Leslie Veen's Sermonstag:www.leslieveen.com,2011:/sermons//32011-07-09T00:16:37ZMovable Type 3.33Practicing Perichoresis: The necessity of communal spiritual practices for a life of faithtag:www.leslieveen.com,2011:/sermons//3.5262011-07-09T00:14:54Z2011-07-09T00:16:37ZProblem: The required courses for M.Div. students in Presbyterian Church (USA) seminaries include few, if any, courses on spiritual practices in order to graduate. This means that students are left to draw on their own experiences and familiarity with different...Leslie
Problem:
The required courses for M.Div. students in Presbyterian Church (USA) seminaries include few, if any, courses on spiritual practices in order to graduate. This means that students are left to draw on their own experiences and familiarity with different types of spiritual practices as they lead their own ministries. In order to minister effectively to all with whom they work, however, spiritual leaders need exposure to and training in a wide range of spiritual practices—both individual and communal. By learning more about the full spectrum of spiritual practices available, spiritual leaders will be better able to lead others in finding meaningful ways of communicating with the Divine.
The triune God’s very being is a perichoretic dance of mutual giving and receiving. This God who lives in community creates humans who also live in community—not only with God but also with fellow human beings. Research shows that the need for community is part of our very being . Both extroverts and introverts alike register positive effects from being with other people. In spite of this research, Christian spirituality in Euro-American traditions is overwhelmingly influenced by a narrowly defined contemplative tradition that focuses on the individual and individual practices. Such a focus downplays or ignores the importance of communal, or group, spiritual practices as a rich resource for accessing the Divine and building up a person in the faith.
Congregations should be places where all people find ways to connect with God, both individually and communally. When people hear about and have opportunities to experience diverse types of spiritual practices they are more likely to feel welcomed into the divine dance. The invitation to the dance happens most effectively when the spiritual practices are lead by people who embrace a wide variety of spiritual practices themselves. My dissertation will demonstrate how, during their time in seminary, ministers-in-training should be instructed in a wide spectrum of spiritual practices that already exist in the classical tradition of the church as well as in the African American and Korean Christian traditions. My dissertation will thus demonstrate that engagement with a variety of spiritual practices will establish a strong foundation for spiritual leadership equipped to lead a wide variety of ministries following graduation.
Ministry setting:
As the Director of Field Education and Placement for San Francisco Theological Seminary I work with students both during their time at SFTS and following graduation. I support and encourage them in vocational discernment, navigating the ordination process, and finding a call following graduation. Spiritual practices play a large role in all of these steps in their entry into ordained ministry. All too often, the spiritual practices that the students draw on are individually based and come from a narrowly defined contemplative tradition. Students often do not know the deep connections to the Divine that come from communal practices. Formal training in a wide array of spiritual practices will give them tools to pass on knowledge and experience of such practices to those with whom they minister after graduation. As Director, I am keenly aware of the deficit in training for spiritual leaders in spiritual practices. As a child I was taught that spiritual development happened in a very defined way—through morning devotions and prayer. Throughout my whole life I have tried to maintain these meaningful practice but have never been successful at doing so. I have found that the spiritual practices that speak to me most are ones that happen in community. And yet, when I speak with spiritual leaders in the church about communal practices that bring me the most life, I am often met with a skepticism and judgmental attitude. This experience leaves me feeling that my ways of connecting with the divine are incorrect and need to be changed. This hinders my ability, and the abilities of those like me, to open up and connect most fully with God.
Social Analysis:
Individualistic and narrowly focused contemplative practices have not always been the Christian norm. There is a long history of spiritual practices that includes both individual as well as communal practices. As a foundational part of my D/P, I will study the history of Christian spirituality to examine the rich diversity of practices that have existed and continue to exist today as ways for people to communicate with the Divine. Through my research, I will seek the historical causes of the narrowing of those practices to those that are more individually focused that currently form the basis of spiritual practices for Euro-Americans in this country—a trend that has occurred even while there is a renewed interest in the triune nature of God who lives in community. Additionally, I will research the importance of human relationship to an individual’s well-being and what that means for one’s spiritual practices. For my research on the history and current understanding of Christian spirituality, I will rely most specifically on the work of Bradley P. Holt, Gordon Wakefield, and Marjorie Thompson. For my research on human relationships, I will draw most heavily on the work of Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener.
Theological Resources:
The perichoersis of the triune God is essential for developing an understanding of the importance of communal or group spiritual practices. Perichoresis is an invitation to the dance. This understanding of God has enjoyed a renewed interest among scholars and the general public in recent years as we seek to find meaning in an ever-individualized social context. The theologies of Womanist and Korean communities, for whom communal connections remain vital, will provide valuable conversation partners on the use of communal spiritual practices-most especially Womanist and Korean work on the role of the Holy Spirit. A few of the scholars that I will research for these perspectives include: Leonardo Boff and Catherine LaCugna on the concept of perichoresis and Barbara Holmes, Kirsteen Kim, and Hak Joon Lee for theological perspectives from African-American and Korean traditions.
