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Sermon by Rev. Fred Kinsey, "Mars Hill"

5/23/2017

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Readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 21, 2017
  • Acts 17:22-31  
  • Psalm 66:8-20  
  • 1 Peter 3:13-22  
  • John 14:15-21

" Mars Hill," Pastor Kinsey
Paul wanders into Athens, Greece – and into the age-old polarity of Reason and Revelation.  Up the road, in Thessalonica, Paul had just wore out his welcome, and was actually smuggled out of the city, for his own safety!  But the Thessalonians were also a forgiving bunch, it would seem, for Paul’s initial contact there turned out to be seeds well planted, exchanging letters, two of which are found in the NT canon, as Paul helped the believers of the church assembly grow in their faith. 
 
In Athens, Paul has some success with his evangelism – his missionary outreach of sharing the Gospel – but apparently, he starts no church there, though, as Luke says, some Athenians did join Paul, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris.  So, that’s good news in itself – the gospel Paul preaches results in new believers – both a man and a woman, as happens so often in the book of Acts.
 
But not everyone comes along, in the city of Reason, the home of Socrates and Plato, and the birth-place of modern democracy.  Paul also had contact with the community of Hellenistic Jews that thrived in ancient Athens.  But the main religion was the pantheon of paganism, full of idol worship, that, “distresses” Paul, says Luke. 
 
Still, Paul’s tactic is not to talk down, or condemn the people for their beliefs.  But Paul engages with the learned lot of Athens in the Agora, or public square, who often “spent their time,” says Luke, “in nothing but telling or hearing something new.”  People like the Epicureans, who maintained that, deities, played no role in human affairs.  And the Stoic philosophers, who believed that humans should use Reason to live a life of virtue, and to develop a will in accordance with nature.  So, following a ‘Son of God’ who took on human flesh, was going to be something of a heavy lift for Paul!
 
Apparently, at one point, as Paul engaged with them, they were confused when he was sharing about the resurrection.  So they invite him to the Areopagus, to speak in a more formal setting, otherwise known as Mars Hill, the city’s chief administrative council, near the Acropolis. 
 
It’s interesting that there’s a church in Michigan, called Mars Hill, a non-denominational mega-church.  I’ve heard of it through Rob Bell, the “teaching pastor” who was called there at age 28, and who soon after, wrote the Velvet Elvis – a book we read here in a bible study group when I first came to Unity.  The name of the church, Mars Hill, was taken deliberately, based on this passage, to acknowledge that the audience of the church today, is more and more made up of agnostics, like the pagan worshippers of Athens.  And so, ‘everything old is new again,’ as they say! 
 
So when Paul is invited up to speak at the Areopagus, or Mars Hill, he’s ready, because he’s taken the time to hang-out with the Athenians for a while!  He even picks up on their speaking tradition of beginning with a compliment: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way,” says Paul.  Although, as Amy-Jill Levine notes, the Greek phrase for “extremely religious,” can also refer to ‘a superstitious belief,’ in which case Paul could also be speaking sarcastically to them – or, I suspect, the ambiguity comes from the way Luke has expressed it in print, some decades later!
 
“As I went through the city,” Paul continues, “and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.'  What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.  The God who made the world and everything in it, the One who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands,  nor is God served by human hands, as though God needed anything, since God Godself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.  From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live,  so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find God — though indeed God is not far from each one of us.  For 'In God we live and move and have our being,'” as followers of Plato have been known to say.
 
Slow but sure, Paul shares his faith, not in ‘so many,’ doctrinal confessions, but by appealing to their self-interest, the worship of idols, and specifically, the altar to an unknown god.  Paul transforms their natural curiosity, and belief in many gods, into something new.  He shares his belief, that there is one God, the God who made everything.  And therefore this God is way too big to be contained in any one shrine.  In fact, the God Paul knows, does not need to be served by humans.  God has created you and I, and given us this universe to live in.  We cannot repay God, but we can worship God, share the good news, and live a life worthy of our calling. 
 
