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When I was Homeless, sermon by Pastor Kinsey

11/23/2014

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Readings for November 23, 2014
Christ the King/Reign of Christ/Proper 29A
  • Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 and Psalm 95:1-7a 
  • Ephesians 1:15-23  
  • Matthew 25:31-46


When I was Homeless, by Pastor Fred Kinsey

Homelessness.

 

There’s no way you can’t feel something, when I say that word.  It’s almost worse than the pejorative phrase we sometimes use: the problem of homelessness.  And though the vast majority of us here have never been homeless – and I want to be sensitive to those that have  – it’s hard for any of us not to feel something, even if it’s just in reaction to the concept of homelessness, and not from firsthand experience. 

 

For example, we might feel, guilty, because, right here in the streets we walk, we continually encounter people who are homeless, not usually naked as in Jesus’ day, but certainly hungry or thirsty or sick.  We might feel, angry.  Angry for a variety of reasons: angry that we don’t do better as a society to curb or solve homelessness.  Angry at the homeless person, thinking they should pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get a job.  Or angry at ourselves for feeling guilty for not doing anything.  And we may feel, numb, or depressed, about homelessness – we see it, but have become indifferent and jaded.  I have gone through all these feelings since moving back to Chicago seven years ago, and have shared some of my stages of grief with you along the way.

 

But if you’ve done any reading about homelessness recently, your feelings may have been shaken-up about it!  There’s a new, wide ranging study showing that, housing the homeless first, is the best way to turn people around from homelessness.  Most people – most care givers and social workers even – have assumed that the root problem of homelessness, and the thing you have to address first is, addiction problems, or mental illness, or job training.  Take care of these, and then the “homeless” may be ready to take responsibility for… a home. 

But since 2010, when the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development launched its new program, “Opening Doors,” the country’s first comprehensive strategy to prevent and end homelessness, those cities that have implemented it have seen “significant progress in spite of tough economic times”.  Even in Detroit – but other cities in the U.S., and in Europe too – significant drops in the homeless population are being reported. 

 

This is, counter-intuitive, compared to the way we’ve always done it.  But yes, the program works, this study shows: give a homeless person a home, and then addressing the issues of addiction, mental health, and a job, are much more successful, as well.  Whereas, doing it the way we’ve always done it before, it turns out, only enables homelessness to continue.  That is, the way of providing emergency services – like food kitchens, shelters, even jobs – only keeps people coming back regularly, for continuous, and ongoing, “emergency” care.

 

Homelessness!  Maybe we can actually begin to feel more hopeful about homelessness, knowing one thing that actually works to end it. 

 

On this last Sunday of the Church Year, as we talk about the end, the time when the Son of Man comes to restore justice, we know one or two things about God.  Our God, is a God of love, welcoming all and establishing a kingdom that does not tolerate injustice – the goats.  As early as the prophet Ezekiel, whom we heard from this morning, we know this to be true:

As shepherds seek out their flocks … among their scattered sheep, [says the Lord GOD] so I will seek out my sheep... I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed [my sheep] with justice.

 

And, these past two weeks, reading from the parables of Jesus in chapter 25 of Matthew, have made us aware of who God is, too, and made us ready for this story of the Son of Man’s coming.  Our God never forgets us, while also, never forgetting the evil in the world, too.  Jesus opens our eyes to a God who acts in history, supporting us.  This God rules from a kingdom not of this world, but which now, through sending us God’s Son, has given us a tangible, and world changing symbol, we can never forget – the crucified Jesus, is Christ the King – a Savior who lives in us, and strengthens us, at the feast of victory at Christ’s table.  The love of God we know in Jesus, is a subversive message for a fallen world, a world we too often cede to the evil trickster, that noxious and invasive species.  But in God, we now know, there is no death. Death does not have the last word.  But the living God, lives through us, like God lived in Jesus, the Son.  For truly I tell you, said Jesus, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family – the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger from another land, the naked, the sick or the imprisoned – you did it to me.

 

So where is the face of the living Christ to be found?  Not usually in the beautiful people adorning the glossy magazines at the checkout counter, but in those who are forgotten or considered less than.  Helping the homeless, the hungry, the sick or imprisoned, and welcoming those from far away, is what we do as the children of God, because we are a part of Christ’s family. 

