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September 29, 2013 + "A Great Chasm" sermon by Pastor Kinsey

9/30/2013

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Readings for September 29, 2013
Pentecost 19/Proper 21(C)
  • Amos 6:1a, 4-7
  • 1 Timothy 6:6-19 
  • Luke 16:19-31


A Great Chasm
When Lewis and Clark explored the Louisiana Territory and first came across the Dakota Badlands, they were temporarily transfixed at the deep and wide chasm between them and the other side.  It was beautiful, other-worldly, and looked impassable.  Prong-horn deer and antelope bounded effortlessly up and down the shear Limestone cliffs, bison grazed the grassy level plateau’s, and coyotes ambled down to the Little Missouri River for a drink.  But only with the Lakota-Sioux as their guides, were Lewis & Clark able to cross the chasm.  And when the white settlers, with their Conestoga wagons, were deciding on best routes to the west, based on Lewis and Clark’s exploration, a Pass was found through the Rocky Mountains, but they avoided traveling through the Badlands altogether.  It wasn’t called the Badlands for nothing!

“Between you and us a great chasm has been fixed,” said Abraham in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.  “Those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.'”  And so we get the picture!  In this life, the rich man passed by Lazarus every day, but now in death, their fortunes have been reversed, and because of the chasm, there is no way to get there from here.  Beware!

Most of us have heard, or told, a joke about the "pearly gates" before.  There are stories about Irishmen, or, a Priest a Rabbi and an Imam, who go to meet St. Peter at heaven's gate somewhere in the clouds.  Well, this kind of literature is actually nothing new.  There were folk stories about the heavenly hereafter at the time of Christ too, at least in the Greek and Roman story-telling cannon.  And Jesus likely borrowed one of these in telling the parable about a rich man and a beggar, Lazarus, who met Abraham in the afterlife.  

It’s clear too, that Jesus uses the folktale style, not to try and inform us about what the afterlife looks like.  But his point is centered on who we are, and what kind of people God’s people are to be, here in this life. 

It’s also clear that something is going on about the polarities of rich and poor.  “Usually one’s own economic situation helps determine ones’ opinion about the poor,” says Gail Ramshaw. “Are you yourself poor? …Were your ancestors poor, or were they wealthy benefactors? [Were you taught] that hard work brings [with it the reward of] money? Are your [peers] successful in achieving the economic gains due their labor, or is society stacked against you and yours?  Whom exactly do we mean by the poor?”

Jesus lived mostly among the poor, though he didn’t shun the rich.  He accepted invitations to dine with prominent people of power.  But with them, he usually took up the cause of his birth which his mother Mary sang about in the song we call the Magnificat, in the very first chapter of Luke: that God will, “scatter the proud… and has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty…”  Down in the valley, in the city of Jericho, Jesus inspired a tax-collector, Zacchaeus, to give away half his wealth, and to repay 400% to anyone he defrauded, and become a follower. 

And it was St Paul, after responding to the risen Lord’s call to stop persecuting him and become a disciple, that picked up this theme, in a metaphorical way.  In 2nd Corinthians he says that Christ became poor for us, so that we might be rich, but not literally, of course.  Probably Paul meant to refer to Jesus’ willingness to relinquish the divine throne and come down in order to live a human life, which is beautifully captured in his letter to the Philippians. 

This too seems to be what Jesus was after, in bridging that chasm between rich and poor.  It’s both metaphorical and real.  And the chasm can be wide, as we know, even here in this life, for we are often like the rich man, aren’t we, who practically stumbled over Lazarus as he lay at his gate, all covered with sores and hungry.  And what is there to make him stop and give a care?  How close, and yet, how far, are they?  Unless we, like Jesus, we like the prophet Amos, we like St Francis of Assisi, we like Mother Teresa, we like Martin Luther King, we like Dorothy Day, we like Lutheran Social Services of Illinois, we like the Night Shelter, we like Care for Real, unless we will stand up and organize for bridging the chasm, how will the realm and kingdom of God that Jesus announced be enacted?  Clearly Jesus was telling this parable, not to teach us the ins and outs about the afterlife, but to offer us a way to re-enter this life, and with prophetic justice, bridge the chasm of our lives. 

