Readings for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost, July 19, 2020

• Genesis 28:10-19a and Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24  
• Romans 8:12-25  
• Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

"John Lewis, Jacob and Jesus," a sermon by Rev. Fred Kinsey
He was born in rural Alabama to parents of sharecroppers in 1940.  At an early age, he felt the injustice of the Jim Crow system he was born into.  His parents worked long hard hours, but could only be renters, of their fields of cotton, the tools they used, and the seed they planted.  Making a profit was under the control of the land owners, who made it impossible to get out of debt, or ever become land-owners themselves.  It seemed to John Lewis that they were working hard for nothing. “As soon as I was able to make sense of the world,” he said, “I could see there was no way a person could get ahead as a tenant farmer.” 
 
Slavery had ended 75 years earlier, but freedom was still out of reach.  And John Lewis could feel the injustice in his bones, and in the air he breathed, whether working the fields – or in town, negotiating the separate bathrooms and businesses labeled, Whites Only.  He was 15, when the 14 year old Emmett Till from Chicago was lynched in Mississippi, and it made the national news.
 
So, growing up, there on the farm, John Lewis, had a dream, to become a Minister.  And caring for the chickens with his six brothers and three sisters, just a teenager,  he practiced, by preaching to the captive farmyard foul.  Later, he joked, the little chicks listened better than many of his fellow Congress people!
 
At the age of 17, Lewis enrolled in the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, and immediately, he got involved in social movements of the time.  One evening, he heard Pastor James Lawson discuss the philosophy and tactics of nonviolence at his church, and Lewis felt like “it was something he’d been searching for his whole life,” he said.
 
At 23 he was the youngest of the speakers at the March on Washington, where MLK gave his, I Have A Dream speech. 
 
But, it was the first day of the March for Voting Rights, from Selma to Montgomery, where they would also protest the killing of a black man, Jimmy Lee Jackson, in 1963, that Lewis would gain his renown – when some 600 hundred peaceful, mostly black, demonstrators, were beaten and tear gassed by the racist Selma police department, and John Lewis had his head cracked open, and was dragged to jail, in full view of a shocked, national television, audience.  It was the George Floyd moment of the 60’s, if you will, and it revealed the evil of the oppression embedded in Jim Crow, and the racism that kept black bodies in bondage.  And soon after, it led to President Lyndon Johnson, signing the Voting Rights Act into law. 
 
John Lewis, acting out his faith, literally helped to crack open a new age of civil rights, along with Dr. King, and others – who were often based in local churches.
 
Up until that moment, the protestors, demonstrators, and all black lives, were seen as the problem, the ‘less-than people,’ who were causing trouble, simply by asking for equal rights.  As humans, we have a problem with blaming and demonizing those who are different than us, and in America, the discrimination is baked into our systems of government, business, medical treatment, housing, banking, and all the rest. 
 
In our Gospel today, the landowners in Jesus’ parable want to cut down the bad weeds, the troublemakers that have suddenly invaded the nice field of wheat.  Where did all these weeds come from, the workers asked?  An enemy has scattered these evil seeds in, when we were all asleep, Jesus replied.  But don’t go and pull them out now, he added, “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest.” 
 
Which raises the question, how do we know who are the wheat, and who are the weeds?  Most people consider themselves, wheat, of course, and feel they have a pretty good idea who the weeds are, even if they’ve never ever met them before! 
 
Jesus suggests, that all of us have been planted, and naturally grow up together, so closely, that our roots are all intertwined underground.  To pull up one, would also pull up the other.  We are not capable of pre-emptively culling the harvest, without endangering what God will decide, is the salvageable, and good fruit.  In America, you can only keep up an Apartheid system of racial discrimination, as long as you resist, or reject, the notion, that Black Lives Matter. 
 
John Lewis, who didn’t have a hateful bone in his body, lived to meet some of the men who were on that Selma police force at the Pettus Bridge.  Many of them repented of their racist behavior.  Some even publicly apologized.  But not Sheriff Jim Clark, who gave the orders that day.  Until his dying breath, he never apologized. 
 
Can some weeds change their stripes, and mature into wheat?  Repent, and turn around and go in a new direction?  Certainly, repentance can, and has been done!  Just as some wheat, can become infected; learn bad behavior; become as good as weeds. 
 
?But, is it our role to decide which is which, who is who, and start pulling up those we deem to be the weeds?  Especially when the root system is so intertwined?
 
John Lewis lived his beliefs of active non-violence all his life.  As Pastor Lawson and Dr. King had taught him, love is stronger than evil.  Not a sugar-coated love, but a love that looks a Sheriff Jim Clark in the eye, even as he is swinging his club at your cranium, and still refuses to see in him, a person, that is a weed. 
 
“There’s not anything more powerful than the marching feet of a determined people,” Lewis said. “When people are marching together in an orderly, peaceful, nonviolent fashion, that can appeal to all of humankind.”
 
No matter the cause or injustice, Lewis called nonviolent protest an “immutable principle that you cannot deviate from. If you want to have a good end, your means must be good and noble. Somehow, some way, the end must be caught up in the means,” he said. (https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/rep-john-lewis-on-nonviolence-civil-rights-and-the-obligation-of-todays-youth/)
 
It’s easy to see, that weeds turning into wheat, also permeate the biblical stories, as we see in our First Reading from Genesis.  Jacob, whose name means ‘schemer’ and ‘usurper,’ was running away from his family, after tricking his older brother Esau out of his birthright, and his father’s blessing. 
 
His accomplice was none other than his mother Rebecca, the one who had always favored and protected him – Jacob was a mama’s boy and a home-body, after all.  Despite all of this, God comes to Jacob in a dream at Bethel and repeats the promise given to his father Isaac, and his grandfather Abraham, assuring Jacob that his children – and not his older twin Esau – will be heir to the many nations of God’s people.  Jacob the schemer, who has usurped his brother’s birthright, will be the father of 12 children, the foundational 12 Tribes of Israel.  God reveals this to Jacob, this weed, the one who should have been pulled up.  Yet God accepts this younger brother, as wheat.  God is with him, and by his side, in his night time vision of a stairway from heaven, and on it, God promises to be “poised” over his life, from now on, even as he is running away from home. 
 
Jesus too – in the eyes of the world – appeared to be born a weed, born in a manger, in a barn, born a refugee, to poor unmarried parents.  But then, he was visited by Magi from the east, and declared the finest of wheat, a king, who would lead all people to the grand harvest, already dawning in his swaddling wrapped body! 
 
John Lewis, born into sharecropping, but who escaped his farm, became a grand wheat among men!  He was despised, merely for his black skin, but today, ‘shines brightly, like the sun light.’  Which fits well with the transcendent beauty of our Psalm today:

“If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me,
  and the light around me turn to night,”
 darkness is not dark to you [O LORD]; the night is as bright as the day;
  darkness and light to you are both alike. 
 Search me out, O God, and know my heart;
  try me and know my restless thoughts.
 Look well whether there be any wickedness in me
  and lead me in the way that is everlasting. 
 