So, how do we share this message in today’s world – on our own Mars Hill – in our post-modern culture of reasoned sceptics and agnostics, who are just our family and friends, those we got confirmed with, all of us who are questioning?  The age of Contantinian Christianity is past – which is a good thing for our Faith, but a challenge to the Institution.  We find that, sharing the good news of Christ is not a contest, not a debate to be waged, demanding there must be a winner and a loser.  Even zealous Paul knew that!
 
Paul stated his case in such a way as to be sympathetic to his Athenian listener.  He appealed to their curiosity, while proudly declared the life-giving gift he found in his God – even without ever saying the name of Jesus.  And Luke concludes that the modest number of followers Paul found that day was satisfactory. 
 
By the 4th century, less than 300 years later, after Emperor Constantine made the Christian faith legal in the Roman Empire, the tactics of evangelism became much more forceful.  The pantheon of gods was officially abolished, altars torn down, and the Acropolis was converted into a church, in Athens.  But such strong-arm tactics failed to win over many more believers than Paul did.  And the enlightened parts of the culture of Greece became vulnerable to decline, and war, and destruction, throughout the Middle Ages. 
 
“29Since we are God's offspring,” says Paul to the Athenians, “we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.  30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance [in the past], now God commands all people everywhere to repent,  31because God has fixed a day on which God will have the world judged in righteousness by an individual whom God has appointed, and of this, God has given assurance to all, by raising him from the dead.” 
 
Reason and Revelation.  Notice, I commend a both/and approach here, not an either/or.  Paul too, I think, moves back and forth from Reason to Revelation, not exclusive, but being inclusive in his approach.  It’s reasonable to us then, as God’s children, that God is not contained in human-made art, however beautiful such gold, silver or stone statues are – but God is living, and continues to reveal who God is to us, in this world.  And what God is revealing now is that we have the opportunity to turn around from old ways of faith in idols, whether it’s the love of money, or country, or coveting what our neighbor has, and to choose the God of the living, the God who appointed one righteous person to be raised from the dead as our assurance, a free gift of grace for all.
 
This revelation of God to the world, does not negate our Reason, but enlivens the life we have been gifted, to more fully understand and appreciate how precious it is, and to use the Reason and brains we have been given, to accept the responsibility we have been tasked with, to tend this Garden, our home, and to make it grow. 
 
Let us go to our own Mars Hill’s, and share the good news!  
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Sermon by the Reverend Fred Kinsey, "Life Isn't Fair"

5/14/2017

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Readings for Easter 5A, Mother's Day, May 14, 2017
  • Acts 7:55-60  
  • Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16  
  • 1 Peter 2:2-10  
  • John 14:1-14

"Life Isn't Fair," Pastor Kinsey
Aphorisms fill our lives.  They are inbred from our families, friends and institutions. 
 
We live by; accept without thinking; or, resist with every fiber of our being(!), these wise-sayings and folk-phrases, like: Mind your p’s and q’s!  If you work hard, you’ll get ahead!  Ladies first!  Dress for success!  Today is the first day of the rest of your life!  Love your neighbor as yourself!
 
There’s another one that I’m thinking of, that I’ve never forgotten.  One my mom taught us.  I don’t remember how old I was at the time.  Was I a teenager, or still a pre-teen?  Did she tell me alone, by myself, or were my brothers and sister there, as well?  I just know that I remember, she told me.  It was in the kitchen.  I’m sure of that – where a good deal of my learning took place, now that I think of it!  I have the feeling I was getting ready to leave the house, on my way somewhere.  So there wasn’t much time.  But the aphorism is short, as they all are.  No, long drawn-out story, allegory, or parable.  She just said it with the utmost confidence, that it was a truth I needed to know, and keep with me.  Which I have! 
 
She said, you know Fred, life isn’t fair!  Ouch!  That’s it: Life, isn’t always fair.  I should be prepared for that, was her meaning I’m quite sure. 
 
