Grace to you and peace, from God almighty and from our savior, who is Jesus the Christ. Amen.

 

How is your prayer life going?  Does it need a little reviving?  What do you ask for?

 

We had a practice at our previous parish of asking if anyone had a prayer concern to add to the Prayers that day.  The usual response we got was to ‘ask’ for a friend or relative who was sick.  ‘My brother is having heart bi-pass surgery on Tuesday,’ or ‘my mother was just diagnosed with cancer.’  Or, a request for ‘someone who was traveling,’ or ‘for the schools,’ or ‘for elections,’ or ‘for the environment,’ or, ‘in joy and thanksgiving for healing.’ 

 

Nothing could prepare us then, for the Sunday in December when Jean came to church wearing her brand new Minnesota Vikings jersey, and what she asked for, in her husky voice, that was heavy on her heart.  It was the year the Vikings were division champs, and showed signs of going all the way.  She had been a loyal, life-long Vikings fan, and this was her chance to lay it on the line!  I think it was the conference championship game that day, and somewhat reluctantly, after all the usual requests, for family and friends, Jean raised her hand.  “Well, I really want us to pray for a Viking victory today, pastor!” 

 

Now you have to understand that this was predominantly, Green Bay Packer territory.  And even if it were appropriate to pray for one teams’ victory over another in a football game, it was not going to be a particularly heart-felt petition on the part of most the congregation, who I imagined, would have only ‘green and gold’ in their minds.  So, after a particularly long pause, following Jean’s request, we responded with something like, we would gladly pray for a competitive and sportsman like game that would be entertaining for all.  A bit of a dodge perhaps, certainly not what Jean had in mind.  But, it was as close to a prayer for the Vikings as we could honestly muster! 

 

Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”  It’s no wonder that we sometimes get carried away in asking for our team to win, and for whatever else is #1 on our priority list.  Please God, give me a new I-Pod for Christmas, or, please make my co-worker sick, so I can get the Cubs tickets this week.  Its not that we shouldn’t get excited about such things, and naturally want to include God in our hopes and dreams each day, for God knows everything anyway.  But when Jesus was teaching his disciples about prayer, he was instructing them not only about what to pray for, but, who God is! 

 

And the tension about how to pray is further complicated by those requests which really are about life and death.  The child that asks God not to send his father back to Iraq or Afghanistan again because he is afraid he may not return home, certainly must be a concern on the mind of God, too.  But for those soldiers who don’t come back in one piece, what about the prayers that their loved ones have prayed? 

 

And when Jesus tells the parable about the man who doesn’t want to get up in the middle of the night, which would disturb and wake his family, to answer the knock at the door by a neighbor who asks for a, frozen pizza and bottle of wine, to serve some long lost friends that dropped by on the spur of the moment, but, he gets up anyway because of the neighbors persistence, what is Jesus saying?  What about those of us who live here in the city who have been taught, or learned the hard way, that it’s just a whole lot safer never to open your door late at night?  We’re hard-wired to keep the dead-bolt clanked shut, no matter how persistent the knock?  Can we even learn to trust God’s great hospitality, God’s willingness to open up and be there for us, no matter what?

 

What I do find oddly encouraging in this story, is that after walking with, and following, Jesus for some time, the disciples are just now getting around to asking Jesus to teach them how to pray!  They are roughly half way from Jesus baptism to his death and resurrection, and they haven’t yet started a prayer life?  Maybe there is hope for me!?  But, no matter how late in the game, their desire has been piqued!  They have been noticing Jesus at prayer, on a regular basis.  And Jesus seems to be saying, there’s no time like the present!  Get out the ‘Prayer for Dummies’ manual! 

 

So Jesus teaches them the Lord’s Prayer – a prayer about who God is and what God wants us to ask for.  God alone is “holy” and God’s “kingdom is very near.”  God wants us to have, and we should ask for: “daily bread, “forgiveness,” and finally, not to find or put ourselves in situations of “temptation”.

 

Of course, even Jesus struggled to find daily bread as he traveled from city to city.  “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head.” And, he comes famously to ‘temptation’ the night of his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane – asking God to take away this “cup,” this responsibility, to ‘shed his blood for the salvation of the world.’  So Jesus knows us, and is with us, in our struggles.  Jesus himself prayed regularly to his heavenly parent, “our father, our daddy,” as he called him.  And Luke records that he prayed, at his baptism, at the call of the disciples, at Peter’s confession, his transfiguration on the mountain, at table with his disciples at the Last Supper, and, on the cross, among other times. 