With a fierceness, as strong as the spirit, mind and mission of John Lewis, we too lean into the kingdom and realm of God, that is dawning in the message and gracious gift of Jesus, who, poised by our side, guides and keeps us in our work here on earth, and reaps for us, the harvest of his heavenly parent – where all, will “shine like the sun!”  
-Amen 

Readings for 5th Sunday after Pentecost, June 28, 2020

• Genesis 22:1-14 and Psalm 13  
• Romans 6:12-23  
• Matthew 10:40-42

"Faith: Act 3," sermon by Rev. Fred Kinsey
One way to describe, Original Sin, is our human capacity to sacrifice our neighbor – their reputation, their money, or, God forbid, their life – in order to save ourselves.  Especially when it’s our reputation or money, our freedom or life, that’s on the line.  Jesus came to give us the anti-dote – the vaccine, if you will – and taught us, to love your neighbor as yourself; and to start by reaching out to the least of these, the little ones.  That’s how we will overcome the evil, sinful, and sometimes, bloody, sacrificing of one another.
 
And so, I don’t want to skip over our First Reading today – this narrative of the sacrifice of Isaac, or should we say, the near sacrifice of Isaac. 
 
But first off – OMG! – this story is un-nerving, to say the least!  We have to get that out there, right away!  On its face, it’s horrifying – that Abraham would plan to kill his son as an act of faith – and that God would command it.  This is not the God we know and worship today.  I mean, which is worse – that God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, or that Abraham seemingly complies without protest. 
 
Most scholars and theologians of our time, use Phylis Trible’s term, “texts of terror,” to refer to stories in the bible like this. 
 
Robert Alter, says, “The abrupt beginning” of this passage, “and stark, emotion-fraught development of this troubling story have led many critics to [also] celebrate it as one of the peaks of ancient narrative.”  (Alter, notes from his translation, Gen. 22:1.)
 
It is certainly shocking – terrifying – to our modern ears.  But it resonates as a story that is saying something keenly important, from ancient times, about who we are, and who our God is. 
 
Abraham and Sarah, lived some 25 centuries before Jesus, in a time when human sacrifice, was not, uncommon.  Gil Bailie concludes:
Far more than we moderns generally realize, human sacrifice was a fact of life among the peoples of the ancient Near East, in tension with whom Israel first achieved cultural self-definition. Israel’s renunciation of the practice of human sacrifice took place over a long period of time... [but] No biblical story better depicts how the Bible is at cross-purposes with itself on the subject of sacrifice than does the story of Abraham and Isaac. . . . What we must try to see in the story of Abraham’s non-sacrifice of Isaac is that Abraham’s faith consisted, not of, almost doing what he didn’t do, but of, not doing what he almost did, and not doing it, in fidelity to the God in whose name his contemporaries, thought it should be done. (Violence Unveiled, p. 140)
 
In other words, child sacrifice, usually the sacrifice of the first-born, was common.  Abraham does what God commands, not sacrificing Isaac, and instead sacrifices a lamb in his place –which marks the beginning of the end of human sacrifice, and substituting the alternate practice of animal sacrifice.
 
Paul Nuechterlein says that, there are two names for God in this text.  In the beginning, the God who tests Abraham, is the God of Israel’s past, Elohim.  But the God of their future, the God of the covenant, is Yahweh.  And Abraham names the place YHWH-Yireh, which means, “On the mount of the LORD there is sight.”  (http://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/proper_8a/)
 
So what insight does Abraham have there?
 
Abraham and Sarah have been pursued by God for some time now.  And it’s mostly been about their progeny.  God has promised them they will be the parents of a great nation, who will be more numerous than the stars of the sky, and the sands of the seashore.  And it has been more or less, one long test all along the way, as they moved from Haran to Israel.  Yes – they agreed without complaint, in the beginning, and immediately went.  And midway on their journey, in Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness,” St. Paul’s favorite text. 
 
But in between, Abraham and Sarah often waver in their faith, even resisting God’s call, unhappy with their situation, even at times, openly disobedient:  Abraham passing off Sarah as his sister to the Pharaoh who takes her to his bedroom; and Sarah impatient with God’s promise of a child, giving Abraham to her handmaid, Hagar, producing Ishmael – huge complications in their relationship with God.
 
So, this story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac, is a turning point in the whole narrative of Abraham and Isaac.  Something, happens here! 
 
That Abraham would be called on to make a child-sacrifice, was not the scandal of the story, to its original hearers, some 4 ½ Millennia ago.  ‘The arc of the moral universe is long,’ and that, this story is repugnant to us, is a testament to its ‘bending toward justice,’ some 4,500 years of human history later. 
 
As they go, Isaac raises the only question, the only shadow of a doubt.  “Father,” he says, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”  He is not innocent of what is possible!  For this last leg of the journey, Abraham even took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on the back of his son Isaac, ‘the wood he had earlier split, early in the morning, wielding his axe,’ now in his hand.  But Abraham is all unwavering trust in God.  He replies to Isaac, “‘God will see to the sheep for the offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together,” says the text.   (Alter translation and notes)
 
When they arrive, and Abraham is preparing the altar, even laying Isaac upon the wood, now, we hear no further peep from the ‘son, his only one, whom Abraham loves – Isaac!’ 
 
Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the cleaver –
-- and YHWH’s messenger called out to him from the heavens and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” and he said, “Here I am.” And the messenger said, “Do not reach out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him, for now I know that you fear God…  And Abraham raised his eyes and saw and, look, a ram was caught in the thicket by its horns…”
 
And, so the sacrificial animal was given.  Abraham sees it – just as Abraham promised his son as they walked together, that God would see to providing the sacrificial lamb, there on YHWH-Yireh, or, ‘on the mount of the LORD there is sight!’ 
 
Abraham – finally, completely, now in his old age – trusts in YHWH, the LORD.  He knows that God sees, and will provide.  Abraham is not in control, his God is!  The wrestling match between the two is, over and done – it’s a win/win, for both God, and Abraham. And for us, we see that historically, and theologically, the sacrifice that God requires, is not human sacrifice, but here, turns and transforms to animal sacrifice – a definite upgrade – until when the prophets, 2 millennia later, will again reshape our offerings to God, requiring not animal sacrifice, but mercy. 
 
And finally, at the end of all the ages, as it says in the letter to the Hebrews, is when Jesus reveals on the cross, through the power of the Holy Spirit, that he is marking the end to sacrificing, once and for all, and instead – being redeemed by God on the 3rd day – we are able to look up at the cross to see, and our eyes are opened, to the free gift of Grace, to love our neighbor as ourselves! 
 
And yet, as we know, sacrificing our neighbor, raises its ugly head in new ways all the time.  And it sticks up now, in this time of the virus of COVID-19, in the midst of the virus of 1619, more obviously.  Those states, for example, that are disregarding protocols for reopening business, and laying it on the sacrifice, essential workers are making, like so much firewood, is insidious.  To claim it is a choice between the economy and our freedom, is an un-holy sacrifice.  The movement to do this a month or two ago, came after the White House realized it was disproportionately black and brown and poor people, who bear the brunt of contracting and dying from coronavirus.  And the callous disregard for hospitals, over capacity now, is apparent for all who have eyes to see.  Pushing for this sacrifice, like it is acceptable collateral damage, puts our nation’s Original Sin, on full display. 
 
Finally, in our gospel, we are given eyes to see, when [Jesus said to the twelve:] 40“Whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; 42and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” 
 
In the Kin-dom of God, we are able to raise our eyes and see the sacrificial lamb on the cross, who died, so that we can see and understand, that sacrificing our neighbor, is not sanctioned by God, or any moral authority – and that, ‘loving our neighbor,’ is now, the journey we are all called to be on, and fulfills the realm of God on earth, as it is in heaven. 

Let us listen and live by the call of God!