 

Jesus knows that a world of justice and love cannot be found in Institutions that become fat and strong, as Ezekiel said, at the expense of the hungry and sick and imprisoned.  Institutions are not people, and yet they live on endlessly.  Institutions are used by people, either for good or ill – like sheep and goats.  And, as we know, there are false gods that continue to crop up in every age, and often clothe themselves in sheep’s clothing, but are ravenous wolves. 

 

The Toronto artist Timothy Schmalz is famous for having created a bronze sculpture of a homeless Jesus. “[As a Christian,] I’m very sensitive about the stereotypes that people have of Christianity,” said Schmalz of his work, “so I wanted to give a fresh presentation.”  The statue, is of a homeless Jesus, huddled under a blanket, lying on a park bench, his pierced feet sticking out.    

 

When Schmalz’s statue was first displayed, there were a few complaints.  Some people felt uncomfortable, and instead of recognizing that as a good thing, that it might be an image strong enough to evoke passion and thus have the possibility to change and transform us, they demanded it be taken down.  Others thought it was blasphemous against the church.  So apparently, Jesus, just being Jesus, was offensive, and they actually called the police on Jesus!  And yet, said Jesus, when you help the homeless, you help members of my family… and me.  After being rejected from both St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, his bronze Jesus finally found a resting place at a Jesuit school in Toronto, willing to risk it.

 

Our hope is in the one with the counter-cultural message, who counters the evil of this world, the bad stuff, wrapped-up in pretty packages.  Handing out housing for free, no doubt looks like one of “those” packages to some, which makes it counter-intuitive that it’s the real deal.  But in some cities around the world where the “Opening Doors” program has been found to work, it’s now being renamed as, “House Led,” because it’s more descriptive of the good news, that housing the  homeless first, works. 

 

And they’re also beginning to recognize that housing is, a basic human right.  What that means for us as believers is, it’s not cheap grace, or pie in the sky, but more like the glory of Christ the King on his throne, God’s grace – which is free too – actually working in our world, a heavenly gift of the power of Christ, living, and incarnated, here, a presence that is, one and the same, with the one who is our host at the table.  When you do it to one of the least of these, you do it to me, said Jesus.  That is the realm and the kingdom I want to live in too – the inheritance of all the followers of Christ the King!

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"Isn't She Lovely" sermon by Pastor Kinsey, 11/16/14

11/16/2014

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Readings for November 16, 2014
Pentecost 23/Proper 28A
  • Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18 and Psalm 90:1-12 
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11  
  • Matthew 25:14-30

"Isn't She Lovely," by Pastor Fred Kinsey
“So it is with the soul: the soul is all love, and love rules in the soul, mighty and powerful, working and resting, doing and not doing, and all which is in the soul and comes to the soul is according to Love's will,” wrote St. Beatrice, Mystic.  “For it is Love's power that has seized the soul and led it, sheltered and protected it, given it prudence and wisdom, and the sweetness and the strength which belong to love. Like the fish, swimming in the vast sea and resting in its deeps, and like the bird, boldly mounting high in the sky, so the soul feels its spirit, freely moving through the vastness and the depth and the unutterable richness, of Love.”
—Beatrice of Nazareth, (Belgium), 13th Century

This past Friday, Kim and I went to the historic Stevie Wonder concert, one of only 12 nights where he performs the entire 1976 masterpiece, Songs in the Key of Life.  It was big and wonderful, but strikingly intimate and moving.  If you’ve ever seen Stevie live, like when he performed for free in Grant Park a few years ago, you know he has an unassuming and sweet sense of humor, often spoofing himself, even joking about his blindness. 

On Friday, he stopped the concert multiple times, to take to the microphone, often employing that sense of humor, but also to introduce his daughter, one of six backup singers, just before he sang, “Isn’t she lovely” which he wrote for her just after she was born.  And other times he got in our face, challenging the audience, as he did on the issue of gun control.  But most passionately, he appealed to everyone, doing it through the sold-out crowd at the United Center, but I mean, appealed to everyone, everywhere, to love one another.  ‘I love you,’ said Stevie. ‘I love each and every one of you,’ he said, more than once throughout the evening, urging us to do the same.  ‘Love is the strongest thing there is,’ Stevie Wonder told us.  ‘If we love everyone, not just our own community, but everyone equally, we can conquer violence and live in a better world.’ 