My take on the theodicy questiontag:www.leslieveen.com,2011:/sermons//3.5242011-07-02T01:36:34Z2011-07-02T01:56:40Z For me, any discussion, and especially one about pain and suffering, must begin, end, and be suffused throughout with God. The God who was, who is, and who forever shall be. The God in whom we live and move...Leslie
For me, any discussion, and especially one about pain and suffering, must begin, end, and be suffused throughout with God. The God who was, who is, and who forever shall be. The God in whom we live and move and have our being. The God who is Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all that is. This God must be our frame of reference for any attempt to understand what it means to be creatures in this world. For it is this God, complete in God self, who so desired to be in loving relationship with something wholly other that God created all that is and gives it space to be what it will be.
God, like a writer who creates characters for a play and then watches as they take on a life of their own, bending and turning in ways that the writer had not planned, gives to all creation the freedom to become. God chose to create something other than God self in order to be in relationship with it, therefore “freedom is integral to the whole conception of humanity in God’s intention” (John Douglas Hall, 70).
Additionally, God, who is all-powerful, chooses to restrain that power in order that creation in general and humanity in particular may also choose – to love God or to turn away from God. As Hall explains, “the freedom to love presupposes the freedom not to love…” (71). God acts to limit God’s own power because a truly loving relationship can only occur when the relationship is freely chosen. Without the freedom of choice, creation would see no value in the relationship because it did not have the opportunity to decide that it was something of value that needed to be chosen for itself.
This freedom requires an on-going decision to choose to love God. Each moment presents creation with another chance to decide for or against God and God’s offer of loving relationship together. Often what is chosen is the option against. In such instances, whether the choice is conscious or not, humanity acts in ways that separate it from God. This turning away is sin that opens the door to evil in the world.
Because God values this freely chosen loving relationship so highly, God has allowed for sin and evil to enter into God’s good creation. Sin comes from “the temptation…[to humanity] to have their being rather than having to receive it, daily…. It is the temptation to possess being rather than to trust the One who gives us our being, daily” (Hall, chapter 3 point B). Ultimately, sin is a “failure of trust” (Hall, chapter 3 point B). This need to control our lives leads humanity to act in ways that separate it from God and God’s love; ways that are harmful both to the individual committing the sin as well as to others around that individual.
With the entrance of sin and evil come also pain and suffering. All are part of existence in the created universe. But all pain and suffering are not equal. We must distinguish between that which is a natural part of being in the world, which actually works towards the building up of the creation, and that which is an aberration, which tears down and destroys creation.
The pain and suffering of the first sort is necessarily a part of the created universe because, “a world in which there can be no pain or suffering would also be one in which there can be no moral choices and hence no possibility of moral growth and development” (John Hick, 47). According to Hall, pain and suffering that have been present since the creation of the world include: loneliness, limitations, temptation, and anxiety as well as death that can sometimes serve life.
If we did not feel the pain from holding our hands to close to a flame, we would not know the danger of fire until it was too late to avoid it. This reality demonstrates a limitation of creation. The flame that can be good when it offers heat for warmth and for cooking can also be bad when it burns or even kills creation. Likewise, if we did not feel the pain caused by separation from people we would not know the value of being in relationship with others. This dynamic highlights the good that a small measure of loneliness can bring to humanity. As Hall argues, “Life…depends in some mysterious way upon the struggle to be” (60). The pain and struggle help us to know the joy and happiness that is possible in this world.
But not all pain and suffering belongs in the category of that which can help us grow and experience life more abundantly. Some is of a magnitude that it is incomprehensible and actually destroys life rather than builds it up. This type of pain and suffering is what Nicholas Wolterstorff calls “not friend, but enemy” (32) and “awful, demonic” (34). Pain and suffering of this sort is what Farley calls “radical suffering.” She points out two features that distinguish this type of pain and suffering. It is “destructive of the human spirit and…cannot be understood as something deserved” (21). Such pain and suffering wears down the soul of the one suffering and erases any sense of being or agency that that individual might have had. When this happens, the individual loses all sense of one self and is left at the whim of whatever is causing the pain and suffering to begin with. Often, the individual ends up participating in the very act of inflicting pain on himself or herself. Farley argues that this type of pain and suffering should be resisted because it “is a kind of crippling of the human spirit…” (42).
This pain and suffering destroys our possibility of being in a loving relationship with God because it destroys our very being, which is a form of inner death that can lead to one’s physical death. Hall calls it a “death-serving death, that is, death which draws attention to itself instead of drawing us the more fully into life” (62). Because that is the effect of this type of pain and suffering, God is against it being a part of the reality of God’s good creation. God desires shalom, wholeness and health, for all of God’s creation. Pain, suffering, and death of this sort threaten to break down and destroy that shalom. For that reason, Wolterstorff claims that “death is shalom’s mortal enemy” and therefore “we cannot live at peace with death” (63).
God does not live at peace with this type of pain and suffering. The Scriptures witness to God’s raging against it. God is not satisfied to let the Hebrew people suffer under the soul-crushing rule of the Egyptian people. God does not let Joseph, sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, whither away and die. And God does not let the cross have the final word in Jesus’ life. As Hall argues, “by no stretch of the imagination could anyone accuse this tradition of positing a God who actually wills the massive, unbearable, or seemingly absurd suffering of the creature – any creature” (74). Rather, as he points out, “our Scriptures bear witness to a God who weeps over the tragedies of earth – even over the little losses” (75).