Readings for 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, June 21, 2020

• Genesis 21:8-21 and Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17  
• Romans 6:1b-11  
• Matthew 10:24-39

"Sinners Anonymous," Sermon by Rev. Fred Kinsey
Welcome to Sinner’s Anonymous!  No, not Alcoholics Anonymous, not AA, but SA, Sinner’s Anonymous.  A church that welcomes all who have sinned, because, as St. Paul says, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. 
 
Of course, most of the time, we don’t think of church this way.  Usually when we walk into a worship service, we like to, put our best foot forward.  We naturally want to portray our most attractive selves.  We assume that, to be accepted, we have to be, good people. 
 
But church is really supposed to be about people who acknowledge that they are sinners, and are clear about that.  We can never fully shed our human condition of sin, but, at SA (Sinners Anonymous), we are always in recovery.  We can never be perfect, except in so far as we turn around, walk in a new direction, and give ourselves over, to our life of baptism in Christ. 
 
1bShould we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2By no means, (says Paul)! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
 
We know we sin, but we’re trying to live into a new reality, the dawning of the kingdom, that Christ brought us.  To live an honest life that acknowledges the problems we face, so that we can work through the “steps” that help us live into God’s forgiveness and grace.  Going out and sinning more, so that grace may abound, is not honest, and will only deliver us into the hands of Beelzebul, the Evil One’s hands. 

When we begin worship with corporate confession, that’s really what we’re doing.  We’re standing up, as baptized people, and saying out loud: Hi, my name is Fred. I’m a sinner.  Last week I sinned, and participated in structures of sin, like racism, in the following ways.  And we say the Confession together, admitting to our condition of sin.  Then we sit down, having unburdened ourselves, and begin working at living into the promise of God’s forgiveness in Christ, spoken by the presiding minister, on Christ’s behalf.  It’s our weekly meeting.  And then we gather round the coffee pot afterwards – as long as there’s no pandemic.
 
Not everyone is ready to come to Sinner’s Anonymous.  Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we’re ready to admit our sin.  Before we’re ready to be buried with Christ.  The hardest to fall, are usually those on top of society’s hierarchy.  The high and the mighty.  The rich and famous.  Perhaps you can think of some examples. 
 
I’m thinking of Abraham and Sarah – the patriarch and matriarch of our faith.  Paul, of course, deals with them theologically.  How they are our parents in the faith.  Great examples for us to live by.  But the details of their life, as parents of God’s chosen people, are much more fraught.  They are, actually, great candidates for SA, Sinner’s Anonymous!
 
When we pick up the story in Genesis today, God has already visited Abraham and Sarah a few times.  The original call to them was a promise of a new land, and a progeny, that would be more in number than the stars of the sky.  But after 10 years, already in their old age, they wavered in their faith that God could do this for them. 
 
And since Sarah was beyond her childbearing years, she decided that God must have meant for them to have a child some other way, and Sarah suggests to Abraham that he could take their Egyptian servant girl, Hagar, as another wife, to bear a child for them!  Abraham, being the macho Patriarch, that he no doubt was, doesn’t give it another thought, before doing just that, and soon, Hagar is visibly, with child. 
 
Hagar, enjoys her new status as the woman who, in place of Sarah, will give birth to Abraham’s first child, and makes no bones about rubbing it into Sarah’s face whenever she can.  When Sarah feels slighted, she goes to Abraham to complain, who, in his elite and aloof way, absolves himself from responsibility, telling Sarah she has the power to do with their servant Hagar, as she wishes.
 
So Sarah, with this permission from Abraham, uses her freedom, not for grace, but to sin more, harassing and humiliating Hagar, who then runs away.  But God visits Hagar and tells her to return, for through her son Ishmael, God will bless them with descendants beyond counting – much like the promise to Abraham and Sarah. 
 
So Hagar returns to her life of bondage, gives birth to Ishmael, who God also said, would be “a wild ass of a man,” which later, will come in handy!
 
In due time, God comes ‘round again, one more time, to remind Abraham and Sarah, that God is giving them a child, of their very own.  Sarah will give birth – which she does, within the year.  And they call him Isaac, or “he will laugh.”  Which is where we pick up the story in our reading today. 
 
Isaac grew, it says in Genesis, and when he was weaned, Abraham was so proud, that he threw a great feast for him.  But, Sarah was looking further down the road at the dilemma they were soon to be in.  Ishmael, as the firstborn son, had a right, to double the family inheritance.  And Sarah demanded that Abraham should not allow this – “a slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac,” she insists. 
 
I’m not sure we should give Abraham a pass, when he feigns sadness, here.  He has not been attentive to God’s plan anymore than Sarah.  But God steps in for them both, reminding them that God will keep his promise of a great nation through Isaac.  But also letting them in on his promise to Hagar, that from Ishmael shall come a great nation too.  Which we know today, as the seed of Muhammed, and the people of Islam. 
 
In the bittersweet ending to this story, we see Hagar and Ishmael being escorted by Abraham, off the property, with meager provisions, bread and water, for a journey to the wilderness of Beersheba, surely to die.  Yet God will provide. 
 
Just when Hagar is about to give up, God hears their cries, and opens her eyes to see a well in the bushes, and, the water is cool, and they survive.  And God was with the boy Ishmael, and he grew and thrived as a bowman in the desert wilderness – he was a wild ass of a man, after all!  And Hagar “got a wife for him from the land of Egypt,” her home.  Ishmael will show up one last time in Genesis – when Abraham dies – for Ishmael and Isaac will come together, to help bury their father.
 
Abraham and Sarah are our parents, our father and mother in the faith, in all their flawed humanity – no different than you and I.  But when God promises, God follows through.  God doesn’t wait for these sinners, these chosen people, to perfect themselves.  ‘Should they continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means!’  
 
God promises, and picks Abraham and Sarah, even in their flawed state.  God also promises blessings to Hagar and Ishmael – not God’s elect, but the outcast and underclass – whom God loves, all the same. God saves us, even when we were sinners – all of us! 
 
What the world still longs for today, of course, is the redemption of Hagar and Ishmael, the cast-out ones, the rejected.  Phyllis Trible speaks eloquently about her condition of powerlessness.  Hagar is, “The resident alien without legal recourse, the black woman used by the male and abused by the female of the ruling class, and the indigent relying upon handouts from the power structures.” (Trible, Terror, 28)  But she is always equally entitled to God’s grace.
 
So, Welcome to Sinners Anonymous – where everyone in recovery from their sinfulness, and reaching for the best in humanity, as God gives us power by the Holy Spirit – gather each week. 
 
We cannot do it alone, which is why we Confess corporately – together.  “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master,” said Jesus to the Disciples; 25“it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master.”  Jesus, is in it with us, expecting our SA (Sinners Anonymous) group to be egalitarian and equitable.  ‘If your leaders call me Beelzebul,’ says Jesus, ‘how much more will they malign those of my household,’ i.e., us?! 
 
We know that Jesus is not, Beelzebul – prince of demons, chief among sinners – but the font of forgiveness.  We can’t do it, without him.  Jesus walks alongside us, in our recovery, in our baptisms, one day, one step, at a time. 
 
And that’s the promise we need, and can count on! 