This week I was able to go to a training with friends from ONE Northside.  It was run by a national organizing group, and was called, Dismantling Structural Racism.  And we learned one thing that relates well here.  None of us can do it alone!  The just and peaceful community that Mary sang about when she magnified God, and, bridging the chasm, that Jesus declared was our mission as his followers, does not come about by itself, by good intentions, or even through faithful prayers alone. 

For as Jesus knew, there are forces working against the realm of God every day, some of which are seen, and some not.  But we see its effects on the poor, if we have eyes to see, and we see the devastation of our society, by those who are perfectly willing to grow the chasm to benefit themselves, the very few, and disproportionately oppress the rest of us.  The effects of this oppression, like the effects of racism, we learned, are of course, horrible.  But we cannot change them alone.  To help one, is not to address the evil that is, and will continue, to build up and deepen the chasm.  But only when we organize together as people of faith in partnership and common cause with others of like mind, and aim past the individual to the larger structural evil, the Chasm, can we say we are working for the kingdom of God.  Jesus was an organizer.  His kingdom was based on God’s desire to tear down the Chasm between us.  And he didn’t forget about those on the bottom. 

Those on the bottom, the poor, mostly never have a voice.  We see that increasingly happening again today.  It is not easy to include all, and it’s too easy to forget, or let go, those who cannot speak for themselves, those we stumble over, like poor Lazarus, whom Jesus never forgets.  But Jesus is in it for the long haul, and so must we be.  Our prayers and faith life are important foundations for organizing, and essential for remembering who it is we serve and live with.  The chasm has become deep and wide, and each time we come to the precipice, it can look mighty scary. 

I can tell you this about the chasm, though.  First of all, Kim and I loved to go camping in the North Dakota Badlands!  We did it for many years.  Like the nomads, the Lakota-Sioux tribe before us, who loved the land and were unafraid of living with, and bridging, the chasm, we too found it a beautiful land to live and hike in.  The valley’s – or chasm’s from a distance – are surprisingly possible to traverse, one step at a time.  Of course, we had to depend on one another as we traveled.  We had to be organized, to bring water and meals along, for example. 

But the chasm is nothing more than a journey we embark on with the blessing of our God, who promises us that “every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low.” 

As so we Gather each week to hear the Word and share in the Meal, we are reminded what we are Sent for.  To bridge the chasm.  Our identity in worship is our prescription for living every day, for the long term.  We ‘celebrate and proclaim and organize,’ that the chasm has no place in the realm and kingdom of God, which we are called to enact.  As a people baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, we have nothing to fear – in Jesus, the Chasm has already been bridged.  So, let’s go hiking! 
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September 22, 2013 + Sermon by Pastor Fred Kinsey

9/22/2013

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Readings for September 22, 2013
The 18th Sunday after Pentecost/ Proper 20C/ Lectionary 25
  • Amos 8:4-7 and Psalm 113 
  • 1 Timothy 2:1-7 
  • Luke 16:1-13


How to Make Friends With Dishonest Wealth
Thanks to the Chicago Chamber Choir for their beautiful music today.  We cherish our partnership with you, Timm Adams and the choir, which has been ongoing for over a decade now.  I realize, of course, you love us mostly because of our beautiful space here and its exceptional acoustics!  But seriously, I think we have developed a strong and fruitful relationship with each other as well. 

In the language of the gospel reading, we are indebted to the Chamber Choir for this mini-concert today.  And, I think -if I’m not mistaken- they feel like it’s a thank you gift they can, and want to, offer to us – and so to extend the biblical-literary-metaphor just a step further, we could also say it’s a debt that is paid, or forgiven, from each side of our partnership. 

So thanks for your gift to our Open House Sunday, and we look forward to hearing from you a couple more times yet this morning.

The dishonest manager, in our Gospel Parable today, who quickly forgives his master’s debtors 20 & 50%, in order to save his own butt, is a shrewd one indeed!  And against all our better judgments, he gets praised for it!  This is definitely one of the more shocking and confusing parables we’ll ever hear from Jesus. 

The deal with the debts reminds me of student loans, specifically, my student loans. 

How many of you have ever had to pay back student loans?  Or, maybe you’re in school right now, accumulating debt on a student loan?  How about a home mortgage loan, or condo, or a car loan? 