God does not want this sort of pain and suffering. And yet, the all-powerful God holds back from acting in overt ways to prevent such acts from happening. To do so would be to impose God’s will on creation instead of allowing it to have its freedom. God wants humanity to choose loving relationship with God and in so choosing to choose to act in loving ways towards God’s good creation – ways in which radical suffering will be resisted instead of being perpetrated or tolerated. Through the power of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, God nudges creation in ways that help it towards making the realm of God’s shalom a reality.
God does not act overtly to prevent or stop such times of pain and suffering but neither does God leave us alone. Rather, God enters into the suffering with us. “God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers” (Wolterstorff, 81). As Hall explains it, “God suffers because God would be with us, and suffering is our condition” (117). Through our loving relationship with God, God is so connected with us that God feels our pain and suffering and bears it with us. God does not abandon us to deal with it on our own. Rather God walks with us into the face of it and through to the other side.
God is a compassionate accompanier to all who suffer or are in pain feeling the very pain that they feel. God acts in ways similar to the compassion of which Wendy Farley speaks when she says, “Compassion labors to penetrate the darkness of pain and mediate to the sufferer the taste of love and the power of courage” (117). By suffering with us and bearing our pain alongside us, God allows us to gain an awareness of God’s deep love for us and this gives us courage to resist that which is seeking to destroy us.
This awareness gives us a glimpse of what should be rather than what is. In this glimpse lies our hope. “Because God’s own face is set against that which negates life, suffering does not and must not have the last word in this tradition” (Hall, 75). Rather, God’s grace will have the last word. God who desires shalom for God’s good creation will not rest until all experience that. Reality shows us that “it is very evident that this person-making process, leading eventually to perfect human community, is not completed on this earth” (Hick, 51). Our earthly reality, where sin and evil are very real, is not all God desires for us. What we have here is not all there is. God is working to bring about a new heaven and a new earth where pain and suffering shall be no more. Now we see through a mirror darkly. We only catch glimpses of what will be.
This world, filled with necessary and unnecessary pain and suffering, does not allow for the creature to attain the wholeness of being that God desires for all of creation. As Wolterstorff asserts, “until justice and peace embrace, God’s dance of joy is delayed” (91). We cannot fully know now what God holds for us then. But God is working to perfect that which God has begun in each of us. Let us trust in God’s work on our behalf “until we see” (Wolterstorff, 102).
I need a hero!tag:www.leslieveen.com,2011:/sermons//3.5212011-04-18T05:26:29Z2011-04-18T05:31:47ZPalm Sunday at MBCC 17 April 2011 Texts: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 Matthew 21:1-11 I. Intro: It’s Palm Sunday! a. yearly reminder of the hope people had in Jesus i. waving palms ii. parading around b. beginning of Holy Week i....Leslie
Palm Sunday at MBCC
17 April 2011
Texts:
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Matthew 21:1-11
I. Intro: It’s Palm Sunday!
a. yearly reminder of the hope people had in Jesus
i. waving palms
ii. parading around
b. beginning of Holy Week
i. can be deceptive if we skip straight to Easter
ii. much happens in between
II. Why all this hope?
a. a bubbling over of frustration and feeling helpless
i. nearly 500 years of living under the rule of others
ii. newest Superpower, Rome, exacted a lot from them
b. a belief in God’s promise to make them a people set apart
i. several times throughout their history, they had broken out from under a
Superpower’s control with God’s help
1. most notably from Egypt through the Exodus
2. also from Syria, with the Syrian King’s blessing
c. the time seemed ripe for a revolution
i. lots of prophets running around (e.g. John the Baptist)
ii. internal strife among the religious leaders showed something was brewing
III. Hero needed
a. past heroes
i. Moses – Joshua
ii. David – Solomon
iii. King Cyrus of Syria – Nehemiah + Ezra
b. enter Jesus
i. healer
ii. rule breaker
iii. welcome of all
c. Question: What political, religious, or personal situations have us wishing for a
hero?
IV. This is not the hero you are looking for
a. they wanted a war hero (like the Psalm heralds)
i. to enter triumphantly into the capital and overtake it
ii. to overthrow the powers that be and put things right
iii. to change the situation on the ground
b. they got something very different
i. a king who rides in on a borrowed donkey
ii. a leader who is described as meek
iii. a leader who recommends “turning the other cheek”
c. Jesus, the unlikely hero
i. comes from a long line of unlikely heroes
1. family tree that starts off the gospel of Matthew includes Tamar, Rahab,
Uriah’s wife, Mary (Jesus’ mother)
ii. comes knowing the events of the week will not go well
V. God is not the hero we are looking for
a. God is not our “Calgon take me away”
i. God doesn’t swoop in, wave a magic wand and make everything okay
1. Wouldn’t it be nice if God did?
b. God works through unlikely heroes to bring about God’s realm
i. Prostitutes, the abused and forgotten, those outside of the social norms, you
and me
ii. God comes on a donkey not on a worthy steed – in meek and maybe unnoticed
ways
c. But, God comes
i. with us or in spite of us, God comes
ii. again and again, God comes
iii. this is a cause for great hope and celebration
iv. wave those palms and trust, as Jesus’ followers on that first Palm Sunday, that
God comes!
