Readings for Presentation of Our Lord, 02/02/2020

• Malachi 3:1-4  
• Psalm 84 
• Hebrews 2:14-18  
• Luke 2:22-40

​Last Christmas Present, sermon by Pastor Fred KInsey
Our favorite place for camping ever, was at TRNP – Tedi Roosevelt National Park, which is the smaller section of the Badlands, up in North Dakota.  Back when Kim and I used to visit, it was one of the most under-used of our national parks. 
 
We used to go the 2nd week of October, just after the camping services for RV’s were shut down for the season, and we’d have the place almost entirely to ourselves.  I remember one week we were there during a full moon, and when we turned in for the night, and snuggled into our sleeping bags, our tent was lit up as bright as day!  You could see the moon rising right through the nylon domed ceiling.  And through the front screen door, you could see the deer as they quietly walked down to the Little Missouri River, shimmering in the moonlight, for a cool evening drink.  The light shining in our darkness was a magical revelation!
 
It reminds me of the verse from Psalm 139, “even the darkness in not dark to you (O LORD); the night is as bright as the day, for darkness, is as light to you.” 
 
Today, we have brought out the hand-held Christmas candles, one last time, lighting them up for this festival that always fall on February 2.  The Presentation of Our Lord has been called, the last day of the Christmas season – even though it’s, now, clearly, the season of Epiphany!  But our gospel reading today, directing our liturgy, is chosen from the birth narratives of Luke, to shamelessly orient us back to the time of Christmas! 
 
It was on the 40th day, not quite 6 weeks after Jesus’ birth, that Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, went to the Temple in Jerusalem to fulfill all that is written in the law of Moses – for Mary’s purification, and to present Jesus as the first-born son with a thank offering to the Lord.  They offered – what was the option prescribed for the poor – a pair of turtledoves or pigeons, instead of a young lamb.  Or, maybe because Jesus is the Lamb of God, and his sacrifice, as such, will come later, at the gospel’s end.
 
But there is another way in which Jesus is blessed on this day, not from fulfilling the requirements of the traditions, but from the moving of the Holy Spirit, made visible in the gracious presence of the prophets, Simeon and Anna. 
 
Simeon is introduced as one who is righteous and devout, and, like at Jesus’ baptism, the ‘Holy Spirit’ rested on him – and it is the Spirit is the One who revealed to Simeon that he would not see death before he had seen the LORD’s Messiah!  Three times Luke tells us how the Holy Spirit is with Simeon, and then, how he just happened to be in the Temple that day when Mary and Joseph came.  And when Simeon happens to run into them, he was so excited, he asked to hold little Jesus.  This was the one, he knew!  This child!  And Simeon, cradling Jesus in his arms, praised God, saying, my eyes have seen your salvation… a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.  Thank you my Master, for dismissing me, your servant, to go in peace! 
 
And Mary and Joseph were amazed!  This was not a revelation about their child which they could have gotten through the traditions prescribed by the religious laws.  And as if to confirm this prophetic announcement, Anna, who lived in the temple as a widow, for maybe 60 years – she was now 84 – she too praised God and spoke about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 
 
Jesus is a light for revelation to the Gentiles!  We light our candles today, as a token to Christ’s light!  Even as an infant, Jesus is hailed as our Savior, and the glory of Israel.  Jesus is born into the world as a great and saving light. 
 
But we also discover, that not all will react with joy, and praise the Lord!  In the midst of this mind-blowing good news, Simeon takes Mary and Joseph aside, to also, give them a warning.  “This child,” says Simeon, “is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” 
 
Jesus, it seems, is a polarizing figure.  The coming of the Messiah is a light to all the nations, a Savior of the world.  There is no darkness, in the coming age that Jesus announces, for ‘darkness and light are both alike’ to him.  The Messiah has come to reconcile us! 
 
But at the same time, some will be rankled at his presence, and to them, he will appear as a sign to be opposed.  He comes to raise us up, yet some will stumble and fall, through arrogance and fear.  His gift of pure love and grace will reveal and expose our innermost thoughts.  A sword of truth will pierce our deepest souls.  And we will learn to follow, or not. 
 
And so this infant narrative about the baby Jesus, already points us forward toward the Good Friday ending.  Jesus, the Lamb of God, knowing his opponents, and indeed, having confronted them and offered a way out, goes uncomplaining forth to the cross, offers himself in pure love for the sake of the world.  And we, looking up at his tree, will have our conscience pierced, and our inner thoughts nakedly revealed.  And the world was enabled to see in a new way, as if for the first time, our sin and our bondage – as a whole people – to our stubborn hubris and self-destructive ways.  This ‘sign’ of Jesus can be a gift of faith, or a rock-hard refusal, to see. 
 
This is the way Robert Powers in “Overstory,” in our last Book Discussion, described the characters.  That, there were those protagonists of the story who could see in the darkness what was right in front of us all, plain as daylight – how we are destroying our eco-system in the de-forestation of the planet, and all the rest – and yet, we seem to walk blindly into the valley of death.
 
What holds us back?  That’s the question many are asking this last week, in the Impeachment hearings too, I’m sure.  Our President is also a polarizing figure, but in false and manipulating ways.  Not as a light to the nations, not as a Messiah – contrary to what some preachers have proclaimed.  But now that the truth has been illuminated in the Senate trial, our conscience has been pierced, and the inner thoughts of many are being revealed. 
 
We know that God is bigger, much bigger than our short-sightedness, and God’s Light, will prevail, even as we scratch our heads and worry that the country’s traditions and rule of law, are failing and falling. 
 
We see in Luke’s gospel, how the family of Jesus took God’s laws and traditions seriously.  In going to the Temple, they did all they could to follow in God’s ways.  And at the same time, God sends the gift of the Holy Spirit, in Simeon and Anna, to enlighten us, and to creatively use us, to shine forth, and be God’s people in the world.  Jesus himself, as the anointed Messiah of God, does not escape the pain of this world, and even endures an agonizing death.  His light shines more brightly than any candle, and yet it was opposed. 
 
But in his cross and resurrection, our conscience is pierced, and our eyes are opened, and we see, as if for the first time, that the path forward, the lamp-Light, illuminating our steps, is never the way of using force or coercion, never a path of unjust hierarchies, or lording it over others, just to insure our own pleasures and self-serving desires. 
 
Jesus is the law of love.  The way of pure light.  And we see too, that night is as bright as the day!  And in that, we can be dismissed in peace, and serve one another, with joy.  

Readings for the Epiphany of the Lord, January 5, 2020

• Isaiah 60:1-6  
• Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14  
• Ephesians 3:1-12  
• Matthew 2:1-12

"Bursting In," Pastor KInsey
So, sometimes the church calendar twists the order of our scripture readings in weird and awkward ways!  Like today!  Today we’re reading the story for, The Epiphany of Our Lord about the magi, which is the story just before the gospel reading we already read last week!  And the gospel story we read last week is the story after today’s reading!  Backwards!  Go figure!  A reversal of Matthew’s order! 
 
Yes, it makes sense in the way that each speaks to the theme of the churchseason.  Last week was the First Sunday of Christmas.  Today we celebrate the first Sunday of Epiphany.  Last week was The Slaughter of the Innocents, when Herod tried to kill the baby Jesus – Christmas theme!  Today is the visit of the magi, or wise men, coming to worship the new born king, who was revealed – Epiphany theme! – revealed as the Messiah and Savior of the whole world. 
 
But, the contrast and reversal by the church calendar, is actually not that weird for the gospel of Matthew.  Matthew maintains a theme of two kingdoms – the kingdom of this world, and the kingdom of God – throughout, all the way from Jesus’ birth to his death. 
 
For example, Time and Place in this gospel reading are also a study in contrasts.  Our gospel reading begins, “In the time of King Herod…”  That first, small, clause speaks volumes.  King Herod is the client king of Rome, the appointed ruler of Israel-Palestine, and a perfect choice to insure the unbending, and brutal if necessary, rule of the kingdom of this world. 
 
On the other hand, there is Israel, God’s chosen people, though, for centuries, struggling to follow where God wants them to go, trying their best to remain faithful, hopeful and on edge, in anticipation of a new Messiah to come and give them a sign, and lead them. 
 
So, King Herod, in Jerusalem, is a representative of the center of power of the world’s kingdom.  But the very next clause of our opening verse is, “after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea…”  Jesus, we find, is born on the margins, in the town that is in the shadows of the capital and its Temple, a po’dunk shepherd’s town, ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem.’ 
 