My experience wasn’t that bad, actually.  Way back, when I had student loans from 8 years of college and seminary, the interest rate was pretty low, 3% I think.  I also took time to work, especially during seminary, and so, even though it took an extra year to graduate, it helped significantly in reducing what I had to borrow.  There was a generous grace period in those days, before you had to start paying it back if you didn’t have a job, thank goodness, because it took Kim and I about two years to get our first position.  And so, for the first 10 years of our first-call, Kim and I budgeted to pay everything back, but it was doable.  I think it was about 15% of our income at the time.  Not near as much as some students today. 

Today, the cost of secondary education has sky rocketed.  One year can easily cost more than my whole undergraduate degree did, in the 70’s!  Interest rates have more than doubled, and it’s not uncommon for the rate to be unknown to the borrower.  As a rule, students aren’t told how much they’ll have to repay.  Also undisclosed in the loans, are the punitive restrictions.  More and more, there is no way out, even if you can’t get a job!  In this age of high unemployment, students without a job accrue unbelievable interest and have reconciled themselves to paying it back literally until they die!  Universities are in competition with each other for the latest and greatest campuses: new buildings and high tech equipment are constantly being updated.  The Chancellors are rewarded with 7 figure salaries as never before, to make this happen.  And all this becomes fuel for the fire of the precipitous rise in tuition rates.  And so, too often, the banks doing the loaning are reaping the profits, on the backs of students and their families. 

Could this be an example of the dishonest wealth, the master calls attention to in our parable?  It is certainly a kind of cheating, in a sense, as we watch helplessly – watch our young people mostly languish in this anemic labor market.  Record numbers of graduates remain unemployed or are forced to get by at McDonald’s with their advanced degrees.  Our Universities are joining the gristmill of a system that continues to decimate the middle class, and some are saying, is creating the next dangerous bubble in our economy. 

But the dishonest wealth, as the master describes it in Jesus’ parable, is about subverting this system and economy.  Listen to what he says, “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”  It’s first of all about making friends!  It’s about being shrewd in our relationships with one another.  So Jesus’ story transforms our expectations, and he bids us to learn from “the children of this world.” When the world was about to come crashing down around the dishonest steward, he was right in that he needed to react quickly to save himself.  It was a wake-up call to doing something.

In “making friends for himself by means of dishonest wealth,” he creates allies and relationships of mutual interest and trust, amongst his master’s debtors, so that when he was kicked out of his old life, based on relationships of money, he has a new foundation to rebuild on.

You know that saying, “You can’t buy friends.”  Jesus seems to be saying, that’s precisely what we should be doing. Deep and meaningful friendships and relationships involve spending treasure, both tangible and intangible. The point is to use it while we have it, and so he hustled to make friends among the debtors.

 “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.”  “You cannot serve God and wealth.”  And, as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, according to Luke, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted to us!” 

The theologian Ched Myers, based on his 1st C. Near-East research, has a brilliant insight here: He says that the principle which the dishonest manager is congratulated for, is really for, keeping money moving.  Money is a resource, so long as it is given or spent--scattered or broadcast—especially for providing to those in need and releasing people from debt.  In this way, it builds up the realm and kingdom of God, whereas privatized accounts protect against dispersal, and stand in the way of growing relationships that matter the most.

What the dishonest manager realizes is that generosity is the best investment. He gets himself out of a hole by building social capital.  It’s as if the rich man, *turns to the manager he fired,* to discover the secret of true riches: generosity.

What would it mean if we lived, not just in competition to build bigger and bigger monuments and buildings, without regard to human consequences, but practiced, keeping money moving, including debt forgiveness? What would happen if we practiced building social capital and generosity? 

Sarah Dylan Breuer says, it’s all about forgiveness, which, in Luke’s Gospel, is the co-equivalent of “debts”.

The steward forgives. He forgives things that he had no right to forgive. He forgives for all the wrong reasons, for personal gain and to compensate for past misconduct.  But that’s typical Luke: Forgive it all. Forgive it now. Forgive it for any reason you want, or for no reason at all.

Forgive with intentionality, because, for example, we're intensely aware of what we ourselves are like, as unforgiving people.  Forgive because we are, or we want to be, deeply in touch with a sense of Jesus' power to forgive and free other sinners or debtors like us. Or, forgive because we think it will improve our odds of winning the lottery!

It boils down to the same thing: deluded or sane, selfish and/or unselfish, there is no bad reason to forgive, and forgive debts. Extending the kind of grace God shows us in every possible arena – moral and financial -- can only put us more deeply in touch with our generosity, and God's grace.  Forgive each other.  Forgive debts, as we ourselves have been forgiven.