 

Whether you have a well developed prayer life already, or not, there’s no time like the present to start, or rededicate yourself.  When people come to me to ask me how to do it, I used to put something in their hands, some kind of devotional book.  But not anymore.  There are plenty of books out there, plenty of online resources.  But nothing can take the place of desire and persistence, and perhaps best of all, a partner, or two or three.  The Lord’s Prayer, after all, is a prayer to be prayed together.  We have the Sabbath, this day, to come together for prayer.  And during the week we offer other opportunities: bible gatherings, a Prayer Breakfast, and small groups. 

 

So, what is your prayer life like?  Do you want to revive it?  Do you want a partner or small group to pray and discuss with?  Let’s take a moment to rededicate ourselves -- right now.  Find someone to talk about your prayer life with, and – if you want, if you feel it’s appropriate, if God is calling you – make a pledge to pray together or find a way to start up, every week, every day, whatever works for you, to re-start your prayer life, or to help someone else.  

Grace to you and peace, from God almighty and from our savior, who is Jesus the Christ. Amen.

↓Duh- ↑duh, ↓duh- ↑duh… (music to Jaws).  The fin circles around, closer to shore, and oh so near the children and adults swimming at Amity Island resort, on a crowded 4th of July holiday.  Who will warn the vacationers frolicking in the water?  Can’t they see the danger! 

Jaws!  Who doesn’t love it?  The cult classic, which, BTW, horrified its producers in 1975, by running over it’s $4m budget by more than double, wound up making them over $470m, all the while, scaring the be-jesus out of movie goers with its captivating fascination!  The scary sea monster, a great white shark, became the darling of countless movie fans.  Jaws seems to touch us, in some primitive brain-stem way.  It touches that ancient nerve deep within us, about the danger of what lies just beneath the surface of the sea, a place of wonder and fear of the unknown. 
People were maimed and killed by the jaws of the “leading character”, as director Stephen Spielberg liked to call the shark.  But the threat of the deep sea, the great unknown, combined with the attempts of the authorities to put a lid on the truth, and the resulting rumors and uncertainty that spread like wildfire, is what causes the greatest fear, on Amity Island. 

This is the same nerve that touched people throughout the ages, of which we have sung in our Psalm today:

25Yonder is the sea, great and wide, with its swarms too man- | y to number, living things both | small and great.
And then the verse about that Leviathan, the Jaws of their time:
26There go the ships | to and fro, and Leviathan, which you made for the | sport of it.

Leviathan loomed large in their imaginations, yet in Psalm 104, God is in command of all things, even of this scary sea monster.  Leviathan, the mythical beast of chaos, is not denied by the Creator, but put in its place, a mere play-thing to the almighty, just another of the many creatures God made “in the beginning,” on the 5th day. 
But the last creature made, it turns out, created on the 6th day, is the one to really fear - us.  Humans, were the only creatures made in the image of God, and so given responsibility to care for the earth, and, all of creation.  God’s loves creation and describes it as, “very good.”  We are to enjoy it and have dominion over our entire planet, which is not the same thing as, domination and unquestioned authority over it.  But we are given, to care for it, and be in partnership with it.  Yet the responsibility, being so great, opens the door to its opposite temptation, its misuse and abuse. 
After Jaws came out, there was an animal rights back-lash, of a sort, and rightly so.  The success of the movie was not questioned, but the authenticity of the great white shark’s appetite.  Though there have been occasions of sharks maiming and even killing swimmers, such anomolies seem to stem from our malfeasance to care fro the ocean and the warming of waters due to climate change, which disorients them and brings them unusually close to shore.  At any rate, they’re DNA is not programmed to attack humans.

 The greater creature to fear, is us.  Today we witness the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, the seas of our back yard, rich in seafood and delicate estuaries, and manifold creatures of sea, land and air.  Now, it is all under attack, and gasping for breath  – the water itself, and all life in and around it, from the plankton and shellfish, to dolphin and sharks, to the winged birds – all in danger, or dying, the full extent of which we don’t even yet know.  It is not the scary, unknown Leviathan, or even Jaws, which has brought fear, but the process of deep water drilling, on our behalf, given the go ahead by government regulators, gone slack, and fueled by the ego’s and greed of oil executives, unable to restrain themselves from the lure of, “More”. 

