we feel as if our lives have dried up mercilessly like the parched and cracked riverbed of a wadi?  Like the widow at Zeraphath we too can cling on to a thread of hope.

There ARE times when we doubt, I know.  Questions creep into our heads: When will this economic recession end?  When will my pain go away?  When will my depression cease? When, how long God, how long?  But we must never give up hope that God is not raining mercy upon us at this very moment of our lives.  When we look around there is abundant evidence that God is not far away but up close and very personal and active in our lives.  God presence is through us and through others in compassionate acts of kindness from a simple hello, to a phone call, or a visit or maybe even a miracle of extraordinary measures. 

This is a beautiful story of compassion and hope. It is in the miraculous resurrection that we evidence hope.  Hope for a better day, hope for new life, and hope in all things to come.

Amen.

Suffering. Who Needs It?

Romans 5: 1-5

Paul was a bold and verbose proclaimer of Jesus Christ in the time of the Roman Empire when pax Romana or the peace of Rome meant something entirely different than did the peace of God; where his understanding of justice differed greatly from Caesar’s.  Going against the empire – never good if you are looking for an easy life, in fact it can produce much anxiety and suffering and I think Paul suffered.  So he shares his understanding of what it means to live as a Christ follower in disparate times in the 5th chapter of Romans.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

These words, ‘suffering produces endurance…endurance produces character…character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us’ are familiar words that are used often to help us bear our burdens and bolster our faith in times of severe adversity.  And while that’s good, Paul seems to want to want to get from suffering to hope rather quickly.  He seems so sure that when you suffer that it’ll all be ok, all will be well.  And to boast in our suffering?  Well that just sounds crazy to me.

We all will suffer at some point in our life, it is inevitable.  And we know that suffering doesn’t always produce endurance and hope, at least not right away.  Suffering sometimes produce, anxiety, anger, sadness and pain, well ahead of endurance arriving.  Paul forgets to tell us how to live into the tragedy and effectively walk through our pain.  So what do we do in the meantime?  How do we carry on when the unimaginable happens around us or to us.  Where do we find that hope that he promises us?

It’s not as if we haven’t had our share of tragic events to deal with lately.  I was looking at the Atlantic Magazine’s ‘In-Focus’ a news-photo blog on the internet.  They had photographs from last week’s tornado in Oklahoma.  The photos were quite moving and sad to see, especially the faces of the children being pulled from rubble filled with fear and uncertainty.

As a child growing up in St. Louis, Missouri I can remember seeing the skies darken into an eerie greenish-black, and hearing the tornado siren alert blasting loudly throughout the neighborhood.  I can remember our teacher telling us to hide under our desks, not that after seeing the photos this past week, would have done us any good at all.  I can remember the anxiety until it was all over and the sirens stopped and the sky cleared up. 

What I cannot imagine however, because I never experienced it as a child, is what happened in Oklahoma to the children and folks of Moore – the rushing winds, the devastation, the roar and the fear, the weeping, the suffering that many are now going through at the loss of family or their homes and belongings, their loss of all that gave normalcy to very life itself.

And yet, it didn’t take long for stories of courage to emerge.  I want to share with you some stories of courage and hope that a friend shared with me.

From AgapeLand Learning Center: "…According to a report from The New York Times, the staff at AgapeLand Learning Center, a daycare facility, was watching over some 15 children when the tornado struck. Staffers began "draping them with a protective covering and singing songs with them to keep them calm,"…."as the wind ripped the roof off one of the bathrooms, and debris rained down on the children, they remained calm, singing 'You Are My Sunshine,'" ….the daycare facility was smashed to pieces, not one child was harmed."

Another teacher from Briarwood Elementary, Julie Simon: "She saved their lives by putting them in a closet and holding their heads down,"….."a source says the teacher at Briarwood Elementary in Oklahoma City took students into a closet and shielded them with her arms as the tornado collapsed the roof and starting lifting children upward."