And this is the scene that the magi, the wise men from the east, enter into.  And they come, it seems to me, with a super naiveté about who they encounter in King Herod.  Or else they are magicians who cast a spell on him, posing as guileless wanderers.  I’m not really sure which!  Magi were indeed employed as magicians, at least some of the time.  But this is a different kind of a spell, and one that is courting danger, in dealing with a king like Herod.  One thing is for sure, and that’s that the magi are also, from the margins, 1,000 miles from the center of power, astrologers that follow the stars, and are crazy enough to come all this way to offer homage to a baby they claim is a new-born king of the Jews, the Messiah! 
 
And they certainly have aroused Herod’s curiosity, actually scared him, with their news.  But tyrants like him turn their fear outward, on others!  They will lash out and find a target, a scapegoat, and make them pay, create chaos, so as to tighten their grip on control, and thereby keep all the privileges and resources for themselves.  This is how, unchecked, the ‘kingdom of the world’ works. 
 
Surely, this is an example of sin in the world.  When we, as Christians, talk about the sinful nature of people, it is true that we all have faults, we all sin, as individuals.  But there is also collective sin.  The sin of tribalism, if you will – very much a modern concept – whereby we herd ourselves into opposition groups and factions.  The ‘Us against Them’ mentality, which is, at least, one way to talk about collective sin.  Sin that is learned from others, and accepted, en masse, based on values of the kingdom of this world, like success, wealth, prestige, and power in the form of survival-of-the-fittest.  What Jesus called, ‘lording it over others,’ and hypocrisy.    
 
The antidote to this collective sin, is to base our values on the kingdom of God which Jesus taught us, and modeled in his own life: loving your neighbor as yourself, serving God-not-Mammon, sharing the world’s resources that cannot be bought, but are God-given to us.  These too are collective values, not individual accomplishments, but what some have called, the ‘kin-dom’ values – that is, K-I-N – kin-dom, shared values with all God’s people, and thus, an antidote to collective sins. 
 
The threat of war, or at least the escalation of conflicts between Iran and the U.S., is a good example of collective sin.  It’s actually been brewing ever since President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” or so-called, Iran deal, brokered under President Obama with 5 other allies.  And the contrast between the two approaches could not be more stark, like the difference between the kingdom of this world, and the kin-dom of God.  The two approaches lead in opposite directions.  And the road we are on today, unfortunately, is based on the herd-mentality of ‘Us vs. Them,’ and neglects the teachings of Jesus to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves.’  The path we are on now, I think it’s fair to say, is the path of Herod.
 
In our gospel reading, Herod claimed he wanted the magi to go and search diligently for the new born child, so that when they found him, they could bring him word, and then Herod too might also ‘go and pay him homage,’ or worship Jesus. 
 
The magi might be naïve, but I’d say, it’s easy for the rest of us to see that this tyrant only wants to find out Jesus’ whereabouts in order to eliminate him as a rival king.  And that’s confirmed when we hear that God warns the magi in a dream to go home by a different route, and NOT to report back to King Herod. 
 
The magi’s trip from the far-away margins of the East, through the center of the Empire, and out again to the margins of Bethlehem, finally brought them to “the child and his mother,” Matthew tells us, where they “knelt down and paid him homage.  Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered [the 2 year old] gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh,” extravagant presents fit for a king, the ruler from the kin-dom of God! 
 
“In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’”
 
Into the center of the kingdom of this world, bursts the Christ-child, born of the kin-dom of heaven!  The rule of God, has invaded our realm!  And we sing, “Joy to the world!” 
 
And so, the slaughter of the Innocents, immediately following this good news, is sobering, but is not surprising or defeating.  The weeping of Bethlehem is real – that they are inconsolable, is truly tragic, but unfortunately, not unique.  It is just another example of the kind of collective sin which continues to perpetuate itself, until the time I in which the suffering of the Messiah permeates all our hearts and minds, and arms us with the collective value of neighbor-love as our weapon, to lead to the victory of the kin-dom of God. 
 
But it is that suffering for the sake of the gospel, the sake of the truth, the sake of the kin-dom of God, that has broken into our world, and that has given us hope.  This kind of Suffering knows no time, and cannot be defeated.  The old ‘kingdom of Herod’ has one foot in the grave, but the kin-dom of God, never ends.  As Stanley Hauerwas has said, “The [collective] movement that Jesus begins is constituted by people who believe that they have all the time in the world, made possible by God’s patience, to challenge the world’s impatient violence, by cross and resurrection.” 
 
And so, Matthew’s gospel launches us into the chaotic clash of the kingdoms, and resolves it through the patience of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, who is revealed already in chapter 2, at the margins, by the magi, worshipping Jesus when he was, as yet, an infant in a manger. 
 
Let us join with the collective movement of followers of this king, offering our very best gifts, until the time that God’s love will take residence at the center, once and for all.

Readings for the First Sunday of Advent, December 1, 2019

• Isaiah 2:1-5  
• Psalm 122  
• Romans 13:11-14  
• Matthew 24:36-44

Clash of Worlds, Pastor Fred
 
Our Christian faith is built on a clash of worlds, a clash of cultures, a clash of kingdoms!  Isaiah – called as a prophet in the midst of these clashes – hoped and prophesied in the name of Yahweh, our God, that “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” 
 
Welcome to Advent, the time of the judgement of the nations, and the four weeks of waiting, and hoping, and preparing, for the coming of the LORD.  Advent anticipates the birth of the Messiah, and the second and final coming of the Son of Man – both.  Advent is the time before the Christ child is ‘born unto us,’ and the time before the end of this age of death, ‘when war will be no more,’ and our weapons will be transformed into instruments of farming and harvesting for the life of the world. 
 
Advent evokes, and makes real for us, this tension we live under as humans, and as a called people of God – that we live with the promise of the resurrection to come, but we also live in the midst of a world enslaved to our fallen nature, our blinded eyes, our repeated sinfulness, and our structural imprisonment to poverty and war. 
 
Thankfully, Advent – with all its apocalyptic clashes – is only 4 weeks!  And it’s design is not merely to prepare us for the 12 Days of Christmas to come – it is not an aide to comfort us in our anxiousness of waiting, and our busy-ness of planning for ‘the most wonderful time of the year.’ 
 
Originally, Advent was a penitential season, like Lent, but it’s not quite that either.  It is less about, repenting of sins, than about acknowledging the clash of worlds, cultures, and kingdoms, those that tempt us away from “learning war no more” keeping us from ‘waking from the sleep’ we are hypnotized into, and instead, ‘putting on the armor of light,’ as Paul said in Romans!    
 
The season of Advent helps us to know and understand this spiritually.  And in his prophecy in our gospel reading, Jesus nails this Advent theme, insisting that: “About that day and hour [of the resurrection and 2nd coming] no one knows…  For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.”
 
Noah and his family were saved in the Ark God had told them to build.  Every other citizen, who were engaged in their everyday lives of putting food on the table, and growing up, getting married, and continuing the cycle of life, were swept away.  It is better to endure the flood here, than to be taken away!  So, “Keep awake therefore,” said Jesus, “for you do not know on what day your LORD is coming.” 
 
This is the call, to us in our lives, which Advent highlights!  We live in this in-between time.  But we are not without knowledge of what is to come, and the dilemma of two worlds, two cultures, two kingdoms.  We are called as the followers of Jesus, the baptized believers of God, to live in response to this tension.  As St. Paul said, “salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near …let us live honorably as [we would live] in the day,” that is coming. 
 
This is – spiritually – good news!  Our salvation has come.  We can claim, and name it, and live into it already!  But, spirituality is not just an intellectual message to give a thumbs up or down to.  And the clash of worlds, cultures, and kingdoms, is more than an intellectual exercise of choosing an ideology and a creed, for it plays out in the kingdom of this world that Jesus came to save.  It intrudes into every aspect of our lives, and we cannot just wait and hope and confess, and call it a day, without preparing.  ‘Learning war no more, as Isaiah said,’ is also connected to the action, of ‘beating our swords into plowshares.’  What if we spent as much time and energy on preparing for peaceful engagement, as we do on the patriotism of preparing for, building up for, and celebrating, war? 
 
Ever since I was a teenager, when I was within a year of two of being drafted into the Vietnam war, I have tried to prepare for peace and seek to learn war no more.  I vowed to stand up against the next Vietnam, and to teach and live an alternative way.
 