In the realm and kingdom of God that we are called to, we are learning to, keep the money moving.  We desire to spend our capital on friends and creating allies.  If you need a motivation, says Jesus, this is the way to be welcomed into eternal homes.  But, don’t delay!  You cannot serve God and wealth. 

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"Sweeper Jesus" + Pastor Fred Kinsey Sermon

9/16/2013

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Readings for Sunday September 15, 2013,
Pentecost 17/Proper 19(C)/Lectionary 24
  • Exodus 32:7-14 and Psalm 51:1-10 
  • 1 Timothy 1:12-17 
  • Luke 15:1-10

Sweeper Jesus, Pastor Fred Kinsey
Do we repent because God wants us to?  Or because it transforms us into a new being, a new human?  Are we the lost, who are found?  Or are we the righteous, who need no repentance?  Do we desire mercy, or sacrifice?  In finding, or being found, who do we rejoice with? 

I love the image of Jesus as, the sweeper of the house, searching for the lost coin.  Like the woman who had 10 silver coins and lost one, the broom of mercy and grace, is also a familiar cleaning tool. She, or he, who take up the broom, are cleaners, as well as, searchers, for the lost. 

When we feel lost or forgotten.  When we feel neglected or misunderstood.  When we fail to measure up to our own, or someone else’s, standards.  When we hurt the ones we love.  When the ones we love are hurting, due to ill health, or suffering from circumstances beyond our control.  How do we find healing and wholeness?  Who will come to the rescue?  Loss, always brings with it, pain.  Not all loss can be fixed or put to rights.  Reparations for what was broken cannot always repair and restore, as it once was.  But still, all is not lost.  Forgiveness and transformation are possible. 

“…what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?” 

Sweeping, is one of my duties around the house.  I much prefer the chore of sweeping, to the chore of cleaning the bathroom, that Kim does.  We find that we divide up household chores, simply by the way we like, or don’t like, them, and so each of us claims we have a better deal – which works out pretty good!  For a long time I used an old corn-broom from my Uncle Shuff’s family broom factory in Chanute, Kansas to sweep the floor.  I loved its long wooden handle and well-made bristles.  It lasted for decades, before finally coming undone a few years ago.  Now, on our hard wood floors, I use a Swiffer-type sweeper.  It does a good job, better in some ways, but it’s much more high-maintenance than my trusty family organic broom was!

Of course, sweeping was traditionally women’s work, and so the image of Jesus, as the sweeper, has certainly been an unusual encounter for many Gospel readers.  Jesus the Good Shepherd, the King David-type figure, going out searching for the lost sheep, was the more common image – a male holding a Shepherd’s Staff.  But the image of Jesus, the Son of God, broom in hand, and sweeping the dirt floor of a Palestinian home?  That’s a curiously queering one, even for many of us to picture today!  

Personally, I find sweeping satisfying – and not just because I sometimes discover coins, and other treasures I’d misplaced under the sofa, but more because, after a good sweeping and mopping, I have a sense of a fresh new beginning.  Like sins washed clean in baptism, like the turning around and going in a new direction that “repentance” implies, sweeping is a satisfying clean new start.

But in sweeping the floor and finding the lost coin, it’s not just that one more, is found.  Certainly, this is part of our calling.  To find one who is lost, a family member or friend that needs our help, is how we engage our faith.  The one who is struggling with addiction, the one who needs a visit in the hospital or nursing home, the one who has lost their job, all need support.  We are God’s hands, working in the world!  But Jesus takes us deeper yet, in this parable.

Jesus, as the sweeping woman, or searching shepherd, isn’t just reacting to endless needs, one crisis after another, adding one more notch in his belt.  But rather, God, acting through the church of Jesus Christ, lifts up the one we have forgotten, the very one that is not to be left behind.  The lost one, is the priority.  The one who is lost must be found, must be returned to the fold, is of more value to the whole – the whole community – if we are to have a community that is healthy and whole, at all.  In the realm of God, there is only, just, and true, and authentic community, if it is for all: for, everyone! 

And so Jesus the Shepherd, does in a somewhat jarring way, what no shepherd should do, he leaves the 99 righteous sheep in the dangerous wilderness where wolves roam, in order to search out the lost one.  Jesus the Sweeper, broom in hand, risks looking shameful and weak in order to pursue even the 1 out of 10 that is lost or forgotten. 