Not Either/Or but Both/Andtag:www.leslieveen.com,2011:/sermons//3.5192011-02-17T23:20:43Z2011-02-17T23:22:01ZText: 1 Timothy 1:3-7, 12-17 We humans are a divisive sort. We like to put people and things into categories. On one level, it’s a necessary exercise. We have so much information coming at us that if we don’t find...Leslie
Text: 1 Timothy 1:3-7, 12-17
We humans are a divisive sort. We like to put people and things into categories.
On one level, it’s a necessary exercise. We have so much information coming at us that if we don’t find ways to clump it together we will be crushed by the sheer volume of it all. We need ways of sifting through the data. Ways to make sense out of the jumbled mess of facts and figures that surround us.
And so we end up dividing our world into categories, often posing them in seemingly opposing camps:
- On the one hand we have faith and that is often seen as the opposite of relying on reason.
- And then there’s the whole religion v. science debate.
- And the classic right v. left or conservative v. liberal or progressive divide.
- And when it comes to trying to understand how God works, there’s the tried and true law v. grace debate made famous by the apostle Paul.
These are but a few of the categories that people use. I’m sure that you could add many more.
Now, the categories in and of themselves are not bad. They are just descriptors. The categories themselves do not carry any value. It is we who add value to them. This value adding often comes by claiming some categories to describe ourselves and then, in the process, seeing the other categories as of lesser value or as wrong.
If I am a person of faith, then the person who solely relies on reason to understand the world must be wrong. Or vice versa. If I believe that science holds all of the answers to creation then I think that people who rely on religion for answers are crazy or delusional. If I am conservative in my point of view, wanting to preserve tradition and hold on to what has been, then I am unimpressed, maybe even threatened, by those progressive types who are fighting to change the world and move us forward in ways that seem strange to me.
We add the value to these category descriptions by placing ourselves inside of them and then using them to judge what is similar to us and what is different.
Similar doesn’t necessarily mean good nor does different necessarily mean bad. But often that is the case.
Because we have gone through some sort of process to determine that the category that we have placed ourselves in is indeed the right one for us to be in, we inevitably believe that others should come to that same conclusion. If and when they do not, it can seem like a rejection. A rejection not only of our process but also of our conclusion. And ultimately that feels like a rejection of our very being.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be told that I am wrong. And I certainly don’t like to be rejected! If someone looks at the same information and comes to a different conclusion than me, well that seems to be telling me that I’m wrong.
If we hold opposing views we can’t both be right, can we?
Well now, that’s a leading question isn’t it! It seems for many that the obvious answer would be, “No.”
Our text for today certainly appears to encourage this dichotomist way of thinking. You see, the author’s main concern is with people in the community who are spreading false teaching. Teaching that is persuading people to leave behind what the author viewed as sound doctrine – that is, the teachings handed down by Paul, in whose name the author writes. This concern is made clear in verse 3 when the author urges Timothy “to remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach any different doctrine….”
According to the author, this different doctrine, the one concerned with myths, genealogies, and the law, is wrong. And it is leading the people away from the right doctrine based on faith in the saving grace of Jesus Christ. He argues that the spread of this doctrine needs to stop. Timothy’s presence there is necessary to help that happen.
“We are right. They are wrong. Stay there and make them stop.” That is the author’s opening message to Timothy.
This cursory summary of today’s text highlights where the true danger of our divisiveness comes in – it leads us to see everything in the world as a win/lose situation. If someone with an opposing view is right then he or she wins. That necessarily means that we are wrong and therefore we lose. This way of thinking leads us to see the world as operating as a zero sum game with winners and losers.
To see the world in this way narrows down the choices for how to understand the facts and information that comes our way. And therefore it narrows our choices for how to understand the God who created this world. This way of thinking puts God in a box and says that whatever we accept as true is the only way that God acts. It doesn’t allow for God to act in ways that just might surprise us – ways that we are unaware of or ways that we could never imagine ourselves.
And that assertion is exactly what the author of this text is arguing against. Funny enough!
This is a text that so often has been used by one side or another to discount or belittle the beliefs of those who do not agree with them. And yet, it is actually arguing for people not to be so quick to box God in. Not to be so quick to think we have God all figured out. Not to be so quick to judge whom God loves and favors and whom God doesn’t.
You see, the people teaching the different doctrine in Ephesus were using the myths, genealogies and law to decide who could received God’s saving grace. And, more importantly, who could not. They were using the myths, genealogies and law as exclusionary tools. As a means for knowing which people could know God’s saving grace in Christ Jesus. And in so doing they were pushing people away instead of welcoming them in.
For people who subscribed to this way of thinking, there were certain things that had to happen before one could experience the saving grace of Christ Jesus. But the author says, “No. Christ Jesus came for all. No preconditions need be met. He came to save sinners – and that includes us all.”
With that statement, the author offers us great freedom.
Freedom to move away from our either/or thinking about God and the world God created. Freedom to re-examine the divisions we create when we put people and things in categories. Freedom to understand “the other” in a new way – not as something scary or threatening but as someone or something from whom we can learn.
We worship the God not of either/or but of both/and! This God created all that is and called it good. This God welcomes all to the table and calls all beloved. This God is so much larger than we can ever imagine. This God works in ways so wondrous we cannot comprehend. This God will not be confined by our boxes.