Readings for Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 14, 2020
​

• Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7) and Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19  • 


• Exodus 19:2-8a and Psalm 100  • 


• Romans 5:1-8  • 


• Matthew 9:35-10:8, (9-23)

Readings for Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 17, 2020

• Acts 17:22-31  
• Psalm 66:8-20  
• 1 Peter 3:13-22  
• John 14:15-21

IN COURT Sermon by Pastor Fred
In the highest Courts of democracy in Athens, Paul testifies about Jesus.  Okay, it was also the court of their religion.  They didn’t separate the two institutions like we do.  But Paul was certainly far from Jerusalem and Antioch, when he was dropped in, to the heart of western philosophy and the birthplace of democracy. 
 
This was the city of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.  The city that welcomed, and craved new ideas, and debated them lustily.  It was the place of the Parthenon, and every other famous shrine to the Greek pagan gods, much of which still stands today. 
 
There in Athens, Paul will get in trouble for his preaching, as he so often did.  He will also gain some new followers, even some of their important leaders, according to Acts, like Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris.  Actually, he’s already in trouble before that. 
 
Paul starts by reaching out to the Jewish community in Athens, like he does in every city, before visiting the famous Agora, the marketplace, to engage the citizens of Athens, people just shopping and hanging out, if you can remember what that’s like!  And one day, some philosophers of the popular Epicurean and Stoic schools, stepped in to debate him as well.  And it’s around these conversations that apparently some take offense at Paul.  On the one hand, they derogatorily call him a “babbler,” that is, somebody who’s picking up and relating various bits of arguments to puff himself up, while trying to sell them something.  Like your wild west snake oil salesman, or a contemporary Reality TV personality.
 
But others have a more serious charge, that he is a proclaimer of foreign deities – very similar to the charge brought against Socrates himself, 5 centuries earlier.  Though some also think Resurrection, in addition to Jesus, is one of the deities he’s peddling!  Jews, of course, wouldn’t make that mistake, even if they rejected Paul’s message.  But the Athenians, so steeped in a pantheon of gods represented in the many gold, silver and stone statues all around them in the marketplace, confuse Resurrection — the power of salvation, and, font of new life – with just one more possible god they should consider worshipping. 
 
So they bring Paul to a kind of pre-trial discovery hearing to stand before the Areopagus.  Like our word church, meaning both the people and the building, the Areopagus could mean its democratic body of elected’s, or the actual Areopagus building – or maybe both.  In any case, that Paul has spent time discussing religion with Athenians of every stripe, in the days leading up to this moment, must have been, suddenly, very helpful.  And he decides not to give his regular stump speech, but is able to tailor his remarks to his audience. 
 
"Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way,” Paul begins (flattery, will get you everywhere!).  “For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’” 
 
Pretty clever, picking up on that one, I thought, among the dozens of gods.  But it makes for something he has in common with them, a starting-off place for Paul’s message.  “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.  24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” 
 
This was pretty bold for Paul to proclaim, even given, that it was true!  There he stood, surrounded by the shrines of Greek religion, housed in some of the most magnificent monuments anywhere, and in so many words, said they were small and inconsequential, compared to the living God and creator of all things! 
 
So, Paul was tactful, but he didn’t mince words.  In his more secular approach, he didn’t slight or misrepresent the glory and grace of the King of kings, and Lord of lords.  And like all good leaders, he ends on a decision point.  “God overlooked our past misunderstandings about religion as long as we didn’t know any better,” said Paul – “but that time is past.  The unknown is now known, and God’s calling for a radical life-change.  God has set a day when the entire human race will be judged and everything set right.  And God has already appointed the judge, confirming him before everyone by raising him from the dead.”  (trans: The Message)
 
In his whole speech, Paul never even uses the name Jesus, or his title, the Christ.  But he has made a strong case for him in the minds of his listeners.  In his pre-trial appearance, he has given them all they need to know, to make a decision.  He has set the stage for those who hear the word, and who will follow, when Paul will have another chance to deepen their faith, and move them toward baptism in Christ. 
 
We also are on trial in this time of COVID-19.  This is our pre-trial in the Agora, in courts of democracy, waning as they are.  We need to bring it to the sacred halls at every level.  The foundations of our faithfulness in Christ are being shaken, as if by an earthquake.  Are the meek to inherit the earth, as Jesus proclaimed?  Are the poor to receive the kingdom of God coming down out of heaven like a bride to meet her bridegroom?  Are those who mourn to be comforted? 
 
Like the earthquake that shook the jail in Philippi, the city that Paul and his companions had recently left, they could have sat stunned and frozen in fear, or they could open their eyes to the possibility starring them in the face – which is what they chose.  They took it as an opportunity to save all those with them, the imprisoned and the jailer.  They lived out their faith in the God who was creator of all, slave and free, and even of earthquakes; they feared not, and continued on faithfully with the opportunity that was afforded them.  Such a trusting and simple choice resulted in the adoration of the jailer, who took them home, fed and clothed them, and he and all his household received the gift of baptism from Paul. 
 
Covid-19 is our earthquake, from which we can choose to act faithfully, or in fear.  The pagan pantheon of false gods that has ruled almost every part of our lives, impoverishing us, pitting us against each other, and filling our heads with propaganda – like we can’t live faithfully in community and support one another in love, that it’s all up to us individually to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps – has been clearly exposed.  Healthcare, housing, and schools, banking, jobs, and our food supply, have all been shaken to the core, and are crumbling in this earthquake, due to the ‘American-Areopagus-Philosophers of austerity,’ who invest in the dead gods of gold and silver.  We were only barely getting by, before.  Now in this earthquake of a pandemic, we can see with clearer eyes – we can’t go back; we cannot go back, to normal.  And why would we want to?! 
 
“God will not leave us orphaned,” Jesus says in our gospel reading.  Indeed, he will send us another in his place, the Spirit of truth, one who will Advocate for us, and abide in, and with us, always. 
 
Jesus provides halls of justice for us.  He has shown us how very near God is, “indeed, God is not far from each one of us,” Paul says.  And having been made God’s “offspring,” he continues, “we live and move and have our being” in God.  In Jesus’ court, the world will be made right and just, through the power of love that is stronger than gold and silver shrines made by human hands, attempting to enshrine themselves. 
 
The power of the Resurrection is not a deity – a mere statuette.  But Jesus, who once was dead, is now alive, and ruling over all – our in-court Advocate – judging with forgiveness, grace and mercy. 
 
Let us bring this message to all the courts of God’s world, until the living One has redeemed and made us right, in the kingdom and realm of God. 

Readings for the 4th Sunday of Easter, GOOD SHEPHERD Sunday, May 3, 2020

• Acts 2:42-47  
• Psalm 23  
• 1 Peter 2:19-25  
• John 10:1-10

"Healthy Shepherding," by Pastor Fred
 7So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.
 
John, we know, uses a lot of shepherd and sheep metaphors in his gospel.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  Jesus is the Lamb of God.  And here, Jesus is the gate to the sheepfold. 
 
Psalm 23, gets right to the point.  “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.” 
 
One of the earliest artistic renderings of Jesus, is, Jesus as the Shepherd, found in the catacombs. It’s the picture of Jesus with the lamb around his shoulders.  So, almost from the beginning, Jesus is known as the Good Shepherd, a descendant of David the shepherd boy, and our ultimate protector and savior – the healer of our every ill. 
 
And that’s what I want to talk with you about today – Jesus as our healer.  Jesus as our healthcare provider.  For the word for health, comes from the Greek word sotor, or Savior, and soteria, or salvation, meaning healing and wholeness, and also one who redeems, restores, sets free, and delivers from.
 