When I became a pastor and was called to our two-point parish in the Upper Peninsula of MI, and the drum beat for retaliation for the 911 attacks began to grow, Kim and I learned about a group calling itself the Northwoods Peace Coalition of Iron County.  It was a cross section of concerned citizens, a small, but mighty band.  The call of the administration to suddenly widen the war with Afghanistan, and to enter Iraq, based on false claims, was too obviously an illegal action, another Vietnam.  And we started protesting in the streets along with ‘war no more’ groups, across the country. 
 
Of course, the decision was made to go ahead, and the mighty American empire did indeed walk into Bagdad and crush the seemingly weak defenses of Saddam Hussein, in a matter of days – but the shock and awe, were only just beginning.  So many needless lives lost on both sides!  So much money wasted.  We seem to have ‘taught war’ more than anything, and like a Pandora’s Box, resistance groups proliferated, and a civil conflict was unleased, that devastates countries on the other side of the world, as well as our own, with no end-game in sight.  A war that did not have to start, and like Vietnam, has no winners.
 
Isaiah envisioned a day when we would ‘learn war no more.’  When we’d throw away our weapons, and cease the waste of war, creating instruments of peaceful coexistence, using our time and energy to build-up our lives and our families. 
 
This is the world, and culture, and kingdom of God, that the prophets have been telling us about for centuries.  And it’s tied up in the coming of the LORD, once and for all.  Jesus came to bring a new way, God’s way, to us.  It was a world and culture and kingdom, that lives with us still, side by side, alongside the world and culture and kingdoms, of death.  They coexist, like the parable of the wheat and the weeds.  One is hierarchical, and lord’s it over others, over the underdogs, who are demonized as ‘less-than.’  The ones on the top in this worldly kingdom, set the rules and cleverly find ways to make us play by them, often to our own detriment, playing us off against one another, fomenting and fertilizing hatred and distrust, as we fight for the scraps of a world, that supposedly can never produce enough for everyone. 
 
The world and culture and kingdom that Jesus announced, on behalf of the God of Israel, who he called his own dear father, is a world of abundance, shared generously with the neighbor, where no one is demonized, but differences and diversity are celebrated as God-given gifts that can enrich us all.  In this culture, we love our neighbor as ourselves, and we don’t need to scapegoat or create enemies to make a place for us to live and have value.  We are fulfilled by living within the promised created-purpose of God’s (world, culture, and) kingdom, by living in the ways of righteousness, (justice), and love. 
 
This is our spirituality – and our way of life! 
 
Our nearest modern day prophet, martyred in 1968, identified the three evils of the kingdoms of this world as, war, racism, and poverty.  Or in Dr. Kings own words, “the giant triplets of Racism, Economic Exploitation, and Militarism,” a continuation of his speech 4 months earlier in 1967, which no one had liked for its calling for an end to the Vietnam war, just one year before he died. 
 
Our Christian faith is built on a clash of worlds, a clash of cultures, a clash of kingdoms!  Advent, is this in-between season, in-between the coming birth of Christ, and the 2nd coming.  What is our role in learning, teaching, and bringing in the kingdom, as the people of God?  Are we just marionettes, to be manipulated in God’s great plan?  Or are we called to enact the world, the culture, and the kingdom that Jesus invited us to?  These are still questions not completely answered – and perhaps they account for Advent’s unpopularity of all the seasons of the Church Year!  But they are questions that won’t go away, not even by ignoring them. 
 
The clashes that our Christian faith are built on, must be resolved, and we must find our place in them.  “Therefore,” said Jesus, “you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”  

Readings for 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, November 17, 2019

• Malachi 4:1-2a and Psalm 98  
• 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13  
• Luke 21:5-19

"Temple of Human Hands," Pastor Fred Kinsey
The Lukan journey of Jesus has reached its destination point!  Way back in chapter 9, is where Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem,” and he would not be turned away, rushed, or distracted.  He will soon face his ultimate temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mt of Olives.  But first, Jesus is teaching in the Temple daily, and probably staying overnight at Mary and Martha’s house in Bethany, all the while knowing that Jerusalem is infamous for killing its prophets. 
 
In Jerusalem, Jesus will spend most of his time at the Temple, the center and symbol of Israel, the location of the presence of God, on earth.  In the Gospel of Luke, we see how central the Temple is to the lives of Jesus and his followers.  It began the moment Jesus was born and his parents took him to the Temple to fulfill the law that every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord, and they offered the prescribed sacrificial pigeons.  And most notably, it was on that day that Anna and Simeon, “led by the spirit,” identified Jesus, just one week old, as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel; thanking God for the coming redemption of Jerusalem.” 
 
Then, at the precocious age of 12, when the extended family from Galilee took Jesus on his next journey to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration, he slipped away from them all, not to go play with the other kids, but to sit at the feet of the Rabbi’s in the Temple, and discuss learnedly about Torah.  And they were “amazed at his understanding and his answers!”  Though his parents were angry that they had to look for him for three days, and probably grounded him till Yom Kippur! 
 
So the Temple was important in the life of Jesus and his followers, just as it was for every Jew.  He loved that it was the presence of God and seat of religion and politics, and when Jesus first arrived after “setting his face to go to Jerusalem,” he made a public demonstration in the Temple.  As soon as he entered the temple he began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer;’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”  And then he entered the Temple every day to teach, leading up to the night in which he would be betrayed, at the height of the Passover festival. 
 
Somewhere during these days after their arrival in Jerusalem, they heard people “speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God.”  But Jesus told his Disciples and followers, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” 
 
The Temple was indeed a glorious building in the time of Jesus!  It had been rebuilt by Herod the Great just 50 years before to show off how proud he was to have captured Jerusalem, and not be outdone by any other temple in the empire.  Its gold façade shone like the sun, and the magnificent stones of the temple mount made every visitor marvel at its magnificence! 
 
Jesus died and rose again around the year 30, and the second Temple would be set afire and destroyed by the Romans (in their war against the Jewish insurrectionists) in the year 70, the time at which Mark was writing his gospel, followed by Luke and Matthew in the 80’s, and John in the 90’s.  So as Luke was writing, he would have already known that the Temple stones were thrown down, as Jesus predicts here in chapter 21.  
 
Saint Paul too, never saw the destruction of the Temple.   All his Letters we have in the New Testament were written earlier, after Jesus’ death, in late 40’s thru the early 60’s when Paul was martyred in Rome, but before the Temple’s doom in 70. 
 
Even before its destruction for some 200 years, this was a period of great unrest, and widespread oppression, resulting in a massive underclass.  Poverty – brought on by high taxes, a debt economy, and subsistence living wages, were conditions that gave rise to apocalyptic hopes and dreams – for a time when the tables would be turned and the justice of God would break through, usually not without a time of conflict or war, and perhaps natural disasters too.
 
Jesus quotes these common place apocalyptic themes in his prediction of the end of the Temple and end of this present age.  But amidst all this chaos and carnage, Jesus has a message for his followers.  In the verses after our reading, which are a continuation of his prediction, he tells his followers “when you are surrounded by armies, flee to the mountains, …Those inside the city [of Jerusalem] must leave it, and those in the country (like the Galileans he knew) must not enter it.” 
 
Jesus wanted his followers not to get involved with fighting a losing battle against the mighty Roman Empire.  And in Jerusalem, the Temple, and most of its people, were slaughtered.  Jesus counsels, that like the Exile to Babylon, God was using foreigners, the Romans in this case, to condemn this present age, symbolized in the destruction of the Temple a second time.
 
Jesus wanted his followers to wait for ‘the Son of Man coming with power and glory.’  Then they should ‘stand up and raise their heads,’ he said, ‘because your redemption is drawing near!’  And, ‘Son of Man’, is the way Jesus referred to himself, especially as the coming resurrected one. 
 
Our redemption and our salvation, is in Jesus the resurrected one, who is also the one who rises up as the new nexus, the new location, of worship, after the Jerusalem temple is destroyed.  God wants the followers of the Messiah, who is the new temple, built not with human hands, those who come out of hiding in the hills, who wait in safety to live a new day, who “endure” through the apocalyptic perils – to testify to the truth of Jesus as the foundation stone of a new resurrected and spiritual temple – and to be ready to come into the New Age. 
 
So for all who are followers, the resurrected Jesus is the new location of God, who is worthy of worship and praise. 
 