The parable about the talents today, is often seen as an end-time story of God judging us.  But I contend, it’s really about God’s gift of love and grace!  What the parable of the talents is meant to do is, open up our minds, to who our God really is!  The parable of the talents asks us, to think outside the box! 

Last week we discussed the parable of the bridesmaids; this week is the parable of the talents; and next week is the prophecy, of the goats and the sheep.  All three are from chapter 25 of Matthew, one after the other, on these last three Sundays of the church year, before Advent begins on November 30th.  There is a sense of a final word in this chapter, a wrapping up of major themes, which is not coincidental in our lectionary, for in the very next chapter, chapter 26, the Passion of Jesus begins, the beginning of the end for Jesus, if you will. 

So, taking the three servants, in this parable of the talents, in reverse order, it is the third servant who Jesus’ audience would most likely have identified with, the servant who receives, just one talent.  And some of us, no doubt, will identify with him, as well.  In Jesus’ time, it was a very common practice, that if you had a little extra, a nice gift from family perhaps, that you literally buried it in the ground, somewhere secret, just as this servant does.  The poor did not totally trust bankers, and keeping money under your mattress would be to risk having it stolen by robbers.  So hiding it, by burying it, was a smart and safe way to keep money for a rainy day.  Remember Jesus’ parable about a man finding buried treasure in a field?  Perhaps, a little reminder, to be more creative, in your burying! 

We too today, might be skeptical about investing money in the stock market, for example.  What if it crashes again, as it did in 2007?  Some say the market is only growing today through various new bubbles, and no one knows when they might un-expectantly burst.  But, on the other hand, it’s pointless to invest in a savings account at .01% interest where you can’t even keep up with the rate of inflation!  Where do you hide your money?! 

So when this servant comes before the rich master, he digs up his cleverly buried talent he had received, unharmed, never stolen, and responsibly, is prepared to return it!  But, we are as afraid for him, as he is trembling before the master!  There is a tension, knowing how the servant with five talents, and the servant with two talents, had multiplied theirs, and are then commended for it.  And sure enough the poor working-class servant is berated by the master-owner.  And notice that the master doesn’t dispute the poor man’s characterization of him, that he is a harsh man who makes profits without working an honest day’s work – who, in today’s world, gathers from junk bonds and toxic mortgages – from places he didn’t sow seeds, but just made-up out of thin air, or created at the expense of others, from those who did work for their money.  Is this the God we know and recognize?  Is this the God Matthew has shown us in the Gospel good news of Jesus?  I don’t think so! 

This “man,” this harsh master, is more like a Roman lord, or 1%-er, who helps the rich get richer, and takes advantage of, punishes even, the working-class poor – as he says in verse 29, “for to all those who have, more will be given,” the perfect image of our present day, “the rich get richer, and the poor poorer.” 

What kind of a God do we worship?  Would we bow down to a God who berates us, or threatens to punish us?  Is that what this parable about the talents is all about?  A little hint: next week when we hear the very next story in Matthew chapter 25, the story of the sheep and the goats, a very different image of Master, and much more in line with the God of the gospels we know, emerges.  Any judgment at the last day, according to Jesus, will be measured against the action of loving our neighbor in need.

We worship a God who is boundlessly generous, and who loves us unconditionally, who can and will multiply our talents, whatever size they are.  One talent, in the biblical Neareast, was equal to more than 16 years of wages.  So, 5 talents is more than a lifetime of earnings. 

The take away for us, is that because we know in Jesus that God is abundantly generous, we have nothing to fear, but our souls are opened up, to love and live in confidence that God will not punish us for trying, that God continues to forgive and support us, so that we too can love and give as generously as God, and that we may fearlessly risk offering our talents in the world.  Unlike the masters’ in this world who rule us, God will give everyone an equal chance to use their talents – for with God there is no discrimination against the poor, or the rich, against people of color, sexuality or gender.