Let it be so among you, Jesus would say!  And yet, in American society today, with our largely unregulated capitalist economy, we actually plan to have the lost and neglected.  For example, with unemployment, it used to be that 3-4% unemployment was the official acceptable goal, now after the Great Recession we may have to revise that higher still!  Therefore, homelessness is to be expected too, whether considered their fault or not, in the most recent count, more than 116,000 persons are homeless in Chicago, a 10% increase in the past year.  The 1 out of 100 sheep, or the one out of ten coins that are lost, are an “acceptable loss,” we are told. 

Or, take our current approach to war as another example: whether by the troops on the ground, or the Commander in Chief choosing drone targets, “collateral damage,” a nice PC word meaning, “civilian deaths,” is actually planned for.  Kept to a minimum, but always a numerically expected calculation.  In a recent Face the Nation Roundtable on Syria, Jane Harmon, a former US Representative, in trying to make the case for air strikes, said, “we have to make a choice among bad options, and [missile strikes] are the least bad option. They’re gunna be killed anyway,” Harmon reasoned, referring to Syrian civilians! 

The economy, or realm, of this world, is not the economy of God’s realm and kingdom, which we are called to embody and live in.  Jesus sweeps in a different economy, a different community.

What a joy it has been then to see this alternative community rise up, if only for a moment, amongst us.  I’m speaking of the deliberations regarding Syria, where only two weeks ago our elected leaders were beating the drums of war and openly considering the next collateral damage there.  But instead of “beating drums,” the image of the “merciful broom,” sweeping carefully, looking for lost paths to peaceful coexistence, has captured the imaginations of many across the globe. 

Now we await the outcome of the surprising American-Russian diplomacy.  Nothing is assured, but hopes are high.  And would it be too much to ask to continue the discussions, to move from there, straight to ceasefire and peace talks before more blood is shed, before the 1 out of 10 in Christian towns and churches are further targeted, and deeper chaos in Syrian takes hold?! 

The Sweeper and the Shepherd reveal who the righteous, and who the lost, are.  Their images are oddly jarring, but transformative.  They imagine mercy instead of human sacrifice.  They imagine risking reputations, to search for the 1 out of 10, the 1 out of 100 even, to search for the ones we often forget or deem to be a socially acceptable sacrifice to make the rest of our lives possible.

In revealing the horror we are capable of, the Sweeper and the Shepherd also allow us to wake up to our self-righteousness, and to turn around in a new direction, that is, repent.  We realize how we have been lost, and how much the sweeper desires to find us.  We identify with other lost ones, and begin to find it unacceptable that they should be sacrificed any longer.  Collateral damage in the realm of this world is no longer invisible, and we can’t help but find the lost and welcome everyone to the joy of the celebration!  We feed one another, as Jesus feeds us at the banqueting table.  And so, we do not repent just because God wants us to.  But because it transforms our self-righteousness into a new being, a new human.  We may be, alternately, the seekers, and the found ones. 

And so we come to find, only when the lost one is found, and all are brought back into the fold, can we truly rejoice at the banqueting table of the Sweeper.  At the Sweepers table, we find a community of mercy and grace. 
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Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost - C

9/14/2013

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Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 
Luke 14:25-33



Making Choices - Pastor John Roberts



“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I
have set before you: life and death; blessings and curses.” 
Which would you choose?  At
first glance, we would judge someone silly at best – out of their mind at worst
to choose death and curses over life and blessings. 
But when we examine the many choices human beings have to make day after
day, we have to admit how easy it is to choose those things we know are bad for
us.  Why are so many of us, like
myself, overweight? It’s the food
choices we make, isn’t it? We all
know that we have made choices which end up being curses in our lives and those
curses add up to our eventual death. 
So what has Moses asked of us today?



The psalmist tells us, “happy are those who do not follow the
advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread……but their delight is
in the law of the Lord and on his law they meditate day and night.” 
Well, it’s no wonder then that we began our worship today by confessing,
“we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves. 
We have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed; by what we have
done and by what we have left undone.” 
It’s probably safe to say that there is not one among us today, including
myself, who has been meditating on the law of God day and night. 
Does this mean we cannot be happy?