We don’t believe we need to rebuild the physical Temple to prepare for Christ’s 2nd coming – like the fundamentalists and those arming themselves for Armegeddon, fixin’ for a fight.  Jesus, our resurrected Lord, is our temple, made not with human hands, but who is alive and sits on the right hand of God.  The new age has dawned and the return of Christ will be a new age where heaven and earth are united, and we have no need of human built temples, when spears will be made into plow-shares, for the Lamb will be our temple, and there will be no more death. 
 
As Jesus was just starting his public ministry in the gospel of Luke, he recalled Isaiah’s prophecy, ‘that the spirit of the LORD God is upon me.’  And as he ends it now in Jerusalem, he shows his love for the temple, defending its honor and visiting daily, even as he knows of, and predicts, its destruction.  For Jesus is the cornerstone of a new beginning and a new age.  He is the temple, built not with human hands, but by the hand of God, for our inclusion and our salvation. 
 
The Rabbi’s that Jesus sat with as a boy, would go on to transform Judaism into a portable religion in their diaspora, after the Temple’s destruction, centering their followers around the Book of the Torah, in synagogues and congregations, much like the house-churches and congregations that sprang up from east to the west, as Christianity spread out from Jerusalem.  And ever since, our fates and survival have been tied together. 
 
As the followers of Jesus – the Gentile nations who have been grafted on to the tree of God’s chosen people – we are called to enact that realm of God that the ancestors of Jesus first proclaimed.  Let us testify to the peace and love and power, Jesus has taught us, as together we worship the ‘rock of our salvation,’ the ‘cornerstone’ of our Temple, not made with human hands, who is Christ our LORD.  

Readings for All Saints Sunday, November 3, 2019

• Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18 and Psalm 149  
• Ephesians 1:11-23  
• Luke 6:20-31

"Fog Lifted," Pastor Fred
The misty fog of November can be mysterious and beautiful, or dimming and dangerous.  A thick fog can cover the ups and downs of any terrain, whether it’s the sidewalk or road, hills or valleys.  Fog can obscure car headlights, and traffic lights.  It can come on fast, and dissipate just as quickly.  Tree tops and tall buildings, jut eerily out of ground fog, and can be…, mysterious and beautiful, or dimming and dangerous, or, all of the above. 
 
Once I was fishing on a river in Upper Michigan early in the morning.  A patchy fog obscured the banks of the river, and the field of lily-pads we suddenly found ourselves in.  It was disorienting, and hard to get our bearings!  There was no wind, and the surface of the water was like glass.  Near barren birch trees and oaks, hanging on to their last leaves, no longer looked familiar as we attempted to find our way, paddling through the fog of another dimension.  It felt as if time was frozen, like there was no past or future, only this place, an everlasting present, amidst a deafening silence.  It was as mysteriously beautiful and dimmingly dangerous as I’d ever seen! 
 
Likewise, foggy morning commutes can be dimming and dangerous.  In the fall of 2002, an infamous pile-up involving 50 vehicles occurred in Wisconsin, just north of Milwaukee on I-43, very near Lake Michigan.  Dense fog conditions were reported, resulting in the worst multiple-vehicle collision in Wisconsin history.  Tragically, 10 people were killed, and 36 were injured. 
 
All Saints Day was placed at this time of the year on the church caelendar, some say, to coincide with the foggy days of early November, at least from a northern-hemisphere perspective.  It was believed that, just like the fog, the veil between heaven and earth was very thin, and the saints of this world and the next, were closest to one another, possibly even transitioning from one realm to the other.
 
The Day of the Dead traditions, that come primarily from Christian cultures of Latin America, dramatize this thin veil, in elaborate celebrations, on the eve of All Saints, parading with candle-light, and dressing as the dead-come-back-to-life, not unlike the costumes of Halloween!  In San Francisco, the tradition includes ending at a local cemetery, where they prepare lavish party tables of food and drink, by family grave stones with real food and wine on the tables, a kind of foretaste of the heavenly feast that they share with their loved ones.  Not only does this proclaim and celebrate the resurrection, but it demonstrates the belief in a thin veil between heaven and earth, between the living and the dead.  It’s beautifully mysterious, and more playful than dangerous – a fun and deeply meaningful tradition that overcomes the fearfulness of death. 
 
The theologian Jaroslav Pelikan said, “Tradition is the living-faith of the dead – traditionalism is the dead-faith of the living.”  If that’s true, how do our beloved dead, pass on a living faith tradition, to us, in the present-day church?
 
We see in our gospel reading, that Jesus is a wonderful leveler, lifting the veil between heaven and earth.  In Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, in our gospel reading this morning, the introductory verses have been left out for some reason.  But I think they help set the scene for us.  As Luke reports it: “Jesus came down [from the mountain] with the disciples, and stood on a level place…”  So instead of the more familiar, ‘Sermon on the Mount,’ from Matthew’s gospel, Luke pointedly has Jesus delivering a, ‘Sermon on the Plain,’ from a leveled place! 
 
In Israel, it’s actually pretty hard to find a level place!  Jerusalem and the Temple are on a conspicuous hill, Mt Zion, as it’s often called.  And the region of Galilee is full of rolling green hills.  Perhaps only the Jordan Valley, and the desert in Sinai, can be considered level places.  But following John the Baptist’s proclamation, to make way for Jesus, the Messiah, by, “making his paths straight.  [Where] Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the rough ways made smooth,” Luke teaches us how this is part of the kingdom message, and fits perfectly with the Beatitudes.
 
From this level place, Jesus declares that, the poor and hungry, those who weep, and the reviled and excluded, will be lifted up.  While the rich, the fully satisfied now, those on top, and those who are laughing now at the expense of those on the bottom, will all be brought low.  But it’s different than just a mere reversal of fortunes.  For example, it’s clearly not about revenge, for Jesus hastens to add, “Love your enemies; [and] do good to those who hate you…”  And so, even as Jesus stands on the level plain to deliver his message, he paints a picture of a valley where all stand together with him, on equal footing. 
 
This is counter-cultural to the normal take-away message we are often taught, about climbing our way to the top; unseating the oppressor in order to take their seat, and continue the oppression on those who did it to you.  It reminds me of the secret that Winston Smith discovers, the protagonist of George Orwell’s 1984 novel.  To overthrow Big Brother, the underground manual said, you have to realize that there always has been a rich ruling class, and always will be.  It just goes through a series of coups.  It’s always the middle classes that overthrow the upper ruling class, and the lower class always stay where they are, and, then it starts all over again.  But, says Jesus, it is not like that in the realm of God, which he came to inaugurate.  The kingdom of God is a great leveler, inviting all to live on the plain.  And so, God in Jesus, brings a new way, a third way, for us. 
 
Jesus knows, this is not a message likely to be well received.  Prophets – a class that Jesus identifies with – were usually hated, excluded, and reviled – and sometimes killed!  It might be dimming and foggy, and dangerous even, but Jesus comes to lift the veil between heaven and earth, lift the mysterious and beautiful fog, to level the playing field and melt away the clouds obscuring Jacob’s ladder to heaven, and open up a new way! 
 
Jesus, the first fruits of the resurrection, dressed in heavenly attire, climbs out of the grave to greet us at the great banqueting feast, not just in the cemetery of our Day of the Dead meals, but walks with us every day, wherever we are, to give us hope, and to lift the fog of our grief.  “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh,” says Jesus.
 
"Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living."  So, how do our ‘beloved dead’ pass on a living faith tradition to the present-day church?  Today, on this All Saints’ Sunday, we commemorate our loved ones who have gone before us in the faith.  And they challenge us to shed the traditionalism of our serial oppressions, and carry on with the tradition of our baptism.  The saints are people who have been made whole by the grace of God – through baptism into Christ – not by their good works.  So here, on this side of the fog – they challenge us to a living faith that is washed in the forgiveness and love of our baptismal font, that we might have a foretaste of the feast to come at our table – even as we remember their lives lived among us!   
 
Jesus comes to lift the fog in our lives.  And, now we see our tears, and our joys, more clearly for what they are, in all their beauty and mystery, dimming-ness and danger.  The fog, is the culture of oppression and exclusion of the kingdom of this world, that Jesus comes to lift.  The fog is that tempting glow, but ultimately vengeful and dangerous abuse of the privileged, from the mountaintop – the excesses of those who are always laughing and full, and entitled, and those whom society, the Kingdom of this world, asks us to revere, to look up to, and “speak well of,” but who are opposed to the Kingdom of God.
 