And so, let me take you on just a short side trip, into the gospel story from Luke, and the parable of the wealthy ‘fool,’ that Jesus tells.  For here is a very rich man, a billionaire executive that has it all, and then on top of it, has such a profitable year he doesn’t know what to do with the windfall.  He gathers no democratic round table to make his decision, but consults only “himself,” his conclusion being, to stockpile it, all for himself, in bigger and more costly barns.  What should I do with “my” crops, “my” barns, “my” grain, and “my” goods?  “Me, me, mine!”  As Paul said to Timothy, it’s not money, but “the love of money which is a root of all kinds of evil.” 

The thing that makes the wealthy man a “fool” in Jesus eyes, is not that he is rich, but that he is a ‘poor steward’ of what he has.  He is just the opposite of Joseph, who advises Pharaoh down in Egypt.  You know, Joseph and his Technicolor Dream Coat?!  Joseph told the wealthy Pharaoh to store up all the food he could for seven years, while the crops were producing abundantly, because the following seven years would be famine years.  But the difference is, with Joseph and Pharaoh, they didn’t just create a business plan that would make them rich, but together they planned ahead to feed and save the Egyptians, and all the surrounding country’s, including Joseph’s family in Israel.  Joseph and Pharaoh had vision!  The rich fool, just like some executives we know, just wanted to live the good life, “relax, eat, drink, be merry.” 

But, what if your life is demanded of you this day?  That, is our question!  What would your legacy be?  And how do you want to be known?  Do you want to be remembered as, a Joseph, with the foresight to feed and save his family and others -- not to mention that gorgeous coat!  Or, do you want to be remembered as, a rich fool! 

In the ecology of God’s creation, the greater misdeed surely must be that without a vision, without a purpose for the gifts and riches we’ve been given -- to live the high life, is to take away the gifts and resources of the creation, for one’s self, and slight the many for whom it was meant to be shared with.  God has made the earth and all it’s multitude of creatures: inter-dependent, created to be in relationship, to care for one another, and thus to share its resources.  Within that vision, there is abundance, God tells us!  In the worldview of the rich fool, it’s just a narcissistic game: ‘whoever dies with the most toys, wins.’ 

So our question to discuss this morning is: What are the earth’s resources for?  What is our responsibility for the waste and over-consumption of our nation?  Who is the great Leviathan of our time?  Is the: reuse, reduce, recycle, model, enough?  What is God calling us to do? 

   Take a minute and turn to the person next to you to discuss: What is God calling us to do to make our neighborhood and world greener?  What is our responsibility in Caring for Creation?  

Grace to you and peace, from God almighty and from our savior, who is Jesus the Christ. Amen.

 

“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”  Remember that song?!  It is, a beautiful day in God’s neighborhood.  On this Sabbath, it’s good to be here as God’s people and sing God’s praises.  Jesus is teaching us.  Jesus is healing.  And, a half-dead man in the neighborhood is cared for, and brought back to life by a Samaritan.  And Jesus tells us, “go and do likewise.”  Go, and help to create your beautiful neighborhood! 

 

Praise to God for the commandments that teach us what to do: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”  “Do this and live!” says Jesus. 

 

But, who is my neighbor?  Is she the one that lives next door?  Is he the one who I meet on the streets?  The one I work with?  The one that just moved in on my block, from across town, or, from across the ocean?  Who is my neighbor, that I may love him or her? 

 

How many remember this story of the Merciful Samaritan, or, as we used to call it, the Good Samaritan?  Traditionally, the Lutheran church has been very good at teaching this.  We’ve had good church education programs: Sunday school, for the younger kids; Confirmation classes, during middle school, and various high school programs and adult classes, studies and retreats.  Probably the most memorable is the way we’ve taught catechism.  Years ago, you had to memorize Luther’s Small Catechism and recite it back.  Be tested on it!  So, you may have had to actually go up in front of the whole congregation on your confirmation day for this.  If you were lucky, you knew in advance what the pastor was going to ask you.  Name, or shame!  Later, it became the practice to have a written test in class.  This isn’t so  much different from what the lawyer and Jesus were doing, testing each other about the catechism of the day.  “What must I do to inherit eternal life,” the lawyer asked?  Learning the basics is important.  But depending on them for salvation is not what Jesus had in mind.  Jesus came as God’s son to fulfill the law, by who he was, and how he lived with us.  He en-fleshed God’s realm and kingdom for us, here on earth. 