We are no different from the “large crowds” that were traveling
with Jesus in today’s Gospel reading. 
They knew the challenge of Moses: 
chose life and blessing or curses and death. 
They had sung the psalms. 
They followed Jesus along the Galilean roads with their own personal
expectations.  Some expected
miracles and healings.  Some
expected challenges to the authorities of the day – the Roman occupiers, the
Jewish hypocrites.  Some expected
words of hope that their lives would be better.  Everyone expected their own personal
prayers to be answered. Yes, we are
just like those crowds gathered around Jesus.  We have our own reasons for being here
  today.  And we really don’t feel
that good about Jesus telling us, “none of you can become my disciple if you do
not give up all your possessions.” 




We are Americans. 
We define ourselves by our possessions.  We are either PC people or Mac people;
iPhone or Android users. We prefer
buying a home or renting an apartment. 
We are meat-eaters or we are some form of vegan. 
Even the choices of charities we give to define who we are. 
Do we wear pink to support breast cancer awareness or red to support AIDS
research?  Do we give time to
agencies which support animal protection or time to the Red Cross? 
You see, we really do make a lot of choices in our lives that define who
  we are.



To all of that today, Jesus asks, “are you ready to be my
disciple?”  If so, give up all your
possessions; carry THE cross; and hate your father, mother, spouse, child,
sister and brother.  Oh, for that
matter: how about hate your life?



OK.  Has Jesus gone
a bit too far here?  It just
doesn’t seem like the Jesus we know –the one who tells us to love one another,
even our enemy.  Yep. 
Same Jesus.  So what’s the
deal?  Is Jesus contradicting
himself?



The answer is actually found in the demands themselves. 



 “Whoever does not
carry THE cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 
Luke has recorded this very specifically.  It’s not, whoever does not carry their
own cross but THE cross.  You see,
Jesus in today’s Gospel reading is still on his way to Jerusalem. 
He knows what THE cross is. 
It is the purpose of his being. 
It will mean being judged by the authorities. 
It will mean denial and betrayal by his closest friends. 
It will mean watching his dear mother’s heart being broken. 
It will mean cruel suffering and death.  And it will mean God’s victory over
sin, death, and the power of the Evil One. This is THE cross that Jesus tells the
crowd and us to pick up and carry. 
Yes, this may mean that we will suffer too. 
It may mean that we will be faced by the same challenges that Jesus
endured.  Watching a loved one die;
being thought of as“different” because we go to church on Sunday mornings; being
faced with unemployment, losing a house to the bank, all of the pieces of worry
we have in our lives will be there for us too.  But, the true victory of our lives has
already been accomplished.  When we
confess our sins – like we did this morning – we are confident that our sins are
forgiven.  When the devil tempts us
to take the easy way; the selfish way; or the way that gives us more things,
more power, more, more, more – we can be confident that the Holy Spirit will
guide us as we hear God’s Word and feast on the Holy food of the Eucharist to
choose the righteous way.  Don’t
you see: the judgment of our lives has already been decided and we are seen by
God as God’s own dear children. 
Now it is our turn to follow Jesus and be Christ to a waiting world. We still live with the many temptations
to put other things before God. 
This can include all of those tempting possessions but they can also be
the people we love.  Sometimes we
are tempted to put family before God. 
Shall I go to hear God’s Word and feast at the Table or will my child’s
soccer game become more important?  
Will a date night with my spouse be more important than giving time to
the needs of my church?  Do I give
as much time to prayer as I give to my family?  It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want us to
love our families.  It’s just that
Jesus wants as much of our time and our daily effort aimed at being a disciple
as we give to the other things we rightly love.  Doesn’t the God who gave Jesus to the
Cross deserve your love and your life? 
The good news of today is that God has centered all of life around
you.  Shouldn’t you center all of
life around God? 