Jesus, teaching on the plain – from the leveled mountain-top, the straightened road, once crooked – stands with those who weep now, those who are hungry now, and the poor, and un-veils the foggy paths we walk – or paddle! – in our lives.  Jesus showed us a third way, beyond the spirals of violence and revenge, offering a grace-filled truth more beautiful, more mysterious, though sometimes more dangerous, to get to – the way of radical forgiveness and universal love and respect of each other, which challenges the oppressive structures of this world. 
 
Jesus – on the plain looking at us, his disciples who are gathered around the eschatological banqueting table of the LORD – lifts the fog, and reveals the feast of victory for our God, and it is a mysterious and beautiful sight!  Come! You are invited!  You are blessed, and the feast is prepared!  

Readings for Pentecost 19C, October 20, 2019

• Jeremiah 31:27-34 and Psalm 119:97-104  
• 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5  
• Luke 18:1-8

Keep Protesting, Pastor Fred

​“…pray always, and do not lose heart!”
 
Today, is Day Four, of the teachers strike in Chicago, and residents of Chicago are keeping their eyes on the negotiations, and of course, on our students!  How long can each side, Administration and Teachers, keep up without losing heart?!
 
The stakes are high, as they always are when it comes to this – to putting up picket lines, calling off classes, and protesting unacceptable conditions for teachers and their students.  No one, including the teachers, want to call off school!  So, it takes a breach of justice to come to that decision. 
 
Rhetoric from the Mayor’s office is different than 7 years ago, during the last strike.  Newly elected Mayor Lightfoot seems to understand the needs that the Chicago Teachers Union is asking for, though, after taking office, the mayor decided to retain the former mayor’s less-than-popular lead-negotiator with the teachers. 
 
On the campaign trail, candidate Lightfoot promised that under her Administration, we wouldn’t see a teacher’s strike in Chicago, signaling she’d do things differently, and that she understood that every school needed at least one nurse and librarian, as well as an increased number of Counselors, Social Workers, Case Managers and Psychologists.  The need is great in Chicago, and critical to a basic learning environment.  Suburban schools seem to have no problem meeting these demands.  
 
So, each side is advocating tirelessly, coming time and again to the bargaining table over the past few months, and of course, pleading their separate arguments in the press, as we move, hopefully, toward a quick resolution, and avoid having each side dig-in and prolong the pain.  And before everybody loses heart! 
 
Which is what Jesus’ parable says it’s about today – “our need to pray always and not to lose heart.”  Though the parable – at least on first take – is more about a poor downtrodden widow, who is tireless in going up against a corrupt and heartless machine, represented by a Judge, who as Luke says, ‘has no fear of God and no respect for people!’ 
 
So, does Jesus describe this woman’s persistent quest for justice, as our need to not lose heart in our praying? 
 
In the parable, the widow keeps coming with her persistent plea, “Grant me justice against my opponent.”  And “for a while the judge refused.  But later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant justice to her, if for no other reason than, she not give me a black eye by continually coming and swinging at me! 
 
So the corrupt judge still doesn’t care about the widow, and whatever her cause is.  But he does care about all the trouble she can cause him, which he decides he’d rather not bother with. 
 
Not unlike the teacher’s strike when they take to the streets, over the objection of the mayor!  But that’s only because the mayor holds all the cards, all the power of the purse, but the only power the teachers have, is organizing their people to stop teaching, and stand up for their demands together – to be persistent, and not lose heart. 
 
And it makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what the demands of the widow were, when she kept coming and asking for the judge to ‘grant her justice against her opponent?’ What justice was she asking for?  Was the price of her medication she needed raised beyond her means, or her hospitalization denied by her health care provider?  Or maybe her brother was detained at the border, trying to enter the country for work that would help provide for his extended family, work which he knew was available in the orchards and fields at this time of the year?  Or perhaps her deceased husband’s lawyer was dragging his heels in settling the estate?  Or, maybe she was out of her mind worrying about her son or daughter who had been thrown in jail, for driving while black or brown? 
 
There are so many forms of injustice, then as now, and no lack of pleading widows, and oppressed people of color and lgbtq, asking. 
 
But still, is this story about prayer, or about justice?  Or, if both, what is the connection?  It’s not the typical parable where the judge would be a metaphor for God – Unless you see God as having no respect for anyone!  And, the widow isn’t going to God to persistently plead for justice, as an example for us that we should pray harder, or that it should make us feel guilty if we don’t get an answer to prayer, and may lose heart.  Neither do we need to force God, to see how unjust people can be; how corrupt our systems can become.  God knows our sins already! 
 
And God will grant justice to God’s followers and ‘chosen ones, day and night’ because that’s what God wants to do!  ‘God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love!’  God does not advocate delaying justice, but wants to give it freely and abundantly. 
 
The obvious winner to emulate in this parable is not the judge, but the widow – the one who was at that time considered to be, a socially stigmatized loser.  In a patriarchal society where women were either the property of their father or their husband, and were dependent on them for their livelihood, unable to obtain paying jobs of their own – not that they didn’t work, unpaid, for their families – but women who were widowed, were penniless, except for the Levitical laws that mandated charity and care for them. 
 
But as Luke so often does, he lifts up this women as an example.  And this widow has extraordinary faith!  Why?  Because she is already stigmatized and not expected to succeed.  Normally, no one would notice her, especially a judge, especially this judge, who is an unfaithful opponent, corrupt as the day is long! 
 
So, the story of the widow is one we are familiar with!  Especially if we’ve already read to the end of the gospel!  This is the story of Jesus, who pleaded his case before his own people, who was stigmatized and scapegoated, and faced his own unjust judge, in Pontius Pilate. 
 
On the road to Jerusalem – which, by this story in chapter 18, is getting quite close now – Jesus is preparing the Disciples for what’s going to happen in Jerusalem. They will be tempted to ‘lose heart’ when Jesus is crucified, and his state-sanctioned murder will be committed by the heartless combination, of the mob, the religious leaders, and a foreign government. 
 
In this parable, Jesus is looking for followers who get it!  He’s challenging his disciples, the men and women followers, to step up and see Jesus for who he is, the long awaited Messiah, and Son of God.  And to have faith – to throw themselves in, body, mind and soul – as the followers that can receive the Holy Spirit, and let it live in them, even after Jesus is Ascended to be at the right hand of God. 
 
Jesus concludes his parable with a question:  “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  If we don’t lose heart that Jesus has won the victory of justice over the powers of evil, and we keep coming, on behalf of the kingdom and realm of God, no matter how corrupt the system is we’re up against – then Yes! 
 
Jesus – in the greatest irony of all time – wins his case in a higher court, after his loss with Pilate, Herod, and the crowds. 
 
And so the ball is now in our court!  The followers of Jesus do not pray, and walk away.  We, the followers of Jesus, keep coming, we keep protesting, we keep demonstrating for the kingdom and realm of God to come.  We keep following the Master, who showed us the way.  

Readings for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, Oct. 13, 2019

• Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 and Psalm 66:1-12  
• 2 Timothy 2:8-15  
• Luke 17:11-19

Living in Liminality, Pastor Fred
“And as they went, they were made clean.”  That’s what Luke tells us about the 10 lepers that came to Jesus.  When Jesus saw them, he told them simply to go and show themselves to the priests.  This was what the Leviticus law prescribed, that if you were lucky enough to be healed from leprosy, you must first present yourself to a priest in the Temple to be certified that you were no longer ‘unclean.’ 
 
Another law was that, those with leprosy must keep their distance from the rest of the population.  Not just live in a special leper’s colony, which they did, but if traveling, you must make sure to keep your distance from others by shouting out, “unclean, unclean,” to warn them, as a kind of courtesy, because of how contagious leprosy was.  Of course, this made for a stigma, that kept those with leprosy separated from the rest of society, like wearing a Scarlet Letter!
 
Luke doesn’t tell us, if that’s what the 10 lepers say when they approach Jesus – if they shout out “unclean.”  But they did call out together, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”  The reputation of Jesus as a healer, preceded him!  They are not supposed to approach him, and Luke is  also careful to say that they kept their distance, but they definitely aren’t going to squander their opportunity, to ask the Master for mercy! 
 