 

Jesus asks the lawyer what he thinks, and commends him for reciting from the Book of Moses: “Do this,” says Jesus – love God and your neighbor – and you will live!”  Jesus Sends him out to live it.  But the lawyer is stuck on debating.  Are we sometimes more like this – stuck on what we believe and debating about it?  How do we change our love of doctrine and catechism, into love of “going and doing?” 

 

Jesus tries a new tack with him.  He tells the story of the Merciful Samaritan, the story about the third person who stopped to help a man beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. 

 

Something like this happened in our neighborhood recently.  A woman was walking down Catalpa in the middle of the day, in broad daylight, when a car passing by stopped, and the passenger snuck up from behind, surprising her and hitting the woman over the head!  He stole her purse, leaving her bleeding, as he jumped in the get-a-way car.  I’m not sure if others passed by on the other side without helping, but a neighbor witnessed it from inside his house and came out to her rescue, calling an ambulance and the police and getting her the help she needed.  That was not a good day in the neighborhood, except for, this neighbor who reached out and showed mercy.  Jesus’ question about who is the neighbor, is very clear here.

 

But the remarkable thing about the Merciful Samaritan in Jesus story is that he was an avowed enemy.  Not like an enemy in war, but more like an estranged cousin, one we know well, who was related and part of us, but something terrible happened to break relationship with him or her.  Or, in this case, a whole class of people, more like a split in the Lutheran church, or another denomination, and now worship separately, across the tracks, in a different neighborhood, we try to avoid. 

 

Who do you think was a neighbor to the man left for dead on the side of the road?  If we can just get this question right, we will have our prize, eternal life!  Right?  It’s not that difficult a question!  But I want to know if I have it right, that I may pass ahead to the next class, and all will be well!  I can go back to my private life and “pursuit of happiness!”  

 

When the lawyer answers Jesus, he doesn’t pick one of the three persons.  He uses a descriptive action word, “the one who showed him mercy.”  Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”  “Go,” and “do!”  These are action words too.  Perhaps the lawyer has now caught the Vision?!  We know our neighbor by his/her actions: not by where they live or what country they come from, or what religion they are.  But we know our neighbor by what they do: a neighbor shows mercy. 

 

We pass the test – not in memorizing the words, nor in believing correct doctrine – but when we “go, and do,” like the Samaritan.  We pass the test in living out what we believe, in connecting our belief in God with our life in the world.  It’s relatively easy to share the peace here inside these walls, but it really counts in the world outside of here, Monday thru Friday, where, when our faith comes alive, we make it, “a good day in the neighborhood.” 

 

Finally, imagine yourself – not as the Merciful Samaritan – but as the beaten up one that needs help, and is dependent on the kindness of a stranger!  If you were in that position, do you think you would worry who it was that reached out to pick you up, dress your wounds, and pay for a room in the inn? 

 

When we are, acting as neighbors, our differences and doctrines don’t matter, and can’t save us.  Only our, beliefs put into practice, the way we contribute to making our neighborhood beautiful, can connect us to the realm of God.  It’s no secret: “the word of God is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to [live out, and] do.”  That’s what makes it a beautiful day in the neighborhood.      Amen. 

Grace to you and peace, from God almighty and from our savior, who is Jesus the Christ. Amen.

 

Edgewater has any number of ethnic dining experiences.  Swedish, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Mediterranean, and African, to name a few.  I ate at the Ethiopian Diamond restaurant as the guest of some of the Oromo leadership earlier this year.  I love the spongy Ingera bread, and spicy meats and sauces.  But I had never before eaten an entire meal with my bare hands.  At least not in a restaurant!  The four of us ordered separate dishes, but it all came on one large common plate that took up the center of our table.  They taught me how to take the bread and grab the meat and soak up the sauces, all with your fingers.  And I was invited to try some of theirs – anything I wanted from the plate.  That was different, and slightly awkward for me.  It took me out of my comfort zone.  But I was reassured by my company, who obviously felt quite at home with it.  This was their tradition, and there was also a closeness, a fellowship in “sharing the meal”.  I was the guest.  And, maybe it wasn’t all that different than a 4th of July BBQ of burgers and watermelon, which, after all, we eat with our fingers!? 