So when Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and bandits; … Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture,” Jesus is talking about protecting them from the false shepherds, and offering them the wholeness of salvation – a healing for all their oppressions and illnesses. 
 
They could go inside the gate and be safe.  But what’s more, they could – in their new found health and wholeness in Jesus – go out and find safe pasture.  Just as in Psalm 23:  2The Lord makes me lie down in green pastures, and leads me beside still waters. 3You restore my soul, O Lord, and guide me along right pathways for your name’s sake.
 
ELCA Pastor, Samuel Cruz says, “In Jesus’ day, those [elites] who could afford good healthcare and medicine, were not happy when the marginalized received good healthcare and medicine, from Jesus.”  We have thieves and bandits today, just like they did back then, and there is always a struggle for who is in control of healthcare. 
 
Jesus was nothing if not a healer in his ministry.  A quick search, in Matthew’s gospel alone, reveals how universal and inclusive his appeal, as healer and bringer of salvation, was. 

In Matthew 8.3-13
3He stretched out his hand and touched [the man with leprosy], saying, …Be made clean!’ Immediately his leprosy* was cleansed. 
And in the very next verse:
5 When [Jesus] entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him 6and saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.’ 7And [Jesus] said to him, ‘I will come and cure him.’ 8The centurion answered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed… 10When Jesus heard him, he was amazed  …13And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.’ And the servant was healed in that hour.
 
In Mt. Chapter 14;
34 When [Jesus and the disciples] had crossed over [Lake Galilee], they came to land at Gennesaret. 35After the people of that place recognized him, they sent word throughout the region and brought all who were sick to him, 36and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
 
And in the very next chapter, (Mt. 15):
30Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them, 31so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.
 
Every healthcare system is a reflection of its morals and beliefs.  How a society treats its sick and elderly, says everything about its values.  And the systems of healing, are at the same time, all about who gets healed, and who’s worth saving.  Even before the pandemic, our American healthcare was really, just a triage system of care.
 
Jesus preached and lived his healthcare values, when he made healing the sick, the lame, the rejected and the dying, central to his vision of the dawning kingdom of God, as he journeyed to Jerusalem, and toward his own suffering and death.  Fundamental to his message, was that, Healthcare was a human right; salvation is a gift from God; and there are always opposing systems and powers to such a belief, which he confronted and revealed.  In fact, his healings and exorcisms have been called, enacted parables, because of how they demonstrably reveal the life-giving power of the kingdom of God, in the presence of our enemies – as Psalm 23 says. 
 
When it comes to people’s health, Jesus seems to be saying, you don’t cut corners, and you don’t ration care!  You raise-up those who are forgotten.  You include those who are left out.  You heal everyone, rich and poor.  Jesus’ health plan was universal, a gift of salvation and redemption for all. 
 
On the other hand, public health scientist, Dr. Edgar Rivera Colón, painted a stark picture of our current system in America.  “The deaths that we're seeing today [in this pandemic] are directly related to the model of health care that's based upon just-in-time production.  You have as little inventory as you can and you cut costs as much as you can,” Colón said.  But, “You can't do that with healthcare without killing people. Throughout the last 40 years,” he says, “hospital beds have been cut, healthcare has been privatized more in this country, health care workers have been treated poorly. Very simply, [the American system] of healthcare [is] kill[ing] people.” 
 
Jesus’ system is – Everyone in, no one out!  Jesus is the gate-keeper.  He invites all to come into his sheep-pen to find safety and protection.  He heals us, and equips us to live, his life – a life of deep faith and spirituality, a life of active non-violence and speaking truth to the powers of evil, so that we can go out into green pastures as the people of God, knowing that baptized in Christ Jesus, we’ve already been made as dead as we ever can be, and so, we’re un-afraid to live in this world, as examples of love, healing, and wholeness. 
 
Jesus our Good Shepherd, protects and heals us, leads us beside still waters and guides us into pathways of justice and righteousness, all our days. 
 
We are, locked-in, the sheep-pen of our homes now, in this pandemic.  But we also have the Good Shepherd by our side, deepening our faith as the baptized people of God, to make us ready to go out into a ‘new normal’ – to embrace our good news message, and live it fully and confidently for the sake of the world – including, for a universal healthcare, that Jesus lived and revealed to all, in his saving love and grace, as God’s anointed one. 
 
Jesus is our gate, watching over our coming in and our going out – healing us, redeeming us, restoring us, and bringing us salvation.  

Readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 22, 2020

• Psalm 23  
• Ephesians 5:8-14  
• John 9:1-41

My Favorite Thing about Sheep, sermon by Pastor Fred Kinsey
​I want to reflect with you on the 23rd Psalm this morning.  Normally, I would have chosen this gospel reading, perhaps my favorite story in John, of the man born blind.  But, this has not been a normal week!
 
The 23rd Psalm is everyone’s, most favorite Psalm – so beautiful, so comforting, so simple and direct.  It seems like divine intervention, that we have won in lectionary lottery, and been dealt Psalm 23 today! 
 
So then, sheep!  For me – when I think about it – the thing I like most about sheep is – wool sweaters!  Right?!  I’ve been wearing my favorite Marino Wool sweater almost all winter.  It’s so thin and sheer, and yet it’s so amazingly warm.  I love it!  And, it’s basic black, which is perfect for me.  So, thank you, Marino Sheep! 
 
But the 23rd Psalm isn’t about what we, or I, like about the sheep, but it’s all about imagining, we are the sheep, and God is our Good Shepherd.  David – who came from a family of sheep herders – is credited with writing this Psalm, and imagining he is part of the flock, he doesn’t just talk about God, but talks to God.  It’s personal for him.  “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want.” 
 
The thing about sheep is, they are not the sharpest tool in the shed in the animal kingdom!  Basically they love to graze – to eat all day.  And the reason sheep need a shepherd is because, on their own, they’ll ‘nibble themselves lost!’ James Howell  With their heads to the ground, they follow the greenest and most delicious grass wherever it goes.  And, they were known for walking off a cliff’s edge into a ravine, or wandering too far from the flock, where wolves might cash in their meal of mutton Groupon! 
 
Dog walkers today can use leashes, but with 50 or a 100 sheep, that’s not possible for Shepherds.  They used a rod or a staff to keep all of them together in safety – which David says, comforts me.  “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. The LORD makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.”  David imagines himself beyond wanting, and beyond danger, because his Good Shepherd provides the perfect space, green pastures and cool still waters, for him.  It’s all good! 
 
And so, it’s in times such as these – the past couple of weeks that have been anything but serene, green pastures – that we need the comfort of the 23rd Psalm.  As we came closer and closer to the Governor’s decision, to Shelter in Place, and stay home, I don’t know about you, but I felt more and more anxiety about how to handle it all.  I’ve always worked at home at least one day a week.  But seeing everything shut down, and for me, changing the whole way we do worship and meeting together, put me on the ravine’s edge.
 
I know some, if not all of you, have had similar reactions and feelings.  There are so many unknowns!  This has never happened before!  How do we get our food now without having any human contact?  How do we negotiate the grocery store?  Or order out from the local restaurant?  How do we work from home?  How do we share our new home office with our partner or spouse – what are the boundaries?  How do we stay in touch with our friends and family while we can’t be with them in person?  Do I have to sanitize my own home? – is my food safe to eat?  How long will this last?  What if I’m laid off and will soon have no paycheck coming in?  Maybe this coronavirus really isn’t that contagious, as some suggest? 
 