On Thursday I had the pleasure of hearing another wise person speak.  Not a famous musician, but the actual grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, who spoke at the Arts in Sacred Places launch-party for their new match.com website.  He talked about his grandfather’s legacy: that it wasn’t just about non-violent resistance, but that fundamentally, Gandhi’s hope was for everyone to find spiritual transformation, in the knowledge that the talent’s we have, are really just on loan from God, for us to use to make the world a better place. 

That’s a wholly gospel-like proposition, a mystical saying about the Love of God living in our souls, that even Beatrice of Nazareth would resonate to, and a song Stevie Wonder, could put to music! 

We share and use our gifts and talents freely and without fear, not because we cower before our God, but because our God is full of love and forgiveness, has given us a Song in the Key of Life, we can all use, trusting that God will multiply our talents, and upholds our life forever. 

 

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"Misfit Power" sermon by Pastor Kinsey, 11/9/14

11/10/2014

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Readings for Pentecost 22, Proper 27A, Lectionary 32
November 9, 2014

  • Amos 5:18-24 and Psalm 70  
  • 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18  
  • Matthew 25:1-13


Misfit Power, Pastor Fred Kinsey
It’s all too easy to take the welcoming, friendly spirit of the Big Easy for granted!  New Orleans is like a small town, hidden in a big city!  This was our first time there, and for me, it was the music that drew me in. 

One night, when Kim and I were at place called Tipitina’s, some of the locals introduced themselves and treated us just like part of the family.   Nothing fancy about Tipitina’s, and yet it gave birth to likes of, The Neville Brothers and Dr. John.  Kim and I were there for the Zydeco music, but the locals were there for the two-step dances.  As we talked with one couple, and they heard we were planning to go home by public transportation, they were concerned for us tourists, and offered us a ride.  ‘I’ll see if I can find someone going your way,’ said the 75 plus old man, who hadn’t missed a dance all night.  Though he couldn’t find anyone after a couple more songs, he offered to take us himself, with his wife, they could make room for us, when the dancing was over.  

It was truly generous, but way more than we expected or needed.  And we didn’t want to stay another hour or two, to the end, and pull them away from their dancing, so we thanked them profusely, and said our good-byes as if we’d been friends forever.  Then on the bus, as if the welcoming-dancers had arranged it, we got to know the friendly bus driver, and he took us to a trolley line that went right down Canal Street to our Hotel.  People are really welcoming and friendly.  And, you could get used to that, and even take it for granted, after a while, I suspect.  Apparently, lots of people, hanging out in the French Quarter do just that!

But not at a place called The Spotted Cat, on Frenchmen Street – not the Spotted Cow, but they did serve beer – where this delightful band, ‘Misfit Power,’ was performing.  The stage, such as it was, was only big enough for the drummer and bass player.  The two singers sat below them on the floor, and a piano player was next to them, pinned to the wall.  I couldn’t see him because it was standing room only.  But the male singer was so captivating, and in his wide range, his lows were as beautiful as his highs.  As we listened, we met two other couples from Chicago there.  

The next day, when I picked up a local paper, who was the featured interview with, but none other than our singer, Antoine Reynaldo Diel – a close personal friend of ours, and, “one of the best singers in New Orleans,” the paper claimed!  “How did you learn to sing so passionately,” the interviewer asked?  “When I was a child there was a situation where I started crying,” said Diel, “and they said, ‘Sing, now, sing.’  It was their way of saying, every time you sing, …there has to be an infusion of your full emotion.  Don’t just go through the routine.  If you’re going to sing, you’ve got to sing with a purpose.”  

(What was I talking about?)  The kingdom of heaven will be like this, said Jesus.  Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.  They all waited diligently, but, being human, they all got bored, and then drowsy, and finally, they all fell asleep.  But half of them were still ready, when the Bridegroom – Jesus, the one who comes to meet us at what is called, the Second Coming, at the end of this wretched world order we live in now, when the world turns, and God renews creation, and restores justice – when this Bridegroom, comes – half of us, in the parable, are ready.  While the other half ‘take it for granted’ that they are entitled to enter the Banquet of the Lord, and instead, they got shut out.  