I can’t be sure what was the context was, any longer, either.  Had someone done me wrong?  Or, was I complaining about something that was so small, mom felt I shouldn’t be making a mountain out of it? 
 
I feel pretty sure it was something that happened to me, or maybe to our whole family.  But nothing wider in scope than that.  It was an aphorism to build my character as a member of her family, her tribe, her people – our religion.  It definitely wasn’t that I/or we, had been done wrong, so I/or we, should be going out seeking revenge.  Life isn’t fair, so better get even!  No, I’m sure that wasn’t it, at all!  Life, isn’t always fair – so don’t expect special treatment, was more like it.  Buck up, and overcome it.  Somehow! 
 
It was startling, and I didn’t begin to understand it, at the time.  How would I know “how?”  But I guess my mom knew, that would happen – that process of reflecting on it, and coming to terms with it, for myself.  It was an aphorism, to chew on, all my life long. 
 
I tried looking it up in my Confirmation Bible, but couldn’t find anywhere, where Jesus had said that, or any other biblical prophet, for that matter. 
 
But, as I read today’s readings, I think, I finally found it.  Not in so many words, but in it’s character-building meaning.  In it’s parallel life.  Maybe where my mom and her tribe first got it from, for all I know. 
 
“Come to him,” come to Christ, Peter is saying in our 2nd reading.  Christ is “a living stone,” “chosen and precious in God’s sight.”  Even though, he was rejected by mortals – which is a nice way of saying Jesus, as, the Son of God, was mocked, beaten and crucified!  But the point is, Peter see’s Christ’s life through his lense of the Hebrew prophets, who also were rejected, for their truth-telling.  “The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,” Peter quotes Psalm 118.  “A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.” (Is.8:14-15)   
 
Life wasn’t fair, to Jesus.  Which is the understatement of all time!  His unfairness, is light years away from anything you and I have had to put up with.  But it’s, “how” we deal with those experiences in our lives that are unfair – however big or small – those times we are misunderstood, or we take a stand, or we tell the truth, or we sacrifice for a friend or a family member, we give something up for a greater good, we take our lumps without knowing if we’ll be redeemed or recognized – How we deal, that’s the crux of our lives, and determines who we are, as followers of Jesus. 
 
Life wasn’t fair for Stephen either.  He was the first martyr, the first to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.  The parallels are unmistakable.  Stephen teaches from the scriptures, all about the ways of God’s salvation history which are fulfilled in Christ Jesus – that part, comes before our First reading from Acts – it’s a couple chapters long – so be grateful it wasn’t part of today’s appointed reading!  Jesus, of course, was a teacher, who used the scriptures with authority, too.  Also, as Stephen is about to die, he prays for the forgiveness of those who are about to stone him, just like Jesus forgave us from the cross.  And, in his final breath, Stephen looks up to heaven, and gives his spirit over to God, just like Jesus did. 
 
In his very story, as testified to us in our reading today, Stephen experiences life as mortally “unfair,” even while modeling for us the way of forgiveness of others, and trust in God. 
 
Tomorrow begins the 15 day March to Springfield.  Drastic times call for drastic measures!  This is not normal!  And a state without a budget for almost two years, has already inflicted mortal wounds to the people of Illinois.  What are we to do about the stalemate in Springfield?  Certainly, the budget was a mess before Governor Rauner took office, no doubt.  But now, it’s much worse, on his watch.  People are actually in crisis and dying.  As usual, the most vulnerable, pay the greatest price, the very ones Jesus came to raise up, to heal and to save, are the stones that are cast away. 
 
What are we to do?  Wait till the crisis hits us more directly?  Complain to one another about politicians?  Eat cake?  We are Marching to Springfield because life isn’t fair, and only we, can do something about it.  On this march we will meet up with people downstate and find out how much they are affected by it, and that Party has little to do with it, but we’re all affected – mothers, fathers and children, women and men, black and white, Democrat or Republican. 
 