Thanks be to God for that. Amen?!
This God of the both/and has not created a world where the zero sum game is in play. God did not create a world where there must be winners and losers. God wants us all to win. God, in Christ Jesus, offers us all the gift of saving faith. It’s ours, all of ours, for the taking. If we but believe it.
But that’s a scary proposition, isn’t it? To put aside our value judgments. To let the categories that people fall into be merely descriptors and not ways of seeing them as right or wrong. That’s not the way we’ve been taught to think. It requires great vulnerability. It requires us to hold our opinions lightly and to accept that “the other” might actually have something valuable for us to learn.
The point of sound doctrine after all, according to the author of today’s text, is love. The patient, steadfast love of God shown in Christ Jesus who has mercy on those who act ignorantly in unbelief, as it says in v.13.
Faith in the God of the both/and frees us from our divisions and allows us to love instead of seeking to be right. It allows us to love rather than trying to divide people into opposing categories. It allows us to love instead of judging “the other.”
How will we respond? Can we move away from judging others on God’s behalf and allow God to welcome them as God will? Can we be assured in our faith and not feel threatened by a faith that sounds different from our own? Can we let go of all the categories that divide us and simply love “the other” as God loves?
It’s asking a lot, I know. But it is what our both/and God invites us to. It is what Paul, in whose name this author writes, encouraged the Christians in Galatia to embrace when he told them: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Our both/and God offers us all the gift of the saving grace of Christ Jesus. With faith in this divine teaching, let us love with a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith as the author of this letter to Timothy encourages us to do. In God we all are offered the opportunity to win!
May it be so. Amen.
Letting go of what could have beentag:www.leslieveen.com,2010:/sermons//3.5172010-09-10T19:26:11Z2010-09-10T19:27:09ZText: John 11:30-44 “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Those are Mary’s first words to Jesus when she meets him outside the village. She goes right up to him and blurts out, “Lord, if...Leslie
Text: John 11:30-44
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Those are Mary’s first words to Jesus when she meets him outside the village. She goes right up to him and blurts out, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” No “Hi, how are ya?” No “Been a while. Would’ve been nice if you could have come earlier.” No niceties whatsoever. Just straight to the point: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Those are powerful words. Words of accusation. And yet, words of affirmation. Mary believes in Jesus’ miraculous power. She knows he could have done something if he had been there before or just as Lazarus was dying. Mary’s words make us stop and take notice.
These words thrilled my heart when I read them. But not for any reason that you would probably guess. You see that sentence is one of the clearest examples one will ever get of when to use the subjunctive mood in Spanish. Didn’t see that coming, did you?!
In a former life I was a Spanish teacher. And before that I was a Spanish learner. One thing I know: We English-first language learners have a very hard time understanding the subjunctive mood in other languages. It is not something that we are taught in English. Our verbs do not have different forms to show this elusive subjunctive mood that is distinct from the indicative mood.
[You’re getting a grammar lesson this morning as well as a sermon. Bonus for you!]
You see, for those of us who learned English as our first language, there are no different verb endings to signify a change in moods. Whether we want to talk about what is or was or what could be or could have been. Whether we want to express doubt or give a command. All the verbs basically look the same. There are no special endings to signify the difference in meaning between the real and the hypothetical. That has to come through other words in the sentence. Or from the tone of voice.
And so, when I read Mary’s words to Jesus, stating not what was fact but rather what was very obviously contrary to fact, I was excited because I knew without a doubt that the subjunctive mood would be used to say that in Spanish. “Si hubieras estado aquí, no habría muerto mi hermano.” Beautiful.
“If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Punto final. What more is there to say?
Mary was sure that Jesus had the power to avert this whole situation if only he had come earlier like they had asked him to do. But he had chosen not to do that. He had stayed away. And his decision completely confounded her. She found it all to be truly disappointing.
Judging from what Mary and the Jews had witnessed and heard about Jesus’ miraculous acts, they knew that Lazarus didn’t have to die. And, because they knew this they were grieving twice over – grieving not only the lost of their brother and friend, but also grieving Jesus’ choice not to act to stop their loss from happening. In their grief, they were stuck on what could have been – something that was completely contrary to what was indeed the situation at hand.
Jesus was not unaffected by their grief. These were, after all, his closest friends and partners in ministry. The text says that “he was greatly disturbed in the spirit and deeply moved.” And that Jesus wept. On the surface it appears that Jesus identifies with them in their sadness and joins them in mourning. But the Greek takes the “disturbed” part a little further. The Greek verb used there is one that implies that Jesus’ sadness included more than just a bit of anger.
Not only is Jesus sad that his good friend Lazarus has died. Not only is Jesus sad that his good friends Martha and Mary have lost their brother, whom they loved dearly and depended on for financial stability. Not only is Jesus sad for the whole community of Jewish people gathered there to mourn. But Jesus is also angered at their short-sightedness.
Had they not been with him this whole time? Did they not yet understand that his purposes were so much bigger than the life of this one person in their community? Did they not see that what he brought them had significance beyond this lifetime?
Their reaction to Lazarus’ death was a resounding “no” to all of these questions.