Or just, how do I work this Zoom meeting??!!
 
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”  Even “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for You are with me…” 
 
If we haven’t quite yet - for this is still the beginning - I think we’ll come to see that in this confined and cocooned life, shuttered in place, cooped up with our feelings of insecurity and the unknown, God will become more real than ever.  In the depths of our despair, in this shadowy valley, God will enter thru the liminal crags of our yearning, our prayers, our wants.  
 
We desire the LORD to be our Good Shepherd.  What, or who else, can satisfy our deepest longings, wants, and desires?  Cut off from the marketplace – where we can never quite satisfy our wants anyway – we have time and space now to ask God once again to be our Good Shepherd.  To come and guide our lives, completely, always. 
 
So maybe this is a time to reassess what is most valuable in our lives – the things we surround ourselves with, both tangible and beyond our grasp.  “He leads me on pathways of justice,” David concludes.  And in the end, the road of our deepest desire is always to go home.  To return to what is the greatest comfort of our hopes and dreams, or, to have a second chance to right the wrongs, of home. 
 
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” 
 
For me, I hope, going home will be something like feeling surrounded by all my friends and family, and snuggling in my sheer warm Marino wool sweater/blanket – with an overflowing cup of wine – and the LORD as my Shepherd. 
 
In Psalm 23, these are the things God desires for us, even today, in the very presence of this enemy, this coronavirus, this shadow of death threatening to take away our green pastures and still waters. 
 
The Good Shepherd has herded us inside for now.  But, sheltered in place, we can still comfort one another with the promise that goodness and mercy wins.  Let us look forward to dwelling together on the other side of this pandemic.  And let us continue to faithfully trust in our Good Shepherd, whose rod and staff comforts us, and brings us home.  

Readings for the Third Sunday in Lent, March 15, 2020

• Exodus 17:1-7 
• Psalm 95 
• Romans 5:1-11 
• John 4:5-42

"Social Distancing," Rev. Fred Kinsey
Are Jesus and the woman at the well practicing social distancing?!  Jesus, for his part, stays behind at the well all by himself while his disciples trudge into town to get some lunch.  And the woman who comes to draw water – who remains nameless in this story – comes in the heat of mid-day, when she knows no one else will be coming.  She expects to be alone.  All the others will come early in the morning, or late in the afternoon. 
 
No doubt, Jesus and the woman, kept their distance at the well.  But their social distancing was not due to any Coronavirus outbreak.  Neither did they have leprosy, which by the laws of Leviticus demanded the shunned lepers shout out “unclean, unclean!” when approaching others, to warn them to keep their distance. 
 
We know, of course, there was a social distancing of men and women, in public places.  But in this story, most importantly, is the separation, and distancing, of Jews and Samaritans.  Ever since the death of King Solomon (10C BC) – when the kingdom of Israel split in two, and Samaritans no longer recognized Jerusalem as the capital, but worshiped on their own holy mountain, at She-chem, or what’s called here, Sychar – their social distancing hardened into a begrudging rift!  Jews considered Samaritans apostates, and they each became fierce cross-town rivals.  It only grew worse after the Exile to Babylon and Israel’s return in the 500’s, because the Samaritans had been able to hide out and stay in the hilly region of Samaria.  They didn’t suffer, Exile.  So by the time of Jesus in the 1st C. they were so rigidly separate, that John says matter-of-factly, “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.” 
 
So like most Jews, Jesus and his family and clan, took the easier route along the Jordan valley, skirting Samaria, when traveling back and forth from Jerusalem to Galilee.  But not Jesus and his disciples!  They deliberately cut through Samaria, as if to provoke this encounter. 
 
So there Jesus sat, by the well, and as soon as the Samaritan woman appeared, he bids her ‘Give me a drink!’ – a gender, social distancing, no-no.  I hope he said please, but that’s probably just me!  You can tell by her response, though, that her biggest surprise is that he, a Jew, should even address her, a Samaritan!  Because of course, that bridge is closed.  But Jesus is not concerned about dead laws and customs that don’t serve God.  “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’” Jesus replies, “you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 
 
Unfazed and curious now, she replies, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep.  Where do you get that living water?”  And then she shows him she knows her stuff, “Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”  Though they share the same scriptures, the strength of the Samaritan interpretation, is the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
 
No, not at all, says Jesus.  What I’m saying is, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 
 
I think that would have knocked my socks off, and right then and there, I would have fallen down and worshiped him!  But the woman’s not yet convinced, and she decides to call his bluff!  “Sir, give me this water, so that I many never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 
 
But that leaves her caught in a kind of either/or bind.  ‘Water is life, and life is water!’  We need both: real tangible clean and delicious water to drink from the well.  And, the spiritual water that bubbles up from the life of Jesus.
 
To get to his point, Jesus changes the subject.  “Go, call your husband, and come back.”  She only says, “I have no husband,” perhaps distrustful where this is going.  And Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying , ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband…”  Aaha, says the woman, back on track, “I see that you are a prophet.”  And she continues challenging their differences between Jewish and Samaritan beliefs, noting that although she’s impressed he’s a prophet, they unfortunately worship separately at different locations – Shechem and Jerusalem – and who are either of them to change that?! 
 
But Jesus’ answer would have scandalized, both Samaritans, and Jews.  “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  …But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…” 
 
“I know that Messiah is coming,” who is called Christ, said the woman.  “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.”  It seems to be dawning on her now.  But to make it crystal clear, Jesus reveals that, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” 
 
Just then the disciples came back, astonished he was speaking with a Samaritan woman.  They don’t know the half of it!  But, at least they manage to hold their tongues from saying the derogatory and demeaning things on their minds, about her.
 
The woman leaves her water jar by the well, and turns to hurry back to the city.  Immediately she said to those in town, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”  And her testimony was so moving that they all joined her to go back and meet this Jesus.  And when they arrived at Jacob’s well, Jesus was talking to his disciples about ‘fields that were ripe for harvesting.’ 
 
“So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked Jesus to stay with them; and he stayed [in Sychar] two days.  And many more believed,” concluding for themselves now, that, “we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” 
 
Once again, the disciples don’t come off especially good in this story!  Maybe as Deacon’s who do the grocery shopping, but the true evangelists here, are the enemy-Samaritans, the woman and her followers, whose lives are turned around and who become enthusiastic followers of Jesus. 
 
The woman at the well was the key to unlock this door.  She’s not only an evangelist, but a wonderful debating partner with Jesus!  She doesn’t give up or give in, but contributes and learns, through it all.  She leaves her old life behind, which is symbolized so well by forgetting her bucket at the well, which she no longer needs.  She has found the water that will truly quench her thirst, and has been baptized with the deep well-water that will save her life.  No more does she have to be, one more faithless man’s property, in a series of loveless marriages.  She has fallen in love with the Messiah who is called Christ. 
 
Perhaps, for the first time, she has found her true vocation in spreading the good news.  What if that’s what we all have found, those of us who believe, and who gather in Christ’s name?  Here, we find our true calling.  Here, and when we are Sent out into the world to put our faith into action, we are our most fulfilled selves. 
 
As Liz Goodman says, “…Imagine the church as a place where people who don’t fit their type, find a place for realizing their potential.  Imagine [church] as a people among whom each can find good purpose for power that is otherwise ill-fitting.  The church can’t be a context for conformity.  To follow Christ is to tap into some deep truth ourselves and to cultivate its growth, a process by which is built up, the beloved community of God’s reign.”
 