Sherry Bittle and Cindy Lowe, teachers from Briarwood Elementary: "….along with teachers at the now-obliterated Briarwood, also shielded students with their own bodies. Bittle said, "I had them take their backpacks and put them over their head…. Lowe added that as the walls were coming down….she, too, tried to protect as many kids as she could: "Just like Sherry said, getting them covered up, you know, we practice tornado drills and things like this and I had to tell them, this is not a drill, and we need to be safe and just laying my body on top of as many kids as I could to help out." All the students at Briarwood were accounted for as of Tuesday.

Another teacher from Plaza Towers Elementary: "A sixth-grade teacher at Plaza Towers, Crosswhite threw herself over students who were hiding in the school bathroom as the tornado ripped it to shreds. "I was in a stall with some kids and it just started coming down, so I laid on top of them," Crosswhite told the reporter this morning. "One of my little boys just kept saying, 'I love you, I love you, please don't die with me.'" The children Crosswhite protected are now safe.”

And finally regarding a teacher from Plaza Towers Elementary:

 "We had to pull a car out of the front hall off a teacher and I don't know what her name is, but she had three little kids underneath her," a rescuer is quoted as saying in a story from CNN's LZ Granderson. Yes, you read that right, rescuers pulled a car off a teacher who was shielding students from harm. And she seemed to survive, as the rescue worker told KFOR, via Today: "'Good job, teach,' he said, breaking into tears."[i]

Remarkable stories.  You see the commonality in all of these stories is that God was fully embodied in the actions and love of the teachers who physically sheltered the children.  Those children and teachers were not alone to undergo the tornado, God was totally with them protecting them, covering them from fall debris.  We are reminded of God’s love in Psalm 91, “For God will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence; he will cover with his pinions, and under God’s wings you will find refuge; God’s faithfulness is a shield and buckler. (3-4) Under God’s wings.

God will spread sheltering arms around us when we are suffering, when we are being hit by ravaging winds of life.  We are never left by ourselves in our pain and torment, God is there with sheltering protective wings.

I don’t believe we need to suffer in order to have character and hope but we certainly can find hope in the midst of our suffering.  There is a spiritual transformation that can happen through suffering, to be sure our suffering is never wasted.   In fact the greatest potential of suffering is to define more fully our faith and refine our character that God gave us from birth.  God can transform even the worst of human situations into something for good.  Herein lies our hope and hope never disappoints us.

Amen!

---

[i] Stories shared on Facebook, unknown sorces.

Leaves of Healing, River of Peace

Revelation 22: 1-5

Yesterday I had friends for NYC up for the day and we went walking in Wepawaug Conservation Area off of Maplewood.  It was spectacular.  The forest boasted so many varieties of green trees just bursting out in blossom.  As a painter you notice colors and light from spring green to celadon green to Hookers green and Phthalo green a blooming forest seems to call out every green imaginable.  So hopeful and peaceful.

 Wepawaug Conservation Area, Orange Connecticut

Our scripture for today is (again) from the Book of Revelation, is about just that.  Green leaves, variety, peace and hope.  Now Revelation is quite a visual book and you don’t always think ‘peace’ when you read it.  It is a confusing book.  There are cosmic wars, visions, seals being opened to reveal apocalyptic revelation, it has blasting trumpets and seven headed beasts.  For our 21^st century sensibilities it is difficult to get clarity on what the author really meant, and scholars viewpoints vary, as do the leaves on the trees on crisp and hopeful spring day.

Although, we can try to put it into context.  It was the end of the first century and Rome was a religious and political force to be reckoned with, probably under the rule of the emperor Domitian.  With Domitian came an enhanced imperial cult mentality in which there was the belief that the emperor was divine and would insure the well being of the inhabitants and the state.

Christians and Jews viewed this ideology as pure idolatry, which put them at huge odds with the empire.  They were in turn viewed as great enemies of the state.  So by the time the author of Revelation puts quill to papyrus, they were in desperate need for a message of healing and peace.

So let us paint a picture in our minds of what peace can look like from the Book of Revelation.

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign for ever and ever.”