November is always the time, at the end of the long green and growing Season of Pentecost, that we talk about the end times, the Apocalyptic and the Eschatological, the Day of the Lord as Amos says.  November 23rd will be the last Sunday of the Church Year, and we can begin to feel that in our readings today.  The scriptures paint a picture of the End Times that are, on the one hand, full of Apocalyptic chaos, natural wonders or disasters, wars and destruction, and on the other hand, a wonderful Eschatological wedding banquet of redeeming, fulfilling love and justice.  For we know as believers that God is in control of the world, the cosmos, and all things, that God is all in all, that by the power and grace of God, God desires that all of God’s creation be redeemed, as do all the 3 great monotheistic, Abrahamic faiths.  

Robert Hamerton-Kelly described The End Times this way just three years ago: “The story the apocalypticists tell, sees the world as a system of stark contrasts:  black and white, good and evil, guilty and innocent, in-group and out-group.”  In this scenario, “There is no gray middle ground, because the scene is the final judgment, or ‘the day of the Lord,’ … the middle is excluded, there is no third option. “[But] There are several things wrong with this picture,” he says, “not least of which is that the NT, while it does have violent apocalypticism on its fringes, has the non-violent kind at its heart.  The first coming of God to judge and to save the world [in the NT], took the form of the birth of a baby, whose refusal to resort to violence, led to his being crucified eventually, and when God comes again his presence will be the same as this first time, gentle, loving and non-violent.”

In my own life, I grew up with so many privileges– upper middle-class family in a rich, white suburban community, with excellent schools, as a white heterosexual male – that I had little to fear, but lots that tempted me to ‘take it all, for granted.’  Luckily, amidst all that privilege, I had parents that didn’t let me get away with much, not at school, not with my friends, and took me to church every Sunday – for it was there, that I heard the counter-cultural message of Eschatological unconditional grace, grounded in Jesus.  

As we gather for this first Sunday after election day, it is good to remember that – whether you feel like election night was, the Day of the Lord of Apocalyptic disaster, or the Day of the Lord love-fest of Eschatological redemption, Election Day is actually, never the Day of the Lord!  

The same is true for this wonderful little parable of the ten bridesmaids.  It’s not about picking which side to be on, wise or foolish, on the Day of the Lord, we can’t do that anyway.  It’s not about the comfort of choosing the right Bridesmaid, about ‘getting in,’ or being ‘shut-out,’ being with the ‘in-group’ or the ‘out-group.’  This is a parable about keeping awake at all times.  We don’t know the day or the hour, and in this interim time of waiting, well, we have to sleep some nights too!  So being ready, is not literally staying awake when drowsy, or carrying extra fuel for your lamp, or gas can in the trunk of your car.  It’s about a sense of urgency for our lives now. 

Whether we’re wise or foolish, doesn’t necessarily get us into heaven, that would be just another kind of works righteousness.  But the kingdom of heaven that is based on the grace of God, may have more to do with, not taking our privilege for granted, but being able in effect to let it all go, to become a ‘servant of all’ (as Luther said), lamps lit, burning all the resources we have for the Bridegroom, our Lord!  

In New Orleans, there are some who take the welcome and friendliness of the city for granted, and there are others that look for ways to give back, and make beautiful music for the world to enjoy, like the street band we literally walked into on our last night in New Orleans – a brass band that played their hearts out for the pure joy of it, going on and on, improvising in creative life-giving ways that got the crowd dancing and put a smile on every face!  

When our singer friend, Antoine Reynaldo Diel was asked how he came up with the name of his band, “Misfit Power,” he said, actually “I stole it from a friend as we listened to Trombone Shorty, in Lafayette Square.  I had just come from Los Angeles because it didn’t feel like home to me there, and my friend said, that’s the thing about New Orleans, there’s this misfit power that calls to you here – a welcoming friendliness – that kinda tells you to come home.”  

I kinda feel that here at Unity, that misfit power, here in the people that call Unity home, and I think it’s a good way to describe the kingdom of heaven.  It’s what we do when we’re trying not to take our ‘privilege’ for granted.  Together, we sharpen our urgency to be ready, our awake-ness, for the coming of the Day of the Lord.  We don’t ‘just’ have good worship, which we do, but, like the prophet Amos urged, our misfit power spills over into the rest of the week, where we make justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.  And so the welcoming banquet of our Lord, is always a celebration, and a mission, of continuously flowing waters of righteousness, for this new earth God is making. 
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