Perhaps we are a people who have already, felt, social distancing in our lives, long before COVID-19 arrived.  Perhaps we have more importantly found our good health and deepest love through this humble assembly, being baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, that has saved us, and made us one. 
 
So, let us go out – be Sent forth – to share the good news of this deep, deep, spring of water gushing up to life in the new age!  

Readings for First Sunday in Lent, March 1, 2020

• Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7  
• Psalm 32  
• Romans 5:12-19  
• Matthew 4:1-11

"The Devil Doesn't Come in Red Leotards," sermon by Pastor Fred
The best Halloween costume in our family growing up was, the Devil!  I mean, it was elaborate for its time, which was admittedly, some time ago.  Long before scary video games.  Long before the Joker came to life on the screen, back when Marvel Super Heroes were only available in comic book form! 
 
I don’t know where my mom got the Devil costume, but, it was so good, it was the only Halloween costume all of us kids took turns wearing.  It was a first-generation rubber mask, truly scary with its devilish horns.  And the full body costume was a fire-y red.  It even had a long tail to the suit, and a pitchfork that you carried. 
 
When my little brother was probably not even 10 years old, and I had the suit on getting ready for trick or treating, I scared the living stuffing’s out of him, when we met suddenly on the stairway!  He ran the other direction, screaming and balling, and afraid for years after that.  Which, of course, I felt bad about! 
 
No one really believes in the Devil like that, anymore – do they?  The Devil doesn’t come in red leotards carrying a pitchfork! 
 
The author of our Lutheran Sundays and Seasons resource wrote, “This Lent we are called to expunge the fantastical images of the devil from our minds and think seriously about the real presence of evil in our world. We know firsthand about the sin that caused, causes, and will cause suffering to us, our loved ones, our neighbors, our global communities, and creation itself.  Sin is real; suffering is real; evil is real; indeed, the devil is real.  This oppressive, tangible reality is as real as the air we breathe—felt but not always seen.  Greed, envy, rage, hatred, war, discrimination, and apathy are just some of the ways the devil’s forces wreak havoc upon us. These forces have one goal and one goal only: to turn us away from the will of God.” (Sundays & Seasons)
 
Every year on the first Sunday of Lent, we hear from one of the Synoptic Gospel Temptation-of-Jesus stories.  But what strikes me today in this Temptation by the Devil, from the gospel of Matthew’s account is: We are both like Jesus, and not like Jesus.
 
Certainly we are like Jesus when, after fasting for a long time, he is famished.  Most of us, I dare say, don’t go without our “3 squares” every day.  I remember the days when it seemed like, I could eat as much as I wanted and never gain a pound – and I never missed a meal!  So fasting can challenge our normal order, and perception of comfort, and taking for granted the good things we have.  The meaning and value of food on the table can become much deeper, and clearer.  Maybe some of you have fasted before.  Maybe some grew up poor and didn’t have enough, or like more and more students, even college athletes on scholarship, you have been food-insecure and survived on Ramen noodles or gone without meals sometimes.  Jesus knew hunger too, he was completely human in that way, but leaned into his belief that God’s word was more nourishing even, than daily bread. 
 
Jesus was human like us, in that he was subject to the laws of nature too.  Jumping off the top of a large building like the Temple, or a very high mountain, would be certain death.  God has created us mind, body and spirit, and given us this awesome and ‘very good’ physical world.  And God has formed boundaries for us that are meant to be life-giving, though they sometimes seem restrictive or unfair.  We may be tempted toward speeding down the highway, especially after a drink or two, to prove our – I don’t know what, more than human capacity, glorifying ourselves in some way – but of course, that can end badly, for you, or someone else.  Jesus decided not to jump – leaning into the laws of nature God set up for the world, and letting the Devil know, us followers will too. 
 
But we are also, not like Jesus.  We cannot fast for 40 days and 40 nights, I’m guessing.  We cannot turn stones into loaves of bread, as the Devil assumed the Son of God could.  We cannot command God’s angels to bear us up, if we’re bunging jumping and the cable snaps.  We cannot glimpse, even half the kingdoms of the world that the Devil showed to Jesus.  Though in our humanness we are certainly tempted to indulge in some of the ones we have seen – the love of money, the priveledge of popularity and white supremacy, the lure to eat-drink-and-be merry, for tomorrow we die! 
 
As Gil Bailie put it so well, “…the story of the wilderness temptations shows, the essence of [Jesus].  His triumph over demonic snares in the wilderness, [which] was a triumph over the glamour of [imitating the Devil], …an achievement made possible, not by Jesus’ strength of will, but by the superior strength of another [imitative] desire: the desire “to do his Father’s will,” to become the image and likeness of the One in whose image and likeness he knew himself to have been made.” (Violence Unveiled p. 207)
 
We are like Jesus – and, we are not like Jesus.  We are only human, not divine.  But we are made in God’s image, which is another way of saying, we have the same desire of Jesus’ more perfect obedience to God.  We can and do lean into our desire to imitate Jesus, who imitates God.  And the more we do, not just individually, but collectively, together as the ecclesia, the church and community of followers, the more we fulfill the justice and peace of the kingdom and realm of God, and the more we bring that kingdom on earth, as well as it is in heaven. 
 
Because the Devil is real, real in our temptation away from God’s will – and not just pious individual temptations to commit individual sins, for those can be used to pit us against each other for the benefit of the powerful and exploitation of the kingdoms of this world – but the Devil is real, as the power tempting us all to live in those ‘kingdoms of the world’ in ‘collective sin,’ like racism and sexism, like the love of money and excesses of Capitalism, like ill-begotten and unfettered power and the false holiness of war. 
 
The Devil doesn’t come in red leotards, we know, but is subtle, more than overt.  Evil often comes as temptations we already desire!  We see it in the gospel story 3 times: 1) Jesus is hungry – the Devil is prepared to step in and offer a quick fix, bread, that you can purchase right here on the corner from the PayDay Lender, at 400% APR.  2) And the devil knows that Jesus loves the Temple and wants to reform a corrupt religion – wouldn’t doing amazing tricks like being saved from a high-wire act gain him so many more followers?  If you but take the first step, the devil is ready to assist!  3) And Jesus, the Son of God, has been preaching the good news of the kingdom and realm of God arriving in his very person.  So, how about I give you all the kingdoms of the world, if you but worship me, says the devil! 
 
Diablos is there to give us everything we want – the easy way, in a moment.  Follow me, he says, I know some shortcuts!  Tired of all the rules of the world God has made for us?  The devil has an array of kingdoms of this world, more glitzy and attractive, free for indulging your libertarian self-pleasure.  
 
But the more the devil wins, the deeper in debt we become, like a millstone hung around our necks.  ‘Here, come up to this mountaintop and let me show you all the oil fields around the globe.  I’ll give you them all to burn up for energy, to build homes and cities and nations, and make a handful of you rich beyond your wildest dreams, Diablos said.  And now, with our addiction to oil, we are on the brink of a global climate crisis. 
 
But if we say, with Jesus, we will “worship the Lord our God, and serve God only,” we will be able to truly see, and follow in a new direction.  A life-giving direction.  Then, the devil will leave us, and suddenly angels will come and wait on us, begin to bind up our wounds, and open our eyes.  A change is gunna come!  The world is about to turn!  If we live by the grace of God.
 