  

‘And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations’. This passage is one of the more beautiful and peaceful passages of scripture in the entire Bible and it’s entitled the ‘Tree of Life’.  One of my earliest botanical paintings was of this very passage where an image of one continuous vine with leaves of green twined together twelve varieties of fruit.  It gave me pause to think of how this might just work, this passage, ‘And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.’ For surely as many varieties of greens there are within a one leaf there must be a variety of ways in which we can heal our nations and come to terms with peace.  Even though one vine grows different fruits.

Revelation tries.  Picture a city and through the middle of a city flows a river that is filled with the water of soul refreshing, heart renewing life.  It was as vivid as it could be, bright as crystal that is clean and sparkling.  And the river’s source is the throne of God.

And the river is lined on both of the banks with the tree of life bearing twelve different sorts of fruits.  Apples, Oranges, Pomegranates, Pears, and Almonds.  So life giving they are because their leaves provide shade for a weary soul, their trunks a place for the traveler to lean their aching back against, and the fruit is the sustenance of life.  Wisdom abounds.  Nourishment is abundant and life is valued and at peace.

And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.  Nations then, nations now still are in need of healing.

Last Friday was the National Day of Prayer and the Orange Interfaith Clergy gathered down at High Plains to pray together.  Rabbis, pastors, civic leaders offered prayers for our country, for the world, for our military, our leaders, our education, almost all of the prayers, if not all, at some point begged the God of us all for peace. 

Peace is difficult to define and one’s practice of religion has a great deal to say about what peace is and how peace can be achieved.  As individuals we must be instruments of that peace as it speaks to us Christians in a pluralistic world.

I heard a very interesting interview on ‘Morning Edition’ on NPR sometime last year.  Salman Rushdie was being interviewed on his new memoir that has just come out, Joseph Anton. I heard him speak in 2005 at Fairfield University and was quite impressed by his thought process.  The memoir is about his life and experience in hiding for 12 years after the release of his other book, The Satanic Verses.  He said,

“My purpose was not to write about Islam; it was to talk about the nature of revelation, and also to suggest that when a big, new idea comes into the world, it must answer two challenges; One is the challenge of how do you behave when you’re weak?  And the other, how do you behave when you’re strong?” he says.  “When you’re weak, do you bend, do you compromise?  Or are you [unyielding] and firm?  And when you’re strong, when you’re victorious, are you cruel and vengeful, or are you merciful and forgiving?”

Good question.  When a new idea or a new opportunity comes along, and they do each day, if you are weak do you respond by giving in?  Or are you vengeful toward others?  

What if peace were the new idea in the world or in this community or in this church?  I mean a true and everlasting peace, not just the cessation of war or dissention.  A peace or shalom that surrounds each and every individual in each and every nation with wholeness. 

A peace that creates a non-threatening existence so that the dignity of each person is maintained, what if?  This new idea peace, if weak, will bend and break and not make it.  But if it is a strong and everlasting peace it will forgive and strive to create tolerance, cohesiveness in our differences, and a truth of love that all people can hear and understand.

We Christians can answer Rushdie’s challenge too.  When we are weak we look to the Lord of Light who sits at the source of the river and let the waters flow around us lapping up strength and refreshment to be healed.  And when we are strong we can look also and again to the Lord God of light and be merciful and forgiving like Christ.

There is a challenge and a choice for making peace, and God is there to help us make the God-infused, shalom-steeped, peace-packed choice.

Peace has been around for ages but an everlasting peace, well that is a new idea and it begins with you.  Let us hold this image from Revelation within our hearts and minds. And let us be bold enough to speak truth with humility and respect, to look to the source of our being that is God so that we can be the peace that will heal this world.  If the leaves of the trees can be for the healing of the nations, then ultimately we can too.

May it be so!

Amen.

A New Earth Would Be Good

Revelation 21: 1-6

When we read from the Revelation to John it reads like bombs bursting in air over and over again, its one remarkable image after another.  Seals and trumpets, visions and apocalypse, angels and creatures, harvest and plagues, lambs and beasts, fasten your seat belts folks because when you read Revelation, it’s a bumpy flight into your past, your present, and your future.