It is the disciples who call Jesus ‘Master’ throughout the gospel of Luke.  But this is the only time in the whole of Luke’s narrative that Jesus is called Master by someone who is not a Disciple!  And perhaps this is what convinces Jesus of their faith!  Their chorus of “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” is proof that they have no doubt Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, the long awaited messianic king.  And so before he even declares that they are healed, Jesus simply responds, “go and show yourselves to the priests!”  And, “as they went, they were made clean!” 
 
It’s the sending, by Jesus, that heals them – the recognition of their faith, and the blessing into action – a sending – that is, in effect, the same as healing, and making them whole again. 
 
On the journey, the journey of following Jesus – a journey with Jesus – is where we find wholeness and salvation.  And this is a journey that enters – if we can call it this – the liminal space where Jesus lives.  The liminal, is a threshold, an in between place – a transition from one condition, to a new condition.  Like unclean to clean; like outcast, to welcomed in; like death to life!
 
Jesus himself was on this liminal journey.  Jesus, having finished his ministry in Galilee – the region he grew up in and first gathered his Disciples, where he preached the good news and taught in parables – had set his face to go to Jerusalem, back in Chapter 9.  And Luke reminds us of that, the very first thing, in this reading. 
 
“On the way to Jerusalem,” Luke says of Jesus.  And then he adds, “he was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.  This is where the journey is now at.  Except that, no one can point to “the region between Samaria and Galilee,” on a map!  There is no geographical region in between!  Galilee was the northern most territory of Israel, and Judea was southernmost, where Jerusalem is.  Samaria was in-between the two.  So, it would have made sense that Jesus was either passing through Samaria on his way from Galilee down to Jerusalem, or, was perhaps skirting its boundary, if he took the main route to the east, following the Jordan River.  But there is no region between Galilee and Samaria – they are right next to each other.  Unless of course, Luke wants to underscore the place of liminality, the threshold space, that Jesus seemed to live in, and a wonderful description of what took place in this healing and bridge building story. 
 
It was also appropriate to say, ‘Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee,’ because of the deep division and distrust between the Samaritans and the Jews which had grown up over the centuries after the Exile to Babylon. 
 
The Samaritans, for the most part, were never made to participate in the exile.  They were more isolated by the hill country they lived in, than the Galileans or Judeans, and so were able to avoid being carted away.  But in the meantime, since the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed, they developed Mt Gerizim as their center of worship, and to this day, claim it as their holy place – which was unacceptable to those who came home and rebuilt the Jerusalem temple.  And the Samaritans were forever shunned, and the two became, as enemies. 
 
Recall that at the beginning of this journey, Jesus and the Disciples are taking, they sent out scouts, like Secret Service Agents, to find cities for Jesus to visit along the way.  And when a Samaritan village refused to receive Jesus, the Disciples casually asked Jesus if he wanted them to bring down fire on them?!  That’s the level of enmity and division that existed between them.
 
Jesus of course, nixed that idea, in the strongest of terms.  And now, once again, Jesus makes sure to lift up what happens after the ten lepers are healed, and only one of the 10 comes back to worship and thank Jesus.  He points it out in front of all to see, that the only one who came to say thank you and give praise to God, was a foreigner and so-called enemy, a Samaritan. 
 
The enemy-Samaritan, healed of leprosy, is a double outcast.  And because of his social and religious stigmas, he too has lived in the liminal spaces, places that are in between, not quite belonging, but on the threshold of something new, the place where God is calling us – calling us out from what has been holding us down – holding us back from being healed and made whole! 
 
The liminal space is where the kingdom and realm of God breaks in.  Jesus lives there, and invites us follow him.  Yet we are creatures who tend to live more comfortably within defined boundaries, on one side or the other, where we can identify with our family, clan and people, where we feel more complete knowing who the opposition or enemy is.  Because it can be hard, very hard, to live in the in-between region – in the place where there is no clearly defined border – in liminality. 
 
It reminds me of El Paso, where people of more than one ethnic or national identity flow freely from one side of the US/Mexican border to the other, a border that has worked for a long time, that way.  But then there was the mass shooting at a Walmart in August, and the alleged perpetrator left a hate-filled White Nationalist manifesto, replacing liminality with terror, in a matter of a few minutes.  The call to live in the in-between spaces, in liminal living, can be heard as ‘bad news’ to a mind stuck in a world of black and white thinking. 
 
?Is it harder to build a life on a border with no wall, a boundary that is in-between and porous?  Certainly the tension is greater.  But the rules are less rigid, more inclusive, open, and welcoming.  The hard part, is putting God at the center of our lives, and listening for the answers that are yet to be spoken.  To live in that liminal space will not be possible without deep trust, and a certain amount of risk, on our part.  Like the cross, liminality is full of vulnerability.  But also full of reward!  Its power is in our ability to reach out to our neighbor, indeed, even our enemy, in love. 
 
The “Master” knows the way to Jerusalem!  His cross is there, but also his resurrection.  The journey Jesus took was completely open and honest, in a way humanity has rarely seen.  He confronted the corruption of this world under the banner of God’s truth.  And at the same time, he came to heal the whole world and unite us as one, through deep compassion. 
 
And now the journey is ours to take.  We are his followers, walking in the liminality of open borders.  It reminds me of our Psalm today which says, “Our God has kept us among the living, and has not allowed our feet to slip. … we went through fire and water, but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.”  Every step of our journey, through the desert or the hill country, is guided and protected by God. 
 
We are on our way to show ourselves to the priest… “And as we go, as we journey with Jesus, we are made clean,” and whole once again.  

Readings for St Francis of Assisi Day, celebrated October 6, 2019
Jeremiah 22:13-16  Doing justice and righteousness is knowing the LORD
Psalm 148  The splender of the LORD is over earth and heaven
Galatians 6:14-18  A new creation is everything
Matthew 11:25-30  The yoke of discipleship

Franciscan Rule, Pastor Fred Kinsey
The Franciscan Rule originates with St Francis himself.  It was revised over the years, but is a kind of distillation of his thought and practice, and the guiding rules he himself and all Franciscans lived by, which he encouraged others to emulate, as well.  Two points from the Franciscan Rule seem important to lift up today:
 
1) “they[you] should cultivate the Franciscan spirit, of peace, fidelity, and respect for life, striving to make of it a sign of a world already renewed in Christ.”  2) “…they/[you] should respect all creatures, animate and inanimate, which “bear the imprint of the Most High,” and [you] should strive to move from the temptation of exploiting creation to the Franciscan concept of universal kin-ship.” 
 
On Christmas Eve in 1123, 3 years before Francis died, Francis was planning to celebrate Christmas in the little mountain village of Grecio, Italy.  It seems that the parish there, had the same dynamic we do, with the precipitous rise in attendance of the faithful for the Christmas service – because Francis thought the Chapel there was too small for all the worshipers who would attend their Midnight Mass. 
 
So Francis decided to hold the service in the public square, out in the open, in the heart of the village.  There was a carved-out niche in a rock, like a cave there, which was perfect.  This, as Francis knew from visiting the Holy Land, was like the traditional birthplace of Jesus.  Many in the hill country of Bethlehem lived in such caves.  And there were often just two rooms, one for the family, and the other for their animals.  Luke’s nativity account says only that, ‘Mary gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger – the animal feeding trough – because there was no room for them in the inn.’  Whether it was the back room of the inn, or a distant relative’s home, we don’t know.  But it certainly sounds like Jesus was born in the room with the animals. 
 
So St. Francis arranged to set up a manger with straw in it, and even made sure there was an ox and a donkey.  His intention was to show the utter poverty that the Savior-King was born into.  And according to St. Boneventure, who wrote about it not long after, it was a solemn and moving experience.  And as Francis preached the midnight mass, he was full of, tears of joy, that Christmas Eve! 
 
Some say this was the beginning of the tradition of the crèche, the Nativity scenes we still use today at Christmas time.  And who amongst us doesn’t have a favorite!  I know Kim and I have one at home, which is a rather eclectic scene we made from a variety of carved wooden characters.  It began with just a simple crèche of olive wood we bought in Bethlehem when we visited in 2005.  It’s just the baby Jesus in a manger with his parents standing over him, pictured in a cave opening, with a native palm tree overhanging the entrance, and a star just above.  And we’ve simply surrounded it with various animals from around the world, we’ve collected from here and there.  An ox and ass of course, but also some sheep, seeing how the Shepherds were the first visitors that holy night, but also a giraffe, an antelope, a spotted-leopard, and a rhinoceros! 
 