As Lenny Duncan says, we are in the midst of a theological crisis, more than an economic or social crisis.  So first, we have to realize, and believe, that we are like Jesus, and, we’re not like Jesus – both at the same time.  Then, we will be able to laugh at all our temptations!  And we will begin to desire the kingdom of heaven. 
 
We are created in the image of God.  And God is working for our redemption already.  ?What did we promise in our baptism, but ‘to renounce all the forces that defy God, all the powers of this world that rebel against God, all the ways of sin that draw us from God?’  So, let us deepen our journey these 40 days, as followers of Jesus, who is God’s anointed one. 

Readings for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, Feb. 16, 2020

• Deuteronomy 30:15-20 
• Psalm 119:1-8  
• 1 Corinthians 3:1-9  
• Matthew 5:21-37

Choose Life, sermon by Pastor Fred
The God of Israel cares about life — we see in our Deuteronomy passage – not only our lives, but also the life of the world. God is a God of life.
 
And then in our Gospel in Matthew – as we continue this week reading from the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus digs deeper into its meaning.  ‘How can we live together as God’s people, people who flow with God’s eternal life, pouring out blessing on all people?’  Jesus came, to fulfill the law and the prophets, not to abolish them – and to ‘tell us what it means to be people who choose life for the world.’  How can we live together as God’s people, people who flow with God’s eternal life?  That’s the question Pastor Isaac S. Villegas poses to our readings today.  (@Isaacsvillegas)   
 
Jesus – by the time of his public ministry – was steeped in the Law and the Prophets.  And the primary Meta story of the Torah, the first five books of the bible, is that Moses led the Israelites for 40 years wandering in the desert, out of Slavery into the freedom of the Promised Land.  In our reading today, they were finally on the verge of entering this land of ‘milk and honey.’  And so, in his penultimate Farewell Speech, Moses gives a passionate plea: “15See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. 16If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, … then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you …17But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray …, 18I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.”
 
So Moses is about to set them free, to be the people of God, in the most awesome and powerful way!  Life, or death?  Prosperity, or adversity?  Your choice, says Moses – who is literally standing on the other side of the Jordan River, on the eastern bank, at the doorstep of the Promised Land, which he himself will not enter, his work now almost complete, and realizing a new work must be acknowledged by the Israelites, and re-covenanted with their God.  I say to you, says Moses, “Choose life!”  “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live… so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” 
 
But the most curious thing ‘you never knew’ about this speech from Deuteronomy – the last of the Five Books of Moses, that started in the beginning with Genesis, and continued through Exodus, the exit from Egypt, through the Laws of Leviticus, and the census and number of sojourners recorded in Numbers, to finally, Deuteronomy, meaning “a second Law,”  …the most curious thing is that it was actually written 100’s of years later – almost 1,000 years – when they were exiled in Babylon!  Yes!  Though it was in development since the time of Moses, as an oral tradition, and some parts of Deuteronomy were written down even as the threat of destruction by Babylon was imminent, some decades prior to the Exile – these last chapters, from which we’ve read today, came together and were compiled in their final form, only when Israel had already been carted away, and so, had lost everything – their homes, their government, their land – and become captives once again, like they were in Egypt, this time, slaves to King Nebuchadnezzar, in Babylon. 
 
And what they needed then at that moment, most desperately, was somehow to have hope for the future, in the midst of this Exile, this second wilderness wandering, this loss and deep grief.  At this, their lowest ebb, was when  this theological speech was written, as a ‘salve’ to bind the wounds of their exile, to remember their God of promise and life.  Deuteronomy recalls how Moses, on the precipice of entering the Land God brought them back to, offered them a choice between life or death, to accept the gift of re-covenanting with God, and live lives of justice and peace – or, to turn their hearts, and lives, away.
 
Where do we get our hope today, to live for the future?  In the midst of this escalating slide into separate systems of truth, fueled by everyday modes of slick, but never-quite-satisfied social media bots and controversies, manipulated by elites within and without, by oligarchs dripping with ill-gotten wealth, threatening our 246 year experiment in democracy, and the very institutions of church and state – In the midst of this seemingly uncontrollable earthquake in our lives, and deep fissure shaking our social fabric – where do we get our hope to live for the future? 
 
The font of life and light of the world comes in the person and message who offers us a new interpretation of the Law – not to abolish it, but to fulfill it.  “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder…’ but I say to you” says Jesus, “that if you are angry… if you insult a brother or sister… if you say, ‘You fool,’” you have already violated the Commandment not to murder. 
 
And so, four times in these verses, Matthew quotes Jesus using this same formula, “you have heard that it was said,” so and so… “but I say to you,” this and that…  This second interpretation of the Law, in Matthew – or third even, if you count Deuteronomy – was written at the end of the first century of the Common Era, addressed to a whole new crowd, a wider audience, a couple, 2 to 3 generations after Jesus. 
 
For those followers of Jesus who were then forming the church, this new interpretation of the 10 Commandments was meant to permeate their lives, and social institutions, rejecting all ‘nativism,’ with the practical-ideal of ‘the kingdom of heaven’ that Jesus had already ushered in.  “You have heard it said that you should not murder, but I say to you,” you should not even harm the reputation of your neighbors. 
- It’s not just actually stabbing someone that breaks my covenant of love and life, says Jesus, but stabbing someone in the back!
         - It’s not just anger, but the hate in the anger, and cutting someone down with your words. 
          - It’s not just pushing someone off a cliff, but bullying and crushing the very light, salt and spirit out of them.
          - It’s not just speaking falsely against your neighbor, as Martin Luther explained in the Small Catechism, but failing to take responsibility to put the best construction on their intentions. 
The Command against killing, doesn’t just avoid being an axe murderer.  It creates the law of Love, and shows no hostility.    
 
Jesus took the “thou shalt not’s,” of the Ten Commandments – that in our time in some quarters, have come to be used as a bludgeon against each other in the name of God – and transformed them into a New Covenant that placed the responsibility for life in the midst of the ‘people of faith,’ to live as ‘lights and salt’ for the world.  “Choose Life, so that you and your descendants may live, …”
 
Finally, Jesus’ re-do of Deuteronomy – created an opening for a new Covenant, between God and the Gentiles.  It was built on the original rock-solid Hebrew foundation, but sprang up again from the root of Jesse, in the self-giving grace of the cross, so that it could not fail to bring new life.  And so it continues to teach us to build on those foundations of justice and love. 
 
Jesus, light of the world, shines and exposes the deep, hidden places we don’t want to look at, because sin isn’t pretty, and we don’t like that look on us!  But in Jesus sin is no longer the last word.  Where once the punishment for making a wrong choice, for falling off the path with God, was death, Jesus comes to us as the new covenant – a washing in baptism, and present-gracious-gift-of-life in bread and wine.
 
Jesus writes the new covenant, the will of God for our lives in the flesh, in the deep red of his own blood, and pours it out for us even today, for the forgiveness of sins.  As the anointed one, Jesus not only teaches us the way, but models for us on the cross, the consequences of human-inability to choose well, so we can be picked-up when we falter and fail, and choose life. 
 
And so, in the light of Epiphany, we can begin to see that ‘Jesus came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them.’  He asked us to live every aspect of our lives built on the foundation of justice and love, leaning-in to the gift of life God offers us in the kingdom of heaven – right now.  In a word, Jesus says – from the cross, and journeying with us by the power of the Holy Spirit – “Choose life.”