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.”  

Readings for 5th Sunday after Epiphany, 2/9/2020

• Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b-12)  
• Psalm 112:1-9 (10)  
• 1 Corinthians 2:1-12 (13-16)  
• Matthew 5:13-20

Salt and Light, sermon by Pastor Fred Kinsey
I have a friend that loves using salt on his food.  Whatever fine dining establishment or self-serve joint we go to, he always asks for the salt shaker.  The thing is, he has borderline high blood-pressure, so it’s not a particularly healthy choice!  And his boyfriend always intervenes, saying, no, that’s enough!  You know you’re not supposed to do that!  Stop it right now!  Please, for me?!? 
 
But he can’t help himself.  The taste of food for him is just not the same without more salt! – dinner would lose its taste and its value for him, he just can’t stop himself!  He puts it on his pasta and his salad, on his chicken and his brisket, on his vegetables, and, I’ve even seen him put it on tortillas chips, that are needless to say, already very salty! 
 
I gave up salting my food long ago.  And I found that it doesn’t take that long for your palate to get used to the change.  In due time you begin to appreciate the intrinsic flavors of the actual food you’re eating.  You begin desiring all the spices that are found in the many and various ethnic cuisines, that are so readily available all over this diverse restaurant city.  Your palate begins to discover savory, and sweet, and spicy flavors, much deeper and surprising-delicious, than you knew imaginable!  But my aforementioned friend is sticking to the saltiness of salt!
 
Salt, of course, way back when, before refrigeration, was used mostly to preserve meats, and fish, from spoiling.  It was a treasured and valuable commodity, and absolutely necessary to feed the multitudes in 1st century Palestine.  It was also used as an antiseptic, and even as the currency, Roman soldiers were paid in. 
 
If salt were to lose its saltiness, become dissipated or diluted, a very important commodity was lost.  And then, you might as well throw it out on the ground and let people trample it, Jesus said.
 
And so, with this image, Jesus calls us, to be salt – a salt that doesn’t lose its potency, but remains tasty and valuable.  To be salt – like it is for the food chain – a salvation for the world. 
 
And then Jesus also said, ‘you are the light of the world.’  Don’t hide your lamp underneath a big bushel-basket, shutting it off from the world!  You must put your lamp on the lampstand where it can light up the whole house.  (Or course, compared to us, they had rather small houses, two millennia ago!) 
 
I’m calling you to a high calling, says Jesus.  ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.  …For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ 
 
It’s a wonder that anyone is a follower of Jesus!  What, with Jesus’ railing against Jerusalem’s leadership and accusing them of hypocrisy – on the one hand.  And then this, holding all the rest of us, to the impossible standards, of the Sermon on the Mount!
 
How can we – today’s disciples – fulfill the law and the prophets? 
 
Barbara Lundblad understood the difficulty of this passage, when she commented recently: “For Jesus, salt and light came out of a long tradition of biblical teaching: salt and light were images for the law of God.  Salt and light must take us back to the fullness of the law and the prophets, and the fullness of Jesus’ radical teaching in this Sermon on the Mount.  The prophets plead for fullness of life: freedom from oppression, bread for the hungry, homes for those who have none, clothing for the naked (as in our reading today from the prophet Isaiah).  
Is this not what it means to be the salt of the earth, to keep this prophetic word alive in the midst of our world?  If we lose this vision, if we give in to other values, if we forget God’s longing for justice, our salt has lost its taste.  
If you think Jesus’ call is impossible, remember that the One who is our bread is with us and within us, empowering us to be salt and light in this world.”  From ELCA Sundays & Seasons, 2/9/2020
 
God gives us the will and the tools to be salt that stays valuable, and light that shines brightly in our world.  So it is not us who do it – but God in us.  Like the bread of Holy Communion that we chew and take in, God is with us, and within us, always. 
 
And this gives us the room and confidence we need to be salty-lights! – for our God is big enough to enter all our realities, all our good days and bad ones too.  God’s gift of love and grace is unending, in Christ’s empting himself for the life of the world. 
 
This is captured well, I think, in a recent meditation by Kat Banakis, “Sometimes the worst things that we can imagine actually do happen, and when they do there are moments when we do indeed lose our saltiness and the light goes out.  There are moments when we are in need of basic care, when we are not up to showing up and certainly could not imagine leading the revolution.  … sometimes we are hungry and thirsty just to get through the day.  In those moments, we need one another to nurse us back to life, singing songs when we cannot make a sound on our own behalf.  … Sometimes we need to let rage and sadness enter (to speak their truth) and to sit with those inevitable realities as well.” Kat Banakis CC, January 21, 2020
 
 
We cannot always be the light for the world.  Sometimes, we are the oppressed and downtrodden Jesus loves, just where we are.  Sometimes our health lets us down, whether we’re young or old, and we cannot be the light and salt we so desperately want to be.  Sometimes we try and we fail, and we are afraid of God’s judgement.  Sometimes we are not strong enough to speak up against the injustices we see all around us.  Sometimes we cannot imagine leading the revolution Jesus calls us to. 
 
But that’s when our community of faith steps up for us – and we know they’re our community when we can ask them!  That’s when we become the Body of Christ together, one the feet, another the eyes, another the ears, and so on – and we learn to wrestle with our value, as salt and light together, led by the Spirit. 
 
And, after this past week, we need each other more than ever!  We now know (some would say, once again!) that the bones of our social fabric, the salt of our elected leaders, have truly lost their saltiness, and it’s left – I’m guessing – a bad taste in our mouths.  Our Constitutional rule of law has been put under a bushel – its light has lost its luster.  The separation of powers, of our government, has been made a mockery of. 
 
Now we know, we have ourselves, alone – the communities God has given us – to trust.  We have the high calling of being God’s lights in the world, of being salty and valuable, for the sake of Christ’s mission, in our neighborhoods, and country, and world.  “For truly I tell you,” said Jesus, “until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” 
 
‘Let your light’ – our light – ‘shine [for the world], so that they may see y/our good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.’  We are valuable!  And as God’s people, we have a calling that only we can accomplish together – a mission that God will work through us, for us, and with us – Christ’s mission of righteousness and justice, that is announcing the arrival of the kingdom of heaven – in our midst!  

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.