They didn’t get it. Grief and fear blinded them to what could be.
And that saddened and angered Jesus. He had come to show all of creation the beauty of what would be when God’s realm became the reality. Yet more often than not he was met with skepticism and rejection by people who were stuck holding onto what could have been.
“Have you not seen? Have you not heard?”
Isaiah had been there before Jesus. Calling for eyes to see what can be in God’s realm only to be shut down by eyes that are blinded by the visions of what could have been. It’s a common human condition. And yet, God the loving parent through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit calls us to believe that so much more is possible and waiting to be realized now and in the future.
We at San Francisco Theological Seminary are not immune to this habit of looking backwards and holding on to what could have been. Where is our focus this day?
Are we blinded by the thoughts of what could have been?
For those who are newly joining us, are you filled with questions and thoughts about the life you left behind to start seminary? There had to be some no’s to what could have been in order for you to say yes to being a student here. Are you, at the end of your first week of classes, wondering about the sanity of that decision?
For those of us who are continuing – whether we are a student, faculty, staff, or administrator – are we hanging onto thoughts of what used to be? Are we remembering those professors who used to be here or the programs we used to offer? Are we wishing that maybe things could have gone differently so that we could still have what we used to have?
Jesus knows the no’s we’ve had to say to what used to be. Jesus grieves those losses with us – whether they were big or small. But Jesus also calls us out of the hypothetical, “what could have been,” and into the very real possibilities of the future.
God is ready and waiting to work in and through us now to do great things if only we will adjust our focus. It’s dangerous to try to move forward while looking backwards. Have you ever tried it? The likelihood of running into something and hurting ourselves is high. I don’t recommend it! “Watch where you’re going!” the saying warns. I’m sure we’ve all heard that advice many times. It’s good advice. We should heed it.
What kind of mood are we in today? Are we stuck in the subjunctive? Or are we listening to Jesus’ call to live into the indicative? Let us let go of what could have been and live into the already and not yet of what God is creating all around us.
Amen.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"tag:www.leslieveen.com,2010:/sermons//3.5152010-04-05T21:32:32Z2010-04-05T21:34:38ZMark 15:33-37: “Eloi, Eloi lema sabachthani?” Forsaken. Such a stark word. But there Jesus was. Hanging on the cross. With only criminals and guards around him. Where were all the people he had healed? Where were all the people he...Leslie
Mark 15:33-37: “Eloi, Eloi lema sabachthani?”
Forsaken.
Such a stark word. But there Jesus was. Hanging on the cross. With only criminals and guards around him. Where were all the people he had healed? Where were all the people he had fed? Where were all the people he had taught?
Forsaken.
They were not there. They had turned away from him. When they realized that he wasn’t the messiah that they had imagined, when they realized that he did not intend to overthrow the earthly powers that were oppressing them, they called for his crucifixion. He had misled them. He had given them a false sense of hope. He was an imposter. He must go.
Forsaken.
Even his closest disciples were mostly absent. Only the women were there. But even they were keeping their distance. Even they were afraid to be too closely linked with him. These people, whom Jesus had shown God’s deep love through his very life on a daily basis, were now far from him or absent.
Forsaken.
And now, the one Jesus called “Abba,” Father, seemed far away too. This one whose will Jesus came to fulfill. This one whose love he worked to make real for all those with whom he came in contact. This one who wanted a different way of being for God’s people. Even this one seemed distant to Jesus as he hung dying on the cross.
So Jesus cried out. The reality of all that turning away was too much to bear. How could one person be asked to carry such a load?
Jesus knew from the beginning that the message he brought would not be popular with many who heard it – especially not with the religious leaders of the day. But to have all but these few, distant women turn from him that seemed like nothing short of a resounding defeat for his message.
Jesus reached the cross abandoned by all but this small handful of the people with whom he had interacted during his short lifetime. Sin had caused them to turn away. The sin of pride made the religious leaders turn away. The sin of not wanting to change made others turn away. Even those closest to Jesus throughout his ministry were guilty of the sins of incomprehension and inertia.
Because of all of these sins, Jesus had to pay with his life. He had tried to communicate the true character of God’s kingdom through his ministry. But he had to use one last object lesson – his willingness to give up his own life – so that that message could be heard unobstructed by human sin.
Throughout all of the struggles of Jesus’ ministry he was confident in his actions because he knew that he was fulfilling the will of the father. That knowledge gave him the courage to forgo his own inclinations to back off and not force confrontations with the leaders. It gave him the courage to go all of the way to the cross to make his point clear.
But when he reached his last hour, the rejection, isolation, and abandonment of every one of his followers overcame him. The sadness weighed down on him so heavily that all Jesus could do was cry out to the divine. “Have even you abandoned me?” This plea was so plaintive that the author of the Gospel left it written in Jesus’ native tongue, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” Because no one around Jesus understood Aramaic, these words, like all those he had said before, fell on deaf ears.
Forsaken.
Jesus knew that no earthly ears would understand his pleas but he cried out anyway. He cried out not to hear his own voice. He cried out not because he thought that angels or Elijah or some other important figure from the past would come to save him. Jesus, like the Psalmist who cried these words before him, cried out because silently he perceived that God hears! God hears! Confident of that fact, Jesus was able to finish the work that he was sent to do, the work that led him to the cross. He gave a loud cry seeking a final judgment by God that would bring retribution.