Just prior to where we pick up our reading, John sees an angel with the key to the bottomless pit who then proceeds to throw the devil into it.  He sees souls; previously beheaded for their testimony to Christ, rise to life again to reign for 1,000 years.  After this Satan is released but felled into the lake of fire, the books are opened, one for the righteous and one for the less fortunate.  It’s fiery, it’s chaos, and it’s mayhem.

“And then” says John, “I saw a new heaven…..

…..and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. 
He will dwell with them; 
 they will be his peoples, 
 and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

This passage burst open with peace after a fiery scenario; it is like the quiet after the storm, the stillness after violent winds, it is security after uncertain endings like when a child has tantrumed for hours only to climb in your lap for your loving touch and rest for her weary soul, or it might be like the renewal of a tattered relationship with someone you care very deeply about or the cessation of pain.  After you have turned the corner of turbulence you feel peace.  I think that we have all perhaps experienced this feeling.  It brings relief.  You feel lighter as if you are ready to begin anew.

In all of this mayhem in Revelation we get an apocalypse, a vision of a better existence, a new heaven and a new earth.  It is a vision of newness, freshness, of shalom.  It is God granting us a new creation, a new garden for our lives to dwell in.  And how blessed we are to be given vision into what a new heaven would be like.  But how grand it s to think about a new earth for surely that is what is at hand for us; that’s the reality in which we live and love.

Phil Connors, in the move Groundhog Day, was stuck in the same day.  Over and over and over again he repeated the same day literally, same activities, you could see the distress in his face as he work up, only to know that he was going to relive the day before.  He was stuck in a time warp that prevented the clock and calendar to move forward.

Now Phil was not a nice man.  He was condescending and self-absorbed in his materialist world.  He hurt people, stepped on people and when he finally realized that he could change his behavior to affect the outcome of each day that is when his transformation began, his new day, and his new earth.  At the end of the movie when six am flips over on the alarm clock once again and it really was a new day, things were different, he could start again at it was a RELIEF.  He hopped out of bed with a heightened awareness of himself, life around him, and the world.  He got a second chance at life.

What would that image look like or feel like for you?  That new day?  John, in Revelation, dared to record his visions, do you?  We often dream that our lives would be different don’t we?  That somehow if we could just start over, things might be a little more peaceful and serene.  A slower pace, less financial pressures to worry about, less time on the cell or on email and more time face to face with those whom we love, more abundance, and I don’t mean material things, but abundance of good and hope, laughter and joy in your life.  What is your vision for a new earth for you?

It could be a simple change of attitude that will allow you to live more fully into your life or your faith.  It might be cashing in one mode of behavior for another that will help you to see differently the enormous possibility born each day. 

Unlike Phil, in Groundhog Day, we don’t have to make a new day happen on our own, we’ve got help.  Our passage goes on to tell us that God dwells with us, among mortals, here in Orange, in our church, in your homes, in your life.  God will wipe away our tears and make all things new, make things better, heal the wounds that life has inflicted upon us – each day, every day – relax into it.  When that happens we can start over again.  The storm has passed and it is calm.  Shalom reigns, wholeness for our lives.

I believe that it is God’s hand guiding us and helping us to experience this new existence, these turnings of the clock when it becomes a new day, a new place, and a second chance.  God is there in the muck of our existence, and with God we will be pulled through to the other side met with promises of hope and transformation.  It is true; there is a new heaven and a new earth, with the God of everlasting hope.

‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ God says, ‘the beginning and the end’, the Genesis, our beginning and the revelation of things to come.   You need not ask for more.  Our hope for a new day, a new earth is here among us.  Trust in the process someone once told me, so too, here we trust that our tomorrow’s will be better than our today’s and that God’s peace and renewal will follow the storms of our lives.  This is all we need. 

Amen.

From Tears to Triumph

Acts 9: 36-43
We are continuing our reflection in the Book of Acts, the 9^th chapter.  What begins with the conversion of Saul, later known as Paul, concludes with a story about Peter and a woman most commonly known as Dorcas.  Here now the word of the Lord as recorded to us by Luke in the book of Acts…

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs.

Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, ‘Please come to us without delay.’ So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them.

Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

It started out like a typical bereavement call.  Peter, one of the leaders of the Way near Joppa was called to the home of Dorcas, a poor widow who had just died.  When he arrived her friends, her “church” community, was already there preparing her body, weeping and mourning the loss of their friend.  They did what any close knit community does when they suffer the loss of someone; they come together in their sorrow, to share stories about their friend and to lift up all of the good things that Dorcas did in her lifetime. 

Then Peter, utilizing all of his pastoral skills asks the mourners to leave him alone with Dorcas and in that moment of prayer and invocation of the Spirit he took her hand and raised her back to life.  This is another remarkable story of resurrection and hope.  Of life overcoming death, of light outshining the darkness.  It is appropriate that we speak to this today, of all days, after the week we have all been through.

But Dorcas being raised from the dead is not exactly what I want to talk with you about today.  We know that Dorcas, nor Peter lived forever, that in their humanity they eventually succumbed to death as will all of us someday.  We know that they left a community of friends behind who grieved and mourned their loss and that life did go on and that Christianity spread.

What I want to talk with you about today is spiritual health during times of crisis and the role in which the community can play because we know that crisis and stress can play games with our minds and our souls and it can leave you bewildered, beleaguered, fraught with fear and maybe even a little less believing in a God of love.

The events of this week have weighed heavily in my heart and caused me great concern, and fear, and sadness.

o   I am beleaguered by the fact the Boston Marathon, an American institution, a dream for many was so violently interrupted by the intentionally heartless acts of violence of two men – runners and men who had only the future before them. 

o   I am baffled and angry that our elected officials did not pass some sort of gun legislation merely two days after the bombings in Boston. Granted a bomb is not a gun.  But killing is killing, the loss of life and limb is the loss of life and limb. 

o   I am saddened by the plant explosion in West, Texas where fourteen people have died and the devastation to the plant and homes is great.

o   And then yet, in the same week I was riveted to the television and radio with sadness and relief at the death and then apprehension of the two suspects of the Boston Marathon and the officers who lost their life.

o   All of this in just one week’s time and in the shadows of the Sandy Hook tragedy, the blizzard, Hurricanes Sandy and Irene.  It has been a rollar coaster ride mostly downhill.  I am tired and feeling beat up.  It is too much.

Finding and offering community to other people in times of crisis is what we can do to heal the wounds of affliction.  The friends of Dorcas came together to share in their sorrow, their fears, the apprehensions and then they moved from that place to one of healing and hope.  They had witnessed with their own eyes the miraculous love and grace of God in the middle of death.  They joined their spirits together and acknowledged that there was a larger force at work and in doing so began their own healing.

It is challenging at the least to live in resurrection light when the darkness of the tomb is all around us.  When the friends of Dorcas were in the deepest, darkest, most dank valley they didn’t recede into the depth of isolation.  They chose to honor life and walk through that valley together.  And we can too.

We can grab another person’s hand and say ‘let’s get out of here’, there is another way out.  Spiritual healing is not an impossible task.  It takes time with every step we take and it takes being in community, it takes each other like the Beatles say, ‘I get by with a little help with my friends’. 

We were created to be relational; that is, we live in relationship to one another and we use those relationships to know ourselves, and our greatest capacity.  Acknowledging this then it is possible to say that we can heal in relation to and with one another.  We can come together as a community bound by the vision of hope, perseverance and strength.  We can talk.  We can acknowledge fear and disappointment.  We can cry tears of sadness until there are no tears left.  It is in this relationship with one another that we can carry each other’s burdens and work toward resolution and healing.

We can rejoice in the good that humanity is doing when that gets overshadowed by the pervasive violence.  The youth and adults who arrived safely back last night from the Virginia mission trip worked together to combat the violence of homelessness by building hope and security for another family.  Let’s do more.  We can search for and work diligently toward the roots of systemic violence and apathy by coming together in conversation like the Interfaith Clergy group is doing on Tuesday night, come and be a part of this important conversation.  Creative endeavors like this is where our greatest potential lies for resolution and hope.

There is so much that we, as a faithful community can do.  We know the ways of Christ, now let’s embody them together and in doing so our spiritual healing will regenerate itself and begin anew. 

“Therefore, (brothers and sisters,) since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

Amen.