Today, of course, we are celebrating all of the animals, and especially all the pets who are worshiping with us, God’s fellow beloved creatures!  Dogs seem to have the clear majority today, but I wouldn’t want to debate with the cat owners, which are more precious in God’s sight! 
 
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that St Francis, who founded the Franciscan order, on the vow of poverty, also developed the doctrine of the animals being our sisters and brothers!  His love for all creatures, and his theology, totally matched up!
 
And the journey that Francis took to get there, was real!  It was formed out of his early life of privilege, growing up in a wealthy family that had some means, was able to travel, and expected things in return for their patronage.  By some accounts, when Francis was younger, he reveled in his privilege.  He was handsome and gallant, he delighted in fine clothes, he became a troubadour, gaining the popularity of many of his peers.  But percolating underneath, Francis was questioning this life.  And one day, when his conscience got the better of him, and he gave a beggar all the money he had, he was chided by his rich friends. 
 
And though he didn’t let that deter him from his calling, it’s notable the lengths Francis had to go to detach himself from this life.  His father, who had invested in his son and wanted him to follow in his footsteps, derided him for wanting to leave.  Once even, he beat and bound Francis, and threw him in the cellar, before his mother was able to rescue him.  Such can be the punishment for challenging the hierarchy of white male privilege, then, or now! 
 
But Francis sought the counsel of the scriptures and traditions of the church, and he formed a vision.  Francis saw in Christ a model for living simply, and being open to the Holy Spirit, our breath of life, which counsels living, not by bread alone, but by the living Word of God. 
 
So Francis, once the heir of the good life, came to live with the poor, forming one of the Church’s most significant movements, in the Franciscan Order.  He healed the sick, fought corruption in the Church, and rejoiced in the wonder and gift of creation.  Francis saw the spirit of life, not only in all people, but in the whole animal kingdom. 
 
Believing in the Creator of the whole universe, the maker of heaven and earth, and that we are called to be in covenant, in relationship, with God, through the example of the humble child born in a lowly manger, ignites in us a burning desire to care for the whole earth and all God’s creatures, our sisters and brothers.  It is no coincidence that followers of Jesus, are lovers of the animals, and friends of the poor.
 
Again, the Franciscan Rule says, “you should respect all creatures, animate and inanimate, which “bear the imprint of the Most High,” and [you] should strive to move from the temptation of exploiting creation, to the Franciscan concept of universal kin-ship.” 
 
Where is this kind of humbleness in our culture, in our church & society, today?  Certainly not in our elected leadership, who at the top, favor the policies of the rich, who have already given-in to the temptation of exploiting our land, water and air. 
 
Let us, today, be the humble servants!  And let us start in the style of the Franciscans – by taking pride in blessing our pets and animals, our sisters and brothers.  Let us, the meek, be the inheritors of the earth, and the lead caretakers of God’s very good creation.  For the power of God is manifest in our Savior who was born in a make-shift manger, amongst the barnyard animals.  The kingdom of God is found in weakness, through the vulnerability of carrying our crosses – a yoke made easy, and our burdens made light, as Jesus says in our Gospel.  And the powerful, will be brought low.
 
For this is what St Paul meant when he said, “a new creation is everything!”  And “for those who will follow this rule,” like the Franciscan Rule, “peace and mercy be upon them.” 
 
Let ‘Peace and mercy be upon us’ as we bless our animals today, our sisters and brothers.  And as we become the ‘new creation,’ Jesus lived and died, and rose again for.  

Readings for Michael and All Angels, September 29, 2019
Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3
All who are dead shall arise on the day of the LORD
Psalm 103:1-5, 20-22
Bless the LORD, you angels, all you hosts of God.
Revelation 12:7-12
Michael defeats Satan in a cosmic battle
Luke 10:17-20
Jesus gives his followers authority over the enemy

Combining Forces, by Pastor Fred
I didn’t know if the story was true or not.  A friend of ours, told Kim and I, some years ago.  But turns out – it is, absolutely true!
 
It happened on March 28, 1990, when first team All American, Stacey King was a rookie with the Chicago Bulls.  King was admired as much for his basketball skills, as for his quick wit and good humor in the locker room.  If Michael Jordan was the leader of the team, Stacey King was the comic relief.  On the hugely talented Bulls team, Stacey was more of a role player, a rebounder and shot blocker.  Typically, he was the 2nd man off the bench, that year, and for the Bulls first 3 of 6 NBA championships that followed, before Stacey was traded to Minnesota.  And after his NBA career ended, he returned to Chicago in 2006 to become a voice of Bulls, and color commentator, a beloved role he occupies to this day.
 
So, of the 1990 game, on March 28, the rookie Stacey King is now famous for understated, and humorous quip: “I’ll always remember that game as the one me and Michael combined for 70 points, to win it in overtime!”  It just so happens that Michael scored a career high 69 points that night, while Stacey had 1 free throw! 
 
Today, we celebrate that 4(3) sisters and brothers in Christ will combine forces with some 70, or so, of us here at Unity, to journey with us and become members.  Whether we score 69 points, or 1 point, we’re all in it together.  It’s what we do together, and how we combine our talents and various skills, as followers of Jesus, that matters! 
 
We’re also, all in it together, with (the other) Michael and All Angels!  Angels have most recently been thought of as guardians, helpers in our personal battles, sometimes even, as someone who has died and come back as an angel to bring good karma to us in our lives, or in our grieving.  Though, when I was younger, they were often depicted as your good and bad conscience, one over each shoulder, battling it out, as a metaphor for the decision you were in turmoil of making, usually something worldly, tempting you, like sweets or alcohol. 
 
Back in the several centuries before Christ, in between the Old and New Testaments, many types of supernatural beings, especially from the near eastern religion of Zoroastrianism, had been influencing Judaism.  What developed at that time in Jewish angelology, was the idea that God had four angelic assistants, holding up the throne of God, and each had distinct jobs: one was Gabriel, who was to announce the end of the world; a second was Michael, who was the conqueror of Satan and protector of Israel; thirdly, Raphael, who healed the sick and protected travelers; and lastly Uriel, who punished evildoers.  Christian story-telling retained the first three archangels, but dropped Uriel.  By the middle ages, many artists depicted the archangel Michael as victorious over the monster Satan.  Identified with warfare, Michael was popular in Christian imagination.  Martin Luther, for one, absolutely lived and breathed it all in. (https://members.sundaysandseasons.com/Home/TextsAndResources/2019-9-29/2060#resources)
 
But the Bible is not quite as obsessed with angels!  In the New Testament, Michael is only cited twice, once in the book of Jude, and today, in our 2nd Reading from Revelation.  The whole book of Revelation, of course, is basically the visions of John of Patmos, visions of what is to befall the 7 churches he writes to, warning that, if they are not faithful to the end, even in the face of persecution by Rome, evil would conquer, but in Christ, we are victorious. 
 
Revelation’s vision of the end times, believed that a war would break out in heaven, and Michael and all his angels would fight the dragon, that ancient serpent from the creation story in Genesis, who is called the Devil or Satan – the power of evil.  And the defeated dragon would no longer have a place in the heavens, but by the authority of God’s Messiah, and the blood of the Lamb, he would be cast out.  “Lamb-y,” as Barbara Rossing says, or the risen Christ, is really the conqueror, by the power of cross and resurrection.
 
Being thrown out of the heavenly skies above, of course, meant the dragon would fall to earth, and would, even if for only a short time, cause woe among the believers on earth, by aligning with the 4 Beasts, which mostly represented various forms of Rome or its Emperors. 
 
In our Gospel reading, ‘Jesus sees Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.’  Luke’s account is apocalyptic, a post-resurrection vision, of the power the followers of Jesus are given, as they go out, like ‘the seventy’ did in this story, to create communities of believers.  Jesus gives us authority to stamp out evil, tread on the snakes and scorpions.  The church is given power over the enemy, the deceiver, and ultimately, ‘nothing will hurt you,’ Jesus says to us! 
 
So for us in these in-between-times, after the resurrection and before the eschaton is fully revealed, the point, says Jesus, is not to get all puffed up about knowing the heavenly battle is ultimately won in Christ, but rejoice that your names are written in the book of life!  That is, as we battle the power of the dragon right now – even when it looks gloomy, and we may not be winning most days – God has entered us in the heavenly register of life already.  Right now! 
 