He was not forsaken. Of that he was sure.
With this, Jesus died. The people who had previously followed him had now turned away. They had turned from Jesus’ words that the kingdom of God is ruled by love of God and love of neighbor. They had turned to begin anew the search for the messiah who would deliver them from their current situation. They wanted immediate liberation from the oppression of the Romans, not a new way to understand God’s kingdom. Surely this man who hung sadly on a cross – the death befitting a failed insurrectionist—could not have been he. Thinking this, all but a few people turned away. The women stayed. They were awaiting God’s response.
Today, we must ask ourselves, “Have we turned away from Jesus’ message too? Have we sinned through pride, incomprehension or inertia like those followers in Jesus’ day? Or are we like the women, waiting, expecting God’s response?” Jesus calls us, as he called the people in Mark’s Gospel, to repent and believe because God’s kingdom has come near. God heard Jesus’ cry. God did not abandon Jesus. And God does not abandon God’s people. Let those who have ears hear. Amen.
Quench that thirst!tag:www.leslieveen.com,2010:/sermons//3.5132010-03-08T19:11:00Z2010-03-08T19:17:35ZTexts: Isaiah 55:1-9, Psalm 63 Thirst. Deep thirst. A thirst that yearns for a long, cool drink. A thirst so profound that one’s entire body aches for relief. A thirst that goes to the very core of one’s being. Have...Leslie
You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you….
Is there anything getting in the way of you saying that to God? Is there something that you need to give up so that God can truly be the center of your life? Is there a practice that you need to take on during this journey to help you put God at the center of your life?
God says:
Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Amen!]]>
Who are you listening to?tag:www.leslieveen.com,2010:/sermons//3.5112010-01-06T19:10:08Z2010-01-06T19:14:29ZTexts: 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Galatians 1:6-9 Theme introduction: This evening we are beginning a new sermon series on Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Tonight will be a kickoff to give a general background to the book. Then over the course...Leslie
Texts: 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Galatians 1:6-9
Theme introduction:
This evening we are beginning a new sermon series on Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Tonight will be a kickoff to give a general background to the book. Then over the course of the next six Sundays we will look at each of the chapters in particular. Scattered around the sanctuary you will find sheets of paper with some general information to help you understand this book and the sermon discussions that we will have together about it.
This evening’s Scripture readings highlight the crux of the problem facing the Galatian people – who to listen to. We will hear a passage from 1 Samuel where God speaks to Samuel but Samuel doesn’t know who is talking at first. Then we will hear a passage from Galatians where Paul expresses his purpose for writing this letter to the churches there.
Sermon:
Choices. Every day we make lots and lots of choices.
Choices that may seem minor like what time to get up or go to bed, or what clothes to wear, or what music to listen to or TV show or movie to watch. Or choices that may not seem so minor like to quit or take a job, to live here or somewhere else, to make a major purchase of some sort, or maybe, if funds are running low, how to make ends meet.
Thankfully, although our days are filled with an endless series of choices, many of them are routine requiring us to put little, if any, thought into making them. This is a good thing, for the most part, because if we had to stop and really think about every choice that we make, we would never get anything done. The habitualness of the routine of making choices means that we rest assured that the choice we made in the past will be good to make again this day.
I feel that a note of caution is in order though. Sometimes routine or habit is a bad thing – say, when the choice that we made in the past was a bad choice, either for us or for others. In cases like that continuing to rely on the decision that was previously made and not thinking it through anew isn’t good and should be questioned. Sometimes we will come to a realization on our own that a choice is bad but most often it will take some prompting from another – someone outside of the decision-making process.
Hopefully most or all of our routine decisions are ones that are smart or good decisions because relying on past choices to get us through the day is very helpful for maintaining sanity. But it’s good to stop every now and then to notice what decisions you just make without even thinking about them. This is a chance to re-evaluate if your decision is actually a good one and should be repeated in the future or if it’s time for a different choice in that situation going forward.
Well, that enough about the small stuff about which we are told not to sweat. What about the bigger stuff? The stuff that’s not so routine? How do we going about making decisions in those cases?
How many of you go on a gut feeling? [show of hands]
How big or major does the decision have get before you say maybe a gut reaction isn’t good enough? Do you have a line for that? [get feedback]
How about if it’s a decision about something that you know nothing about? Do you gut-checkers still feel fine making a decision based on your feelings? Or does that depend on how big of a decision it is? [get feedback]
Okay the rest of you. I’m guessing by your non-reaction to those questions that you are the type who prefers to do some, if not a lot, of research before making a choice. How many of you like to do a lot of research before you make a decision? [show of hands]
I used to think of myself as the type who needed a lot of information before feeling comfortable with making a decision. Turns out, that’s really not true. Somewhere along the way someone must have told me that I was a cautious sort who liked to have a lot of information about something before making a choice. And I believed them. But, in reality, I like to have some information but then it ends up being a gut check after that.
That leads me to my next question for you: Where do you get your information from? Do you have preferred sources? [get feedback] – [CNET, the interwebs, Consumer’s Reports]
For me, my most important source or information is my friends. Personal testimonials from people I trust. Insights from those who know me and know if something I’m weighing might be good for me.