When this happens, perspectives change and choices in life
change too.  Take, for instance,
the relationship Paul talks about in today’s Second Reading. 
The book of Philemon is the shortest book in the Bible. 
We heard the entire book read this morning. 
It is a personal letter from Paul to Philemon, a leader of the church in
Antioch in Syria; but also a letter to the whole church there. 
Philemon had a slave named Onesimus.  Onesimus was a runaway slave.  How it happened, we do not know but
Onesimus joined Paul, together with Timothy, Epaphras, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas,
and Luke while Paul was in prison either in Rome or in Ceasarea. 
Paul is now sending Onesimus back to Philemon. 
Paul doesn’t make any statement about either slavery in general or the
slave relationship between Onseimus and Philemon. 
But Paul does two things: 
he says whatever Onesimus owes Philemon, he, Paul will pay; and he says
that Onesimus, who is now a Christian and has been like his own son, should be
received by Philemon as a brother in Christ.  He tells Philemon that he could command
  Philemon to do this but instead, he will leave that choice, that life decision
  up to Philemon.  In other words,
Paul was asking Philemon to take up THE Cross and follow Jesus when he receives
Onesimus.  We have no record of
what decision Philemon made but, because the early Church chose to include this
letter in the canon of the Bible, we can make a pretty good inference that
Philemon took Onesimus in according to Paul’s wishes. 
Later, this little letter became an important piece of reference when
Christian nations decided to eliminate the practice of slavery. 
A little choice by one Christian to change his relationship based on the
  love of God in Christ Jesus helped change an ancient practice for the good of
  humanity.



That’s the point of all that we have heard today. 
When we take the time to stop before we make choices in our life to put
  God first in our decisions, powerful changes can happen for the good of the
  world. 




Take up THE Cross, beloved by God! 
Choose life and blessing because they are promised to you. 
Love God first.  Life is
richer, fuller and more powerful when you make that choice. 
 


    
    

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September 1, 2013 + Pastor Fred Kinsey, sermon

9/1/2013

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"Place at the Table," sermon by Pastor Fred Kinsey
September 1, 2013
Readings for Pentecost 15/Proper 17(C)/Lectionary 22
  • Proverbs 25:6-7 
  • Psalm 112 
  • Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16  
  • Luke 14:1, 7-14
Place at the Table
It was a party – the Protest of ALEC three weeks ago!  I arrived a little late at the Palmer House where the elites of ALEC were holding their secret meeting downtown.  But out on the streets, it was already hoppin’!  Even the Police seemed to be enjoying it!  Others were still streaming in after me, and the line of protesters kept growing until it spilled around each corner of the block.  It was one huge continuous circle!  Everyone walking with everyone else!  Lots of Union workers, like the Chicago Federation of Labor, AFSCME and the Chicago Teachers Union, and dozens of Community Organizations and their organizers, church groups and non-profits.  Hundreds and hundreds of people on the sidewalk, side by side, all chanting in one voice, amidst whistles blowing, which had been handed out by the dozens.  We were making a righteous and raucous noise that could have shook the walls of Jericho!

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is supported by a number of large corporations.  Its work has been to write pro-corporate legislation at the state level and spread it around the country, such as the NRA’s Stand Your Ground Law, that has spread to almost half the states now, including most notably, to Florida, where it protected George Zimmerman’s fatal shooting of the unarmed teenager Trevon Martin.  ALEC has passed hundreds of laws like this.  It has led the charge in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and North Carolina, to eviscerate public education and the collective bargaining rights of unions.  When all this was exposed two years ago, and under pressure from protests just like this, 49 embarrassed corporations, as rich and famous as Walmart, Bank of America and General Motors, resigned their membership in ALEC.  They have been retreating into the shadows ever since, though, still dining together at their elite table of special privilege, are such guests as the tobacco, oil, and pharmaceutical industries. 

But on the streets, on this day, the mood was festive.  Together, shoulder to shoulder, were workers living on minimum wage jobs struggling to feed their families, teachers facing budget cut-backs or joblessness from the privatization of the schools, dutiful fed-up organizers, and people of faith.  They were all in it together, one big circle, sharing the same cause, that felt strangely like a celebration too!  It was anyone’s guess how it was going up in the Executive Suites of the Palmer House, with the exclusive meeting of ALEC’s leaders.  But the celebration down below was the biggest, most colorful and fun protest I’d been to in Chicago! 

In the 14th chapter of Luke, Jesus gets invited, somehow, to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath.  Unlike the local dignitary, Jesus is not rich – far from it.  As a wandering itinerant preacher, he was more like John the Baptist, I suppose.  But unlike John, Jesus enjoyed parties and festive celebrations, whereas John was known as the ascetic, eating a diet of locusts and wild honey in the desert wilderness. Jesus accepted invitations from rich leaders, like in today’s reading, but also from repentant tax-collectors, who may or may not be rich, but were notably held in contempt, as cheaters and enemies.  For Jesus, eclectic table fellowship became a symbol for all of us, of the way he brought many diverse people to the table, in just and peaceful celebrations.