The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner – the cornerstone.  Jesus was raised and has become our foundation, our new foundation.  Now we build our lives on this rock, a living stone.
 
It used to be that our foundations – all our human-made cultures – were built by expelling whoever was the trouble-maker, agreeing on who was in, and rejecting the odd one out, transferring our guilt and sin, and letting the weak one, the crippled, the lame, the blind, the immigrant, the woman, the person of color, the leper or one with AIDS – be tagged, persecuted or worse.  God says – The rejected one is actually innocent – and we have killed him.  Life is not fair – do you perceive it yet?! 
 
Today we raise up our mother’s, who we acknowledge as foundation stones, but are often pigeon-holed into something they’re not!  Are all mothers soft, are all mothers curvy?  Are all mothers, stay at home?  Are all mothers natural nurturer’s?  Are all mothers the head of the PTA? 
 
Mothers are different – and are many things to each of us!  Mother’s, and those who are like mothers to us, give life in many ways.  They can give birth – but they also teach, they have faith, they are politicians, they are authors, they are activists, they are doctors, they are race car drivers, and so much more – and sometimes they stumble and fall too, like all the rest of us.  Hopefully, they are only rejected by their precocious and upstart teenagers! 
 
How did your mother react, when life wasn’t fair?  It probably taught you a thing or two – no matter what that reaction was! 
 
God reacts strongly to the rejection of his son Jesus, by raising him up to new life, and making him the very head of the corner, the living cornerstone.  Do we get what that means? 
 
“Once you were not a people,” says Peter,
“But now you are God’s people;
Once you had not received mercy,”  that is, because life isn’t fair…
“But now you have received mercy.” 
 
Thanks for helping me see it, mom! 
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Sermon by Reverend Fred Kinsey, "Grandma's Home-made Strawberry Jam"

5/7/2017

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Readings for The Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 7, 2017
  • Acts 2:42-47  
  • Psalm 23  
  • 1 Peter 2:19-25  
  • John 10:1-10

Grandma's Home-made Strawberry Jam, Pastor Kinsey
My parents loved to give Christmas presents, especially to their grandkids!  And they were very generous givers over the years, but the one I looked forward to the most was a simple one we all got, every year.  And that was my mom’s home-made strawberry jam!  The strawberry’s came from local, pick-your-own-farms, and were so perfectly ripe and plentiful.  Canning them was a day-long, labor-of-love, sterilizing the jars, pitting, slicing and boiling the strawberry’s, and of course my mom would add a generous helping of sugar, no one knew exactly how much – but the end product was hard to argue with.  That one jar of mom’s home-made strawberry jam at Christmas was a thing of perfection, and all I really needed anymore, in the gift-giving season!
 
And so, the first Christmas after my mom died two years ago, we still all received a jar of home-made strawberry jam!  That’s because, she died in October, but had put-up her jars of jam earlier that summer, just like every other year.  It was, however, strange receiving it, without mom being there at the Christmas gathering.  So, I placed  the jar prominently on a shelf in the kitchen, and kept it like a momento, almost till Christmas the next year, before I finally cracked it open, knowing when I did, it was the final home-made strawberry jam I’d ever eat, made from my mom’s own hands. 
 
But to my surprise, at the family Christmas just last December, more strawberry jam!  Grandma’s granddaughter Hannah, my niece, revived the tradition, picking strawberries with the rest of her family, from the same Wisconsin farm, and making and canning them into jam, as best she could.  They weren’t exactly the same, a little less syrupy perhaps… hmmm… not sure if she put in enough sugar…  but were very reminiscent of mom’s home-made strawberry jam, none-the-less, made in the same reccled jars. 
 