 

“Jesus sends us out,” his fellowship, “to every town and place,” saying, “eat what is set before you.”  Can you imagine that today?  What about having a peanut allergy?  What if you are a vegetarian and they serve meat? 

 

There was a Law and Order episode where the DA and Assistant DA went out in their city finery to rural NY, to meet the family they were representing.  The grandpa and his son lived in the proverbial shack in the woods.  And these hosts insisted on sharing what they had, a stew they had prepared.  As the cook handed bowls to the attorneys, the grandpa said, “We call it squirrel stew, but it’s really chicken.”  You didn’t know if he’s trying to game them, or if he’s telling the truth. 

 

Is this what Jesus means when he says, “Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you”?  Do we have to eat squirrel stew to be a Christian?  Or wouldn’t we say, the purpose is more in the fellowship and the cross-cultural exchange?  A missioner, it turns out, is someone who acts like a guest, not the host!  And isn’t this just the opposite of the way we have thought of “mission” in the past, where the missionary brings the message and the meal, telling the people more than engaging and inviting?  Jesus sends us out to be guests.  

 

When Jesus sends out “70 others… on ahead of him in pairs,” it was different than sending out the 12 disciples too.  In the past, we might see the 12 as a sending out the clergy, or trained missionaries.  The 70, however, are his whole band of followers, the whole congregation.  Pairs, was a common tactic, and it’s still not a bad way to go today – Lennon and McCartney, Lucy and Ethel, Penn and Teller! 

 

People have at least heard of Jesus, even here in Edgewater.  But they may not have had an encounter with a follower of Jesus, or a first hand meeting with a Christian person.  Edgewater is so religiously diverse.  In addition to practically every Christian flavor, we have Jew, Muslim, Sheik, Buddhist, Hindu, Native American, those who are practicing and non-practicing, spiritual seekers and atheists.  All the more important that we learn how to be guests, wherever we go. 

 

Jesus helps us to see that, we don’t need to set the cultural agenda, in fact, we really shouldn’t.  To, “eat what is set before you,” and be a “guest,” means to receive as well as to give.  All that we have to give is, “healing and peace,” signs that “the kingdom of God has come near.”  It’s a message that is open to all.  It’s a practive that we live, and a reality that comes through us.  If that is rejected, no need to push it or force it.  The Peace of Christ will return to you, and you simply move on.  Our faith is made for cross-cultural encounters.

 

And it’s tailor made for us as Americans!  On this 4th of July, we celebrate that we have, the freedom of religion, among other things.  We cannot be persecuted for our faith, and we don’t have to beat it into anyone else either if they don’t want to receive it.  Jesus says much the same thing.  Religion is not mandatory, but the nearness of the realm of God is offered to all.  So, we can rejoice in the “separation of church and state,” for it gives us the room to be who we are, and to practice and share our faith.  And we can rest assured that no government official, no Rod Blagojevich, or anyone else, will set the agenda for teaching the faith, or telling us how to live it out. 

 

Because “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few,” it’s okay to ask for help.  It is all of our business!  We are commissioned by Jesus; we go out, to prepare the soil; to make room for Jesus to drop in and grow in people’s lives.  We offer healing and consolation, just as we enact Jesus healing at the healing station here every week.  We are to be peace-makers in our lives, declaring that Jesus has brought healing and peace to all, because, the kingdom and realm of God has come near. 

 

So, I want to give you a chance to process this for yourselves.  Find a partner, and 2 by 2 talk about it for a minute.  If we live lives of healing and peace, here is the question: What are the healing or peaceful traits that you have, that you like to share with others.  Don’t be bashful!  Or, maybe you can identify that in your partner – their healing and peace-making characteristics?!

*****

So why does Jesus want us to act like guests when we go out?  One answer is that we are to be in a two-way conversation about the ‘healing and peace of the realm of God,’ not just telling or preaching without listening.  Everyone is called to be the incarnation, the physical, en-fleshed, people of God, the Body of Christ.  The spirit lives in and through us, the realm of God comes near, in our lives of faith, out in the world. 

 

It all comes back to the fellowship of the meal.  Jesus welcomes us to this table, to host a meal, and we are the guests.  Delicious bread and fine wine are served, and we share a fellowship that crosses over every generation and culture, a gift that overflows with love, and forgiveness, and life. 

 

And Jesus says, “rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”     Amen.