Some days when we lose two strong and beloved members of our congregation, in a matter of a couple of months, God brings us twice as many new members, and we see Satan fall like lightning! 
 
Some days when our elected leaders seem to be betraying us for the umpteenth time, caving in to corporate raiders and enriching the already rich once again, God sends a brave whistleblower revealing a single, crystalizing truth, which convinces even the most timid ones to rise up and plead our case against corruption and dereliction of duty.
 
Some days when the news of terminal illness, or natural disaster strikes, God sends a message of hope, a newly discovered medicine, or a heroic story of rescue that saved those who seemed lost. 
 
Today, we inscribe 4 new names in our Unity book of life.  Four new travelers to rejoice with on our journey toward Jerusalem’s cross and resurrection.  We will take all the help we can get! – for our battles in this life are real.  We face joblessness and a lack of resources in our city, illnesses and a broken health care system, a climate crisis raining down on us, and there is that invisible power, a dragon, that continues to pit us one against another, polarizing us, and isolating us into individual silo’s.  But we are fervent pray-ers and faithful fighters, even in the face of systems that are rigged against us and seem to make us lose in this world. 
 
And Michael and All Angels are our messengers.  They bring good news of a great joy, that in Christ Jesus, a Savior has been born to us, and by the faith of Christ our names are already written in the book of life.  Together – whether we are stars, or role players, whether we score 69 points or 1, or even no points in the game of life – we are in it together, in the Church of Jesus Christ, and here at Unity – where we are one, and unbeatable! 
 
The battles we are in are ultimately spiritual battles – battles for justice and peace, and for a life that really is life, which can only be won non-violently, together.  The dragon who urges polarization, is a house divided against itself, that will ultimately collapse. 
 
Let us rejoice in the victory that is already won!  We have seen Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning!  Let us rejoice in the heavenly dwellings in the age to come, where our names are already written in the book of life. 

Readings for 15th Sunday after Pentecost, September 29, 2019

• Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 and Psalm 79:1-9  
• 1 Timothy 2:1-7 
• Luke 16:1-13

"Forgive it Now!" Pastor Fred
The Great Recession of 2007 changed the way we live.  Literally, changed what kind of place and where we live.  People in the city and the suburbs lost their homes.  And now we see, there has been a trend away from the long-time goal of becoming a home-owner, and towards renting, becoming an apartment dweller. 
 
And, Millennials are leading the way in this!  Not that I have any experience as a Millennial, but from second-hand knowledge anyway, I’ve learned this!  The biggest boom in rentals, is in the West Loop.  “Three out of four residents of a West Loop ZIP code (60661) are millennials, the highest concentration of millennials in any urban ZIP code in the nation.” (https://www.chicagobusiness.com/residential-real-estate/chicago-zip-code-has-highest-concentration-millennials-us) Though, the largest concentration of Millennials, those born between 1983 and 2000, in Chicago, is in the neighborhood of Lakeview, with over 41,000. 
 
Millennials live in traditional Chicago apartments – and in new developments.  Some of those new developments include co-living apartments, or units that combine private space with shared space, like sharing a large well-equipped Kitchen, and other common spaces, where you might share your favorite Netflix shows on a shared Video screen, or enjoy a micro-brew around a shared fireplace.
 
 
And this makes sense, it seems to me, considering the social trends brought on by the Great Recession.  Millennials – as Melanie Curtin of Inc.com says – “are more transient, they have a lot of [student] debt, people are moving to cities and want to own less… there's a shift in values toward experience over ownership.” 
 
Some Millennials are also ‘couch hopping,’ or sleeping on friend’s couches, because they don’t have a place of their own, due to lots of things, including that high debt, also high rates of job turnover, or maybe being rejected for one’s sexual orientation or gender identity.  
 
In Jesus parable today, he begins talking about a rich man, and ends up talking about our home in the age to come.  It’s about, dirty dealing money managers and owners, and how we are to live in this hard world, by keeping our eye on the prize of the world, and age to come, Jesus revealed to us. 
 
So, this is a difficult parable to digest.  But The Message translation, a modern paraphrase translation by Pastor and scholar, Eugene Peterson, can help, I think.  Peterson entitles this parable, “The Story of the Crooked Manager,”  
Jesus said to his disciples, “There was once a rich man who had a manager. He got reports that the manager had been taking advantage of his position by running up huge personal expenses. So he called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? You’re fired. And I want a complete audit of your books.’
  “The manager said to himself, ‘What am I going to do? I’ve lost my job as manager. I’m not strong enough for a laboring job, and I’m too proud to beg…. Ah, I’ve got a plan. Here’s what I’ll do… then when I’m turned out into the street, people will take me into their houses.’
  “Then he went at it. One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his master. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
  “He replied, ‘A hundred jugs of oil.’
  “The manager said, ‘Here, take your bill, sit down here – quick now – write fifty.’
  “To the next he said, ‘And you, what do you owe?’
  “He answered, ‘A hundred sacks of wheat.’
  “He said, ‘Take your bill, write in eighty.’
  “Now here’s a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager? And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way – but for what is right – using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.” 
 
And yet another translation, of just the last verse, I really like, is from the New Jerusalem Bible: “And so I tell you this: use money, tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into dwellings [in the age to come].” (for “age to come,” see N.T. Wright, How God Became King, pp. 44-45)
 
Jesus’ parables were meant to shake us up, and to offer a surprise.  To lure us into a common, everyday story, that then flips the script, and leads us into a new understanding of the kingdom and realm of God Jesus was announcing, for the sake of our lives and the world. 
 
The behavior of the Manager, though crooked, is somewhat understandable – isn’t it – in that he’s trying to insure that, even if he loses his job, he’ll have somewhere to land, someone to ‘couch hop’ with.  He does it by leveraging the relationships he has as Manager with those in debt to his Master.  And specifically, by erasing, on the spot, 50% of the debt in one case, and a 20% in another!  We might expect that when the Master finds out about this crooked behavior, even if it is ‘Streetwise,’ he’ll be punished, fired for sure! 
 
And so, as The Message translation makes clear, that’s the surprise!  The Master instead ‘commends’ and ‘praises’ the crooked, unjust Manager, for his streetwise, and shrewd, action. 
 
One way we can make sense of this, is if we see the Manager’s action through the lens of the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus teaches his Disciples.  Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is unique when it comes to the petition on forgiveness.  It’s the one that prays: “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”  That is, as we forgive monetary debts, that were so very common in Jesus’ time, please forgive us our sins. 
 
And what else did the crooked and shrewd Manager do, if not forgive debts!?  He forgave them!  Maybe it wasn’t for altruistic reasons.  Maybe it was for personal gain, and for getting a couch to sleep on, down the line.  But this, according to Jesus, is what delights the Master!  The Master praises his shrewd ingenuity.  And Jesus concludes that that is what we have to do, “be smart in the same way – but” of course, “for what is right” and just!
 
And so, if the Master in the Parable is God, what is God telling us?  We know how in Luke’s gospel, forgiveness is major theme throughout, and finally, even on the cross, Jesus forgives the criminal who is repentant in his last dying moments, and says, ‘today you will be with me in Paradise!’ 
 
The Master in the Parable recognizes forgiveness in the action of his Manager.  It doesn’t matter why the desperate Manager forgives, only, that he forgives.  Forgiveness is a key to right living between neighbors, and the restoration of our relationship with God.  It doesn’t matter if you forgive for noble reasons, or all the wrong reasons.  Jesus says, forgive it all.  Forgive it now.  Forgive it for any reason you want, or for no reason at all.  God is the font of forgiveness, and the abundance of grace, that begins to pour out, wherever forgiveness happens. 
 
“And so I tell you this,” said Jesus in conclusion of his Crooked Manager Parable, “use money, tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into dwellings [in the age to come].”
 
What’s your living arrangement, here in the present age, and in the age to come?  How much is it costing to you?  Are you a good steward of it? 
 
The Great Recession, with its lost wealth, changed home ownership for the Millennial generation, who shrewdly and creatively are crafting a new way of renting.  The Crooked Manager, faced with his own lost wealth, found redemption in the wild abandon of forgiving – for when we forgive others we are faithful with the riches God entrusts to us. 
 
Let us learn forgiveness, the key to entering a dwelling in the age to come!  ‘Forgive us our sins,’ O LORD, ‘as we forgive those indebted to us – and that we may be welcomed into homes now, and by God’s grace, in the new age to come!