On the Day of Pentecost, the 50th day after Easter, Peter addresses those in Jerusalem for the festival who were there, and had witnessed the fire and wind of the Holy Spirit.  And Luke, the writer of Acts, sums up where the community of the followers of Jesus are at, in our First Reading today, saying, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” 
 
After the resurrection and ascension, the apostles and followers no longer had Jesus with them.  But they had him in spirit and in the breaking of bread – which Jesus had done with them so many times.  Of course, he could no longer be there in person, but his generosity would now live on, in them.  “Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,” says Luke.   
 
Living the will of Jesus, keeping up his traditions, was what formed them into a community of believers – the Body of Christ.  And together they shared all things in common, “they would sell their possessions and goods,” says Luke, “and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”  Sort of like, Love your neighbor as yourself!  But nowhere in this passage is the word love used, even once!  Yet, because they were followers, because they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, they couldn’t help but live out the New Love Commandment that Jesus had taught them on Maundy Thursday.  Jesus was no longer with them in person, but he lived in and through them, all the same. 
 
Biblical scholars mostly agree that this passage in Acts is more the ideal of the community that was sought after, than an exact description.  Or, I like how Professor of New Testament, Margaret Aymer, invokes its ethos: “Whether or not this is a strictly historical portrait, there are strong catechetical reasons for Luke to portray the church in this way. Such a portrait points to Luke’s ideals of what a church community ought to be.” 
 
This holding all things in common, sharing the wealth of their members with everyone, living and working and worshiping in community, including going to Temple, and sharing the breaking of bread ritual at home, was how it was designed to go, that’s what the apostles’ taught them.  This was their Catechism.  It was essentially what Jesus had taught the disciples, but it hadn’t quite dawned on them at the time, that it was the blueprint for a new, alternative community, one that was a living invitation for the Kingdom and realm of God to be enacted – in, with and thru them. 
 
So, on this Good Shepherd Sunday, how can we be the sheep of Christ’s pasture?  How do we enact, and live out, the realm of our Good Shepherd, Jesus, the Lamb of God?  What is the catechetical instruction we tell to one another, as followers? 
 
“Father James Callan, of Spiritus Christi Church, shares a lesson that he learned early in his ministry, a valuable lesson that many of us are still struggling to accept,” says colleague and friend William Brosend.  “When Jesus said there will be one flock, one shepherd [in John’s gospel], he was not asking for applications.  The position is filled.  With that realization comes an extraordinary freedom to be about the work of ministry without needing to be in control…”  And then Callan continued, “There is a great deal of difference between thinking that one is laying down [or has laid down] one’s life for the “sheep,” and that we are called to lay down our lives for each other.” 
 
And that is the tension and the risk of being the ‘umteenth’ generation after Jesus!  Do we follow the teaching of the apostles’ by assuming Jesus has done all the work for us by his sacrificial death?  Or do we follow the teaching of the apostles’ by becoming the Body of Christ, by enacting, love of neighbor/love of enemy, in all we do?  Would it be enough to remember grandma’s home-made strawberry jam whenever we eat Welches strawberry jam, or do we actually have to make it from the same strawberry-farm-strawberry’s, in the same recycled jam jars?! 
 
Jesus is no longer with us in person.  And my mom is no longer here to gift us with her Christmas jam.  But we know what the spirit of their missions’ were, we have the catechetical instructions.  All we have to do now is figure out how we apply it in our own time and place! 
 
How do we apply the catechetical principle of sharing all things in common, for example, to passing a state budget that’s fair to all on both sides of the income and expenses equation?  Or to public schools and access to grocery stores in Edgewater or Lincoln Park or Lawndale?  Or to nursing care in facilities that are for-profit vs. not-for-profit?  Or to healthcare as a right for all, vs. a choice based on income? 
 
“Very truly, I tell you,” said Jesus, “anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit… The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” 
 
Breaking bread together and the prayers, are what makes for abundant life – but only if we learn to share with one another, to distribute the things we share and hold in common with all.  Otherwise it’s everyone for themselves, and that’s not the Catechism Jesus handed down to us. 
 
Let us become the living community of love and sharing, that brings Christ’s mission alive!  
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