Notice at this meal though, we are not told what’s on the menu.  Food is never served in this story.  For better or worse, it’s not about the chief or our palettes.  But, what it’s all about, is the guest list and the seating arrangements!  As the rich rulers carefully watched Jesus, to see if they might catch him healing on the Sabbath again, Jesus himself took notice of the how the guests chose the places of honor to sit in, that is, up close to the host of the meal.  Okay, said Jesus, you can do that if you want, but what if your host had other folks in mind for those seats, and asks you to get up and move to the lowest spot.  Such shame could ruin your reputation as a prospective guest for good!  Instead, pick the lowest place so that the host may come to you and say, ‘friend, move up higher,’ and you will be honored in the presence of all the guests at table.  “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled,” said Jesus, “and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

It’s not about the food, but about the ethics of public relationships.  And more than that, it’s about our reputations – that is, where they come from.  Do we look solely to our best friends to like us, to give us a good reputation?  And even if you’re one of the few where your friends haven’t let you down yet, what about all those who you exclude because of telling them to step down, or who haven’t even been considered worthy to be invited to the table? 

So, Jesus also said to the one who had invited him, do not invite your friends or your relatives or your rich neighbors, in case they might invite you in return, and you would be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.  Jesus says, this is how you should build your reputation.

When I was in High School I got a job at KFC to make a little spending money.  Lots of kids did it.  It wasn’t a great job, and it only paid minimum wage.  I was a dish washer, and I’ll never forget the burns I got on the inside of my forearms from washing the pressure cookers that cooked the chicken, because you had to wash them immediately after the secret recipe-d chicken was done, when they were still burning hot!  And, at the end of my shift, when from head to toe, I smelled like finger lickin’ good, deep fried chicken, and I couldn’t even get the smell out of my Olfactory Lobes, I didn’t even care to eat the couple of free pieces I was due.  But still, it worked at the time, for what I needed out of it.    

Today, however, more and more workers have turned to KFC, and so many other fast food employers, for their main sources of income.  Willietta Dukes, for example, has worked at fast-food restaurants in North Carolina for the past 15 years. “I've spent more hours at Church's Chicken, McDonald's and now Burger King than I can remember,” Willietta says.  “I make $7.85 at Burger King as a guest ambassador and team leader, where I train new employees… and perform the manager's duties in their absence.  I've never walked off a job before. I don't consider myself an activist, and I've never been involved with politics. I'm a mother with two sons, and like any mom knows, raising two teenage boys is tough. Raising them as a single mother, on less than $8 an hour, is nearly impossible.  If I had a day off, I was at their schools, checking in with their teachers and making sure they were keeping up with their education. I wanted them, when they were grown-up, to not have to work two jobs. 

“I work hard – I never miss a shift and always arrive on time. But today, I'm going on strike for the first time in my life, and surprisingly, I don't feel afraid. Like so many fast-food workers across this country, I know what it feels like to be truly afraid – afraid of having your children go to bed hungry, or having your heat turned off in February, or being evicted from your home. Today is not scary. Today is empowering,” said Willietta, of joining the circle of protestors. 

Our seats at the table – whether a table with enough food on it to feed your family, or the bargaining table where everyone has a voice and is treated with dignity, in their quest to dine at the banquet of a living wage every day – are seats that are shrinking and evaporating.  Leaders and elites in our national household are actually organizing to deny more and more workers a place there.  The pie they serve is a sliver for the many, and an embarrassingly large gorge for the few. 

For fast food workers today, it’s about the seating arrangement, but also about the food too.  Working in the food industry, in this land of plenty, how can it be that employees, working hard with food all day long, don’t have enough on their family dinner tables?

Jesus hosted meals of egalitarian welcome, that set the social standard for a life fulfilled, because he came down to bring the kingdom and realm of God among us.  It was a joyous party seated in a circle of equality.  Jesus, the leader, sat at the lowest place, serving in humility – a king, following the model of his heavenly father, who provides generously, and who welcomes the poor and blind, the rich, the rejected, and the repentant, wiping away all distinction between insider and outsider, so that all can find a place in the banqueting circle, and have their fill. 

Come, you’re invited ‘to [this] feast of the universe.’ ("Let Us Go Now to the Banquet," Guillermo Cuellar)  Everyone is invited to share their gifts, and we are made equal in God’s love, a celebration circle, where all people, and all workers, are given dignity, and will never lack for food.
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