These are the pieces of information that are must crucial to me when I’m trying to make a big decision. I believe that God speaks to me through the voices of those I trust – those God has brought into my life to surround me and to help me get through life.
Now, having said that, I have to back up and say that I have to be careful not to trust those voices too much. It’s awfully easy to listen to voices that tell me what I want to hear or discount those that tell me things I don’t want to hear. But I must always weigh the advice I get from my trusted friends against God’s voice speaking to me through the witness of the Scriptures to make sure that what they are saying to me actually is God’s will for my life.
And that’s exactly what Paul was admonishing his readers in the churches of Galatia to do.
During one of Paul’s many missionary trips, he got sick and had to stop in the area of Galatia – an area that scholars are not quite sure where to put on the map other than somewhere in Asia Minor. He was in the area for quite a while fighting off the illness, whatever it was, and then regaining his strength for going back out on the road.
And during all of this time, the people in the area treated him very kindly – caring for him, welcoming him into their homes, listening to him as he told them about Jesus Christ and the Good News of God’s radical love for all of creation. He was in the area long enough to establish several house churches that he felt were strong enough to keep going once he was better and resumed his travels.
He left with his heart full of love for these people confident in their love for God and acceptance of the gospel he had presented them with.
Then, some time later, he gets word that the people have been visited by other Christian missionaries, ones who preach a different “Gospel,” and are turning away from what he had taught them. Imagine his dismay, his anger.
We don’t need to imagine it, actually. Paul lays it out for us at the very beginning of the letter. After a brief greeting to the people, he gets right to the point. He says: I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
Astonished! That’s the equivalent of a first century smack down. How dare these people question what he taught them. He had not given them any reason to doubt that what he taught them was anything but God’s truth. And yet, here come these other missionaries and the people are so easily convinced that what Paul taught was incomplete.
To save his honor, Paul is forced to write a letter defending himself and his teachings against the attacks of these others.
Ultimately, we (and all other Christian believers) are the winners in this because the result is a very succinct, and thorough outlining of Paul’s theology and teaching. This and the letter to the Romans, written under much less antagonistic circumstances, are the most thoroughgoing exposition of Paul’s understanding of God, the saving work of Jesus Christ, and the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit.
The main question that Paul and the other missionaries disagreed on was how Gentiles (or non-Jews) were to be welcomed into the saving work of Jesus Christ – did Gentiles need to become like Jews (meaning: being circumcised and observing the important feasts) or not?
Paul said: Not!
The Missionaries said: Yes!
Uh-oh. That’s not good.
Unfortunately for the people in these churches in Galatia, what Paul and the missionaries were saying was similar enough that it was easy to see that they were talking about the same God and the same “religion” (if you will).
Both Paul and these missionaries had been devout Jews who now believed that Jesus Christ was the long-awaited Messiah taught about in the Jewish synagogues and in their Holy Scriptures. Since Jesus had been a Jew too, it wasn’t a big step of logic for those in the Galatian churches to see that if they wanted to be his followers they should also convert to being devout Jews as well.
But that is not what Paul had taught them. He believed that God’s saving work in Jesus Christ was made real by the Holy Spirit for Gentiles just as they were. There was no need for them to convert to Judaism or come under the Law of Moses. All they needed was faith in Jesus. Faith that he followed that law perfectly for them and thus they were free not to.
So there the people of the churches of Galatia were – at a decision point. A pretty critical one at that. Who would they believe? How would they weigh the information coming at them from Paul on the one hand and from the other missionaries on the other? How would they distinguish God’s voice in all of this?
They, like Samuel, were young in the faith. The passage from 1 Samuel says: “Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD: The word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.” He was not only a young boy, but he was, as yet, uninitiated in the ways of God. He had been ministering with Eli the priest for several years, but he had merely been following the instructions he was given. He didn’t really understand what it all meant.
This explains why, when Samuel heard a voice calling him, he assumed it was Eli – the one who always called his name to give him instructions. Well, that and the fact that only Samuel and Eli were in the place. I don’t know about you, but my first thought when I hear someone calling my name isn’t to think about an other-worldly (extra-worldly) being. People would most definitely worry about me if I admitted to that!
It took three tries but finally Eli, the one who should recognize when God is speaking, does realize that God is the one calling Samuel. And once, Eli realized that he was able to teach Samuel that this is a voice that he should learn to listen to as well. So Eli sent Samuel back to his bed with the instruction to listen for that voice knowing that if he heard it again he was to say: “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”
And that is exactly what happens. Samuel goes on to be used by God in very important ways. But he would not have been had he not stopped and learned to listen to the voice of God.
Now the Galatians to whom Paul was writing were a little ahead of Samuel on the whole knowing who God is issue, but not by much. They were still getting their confidence in listening for the voice of God in whom they had so recently begun to trust. So when these competing voices came at them, telling them different things about what God expected of them, they went with the answer that seemed most logical.
And that, says Paul, is where they went wrong. God’s love is so radical in it’s inclusiveness that logic is thrown out the window, he argues. God’s acts of love in Jesus Christ are so new and so different that all that came before has shifted.
Ultimately, Paul’s message won the day. And we are left guessing as to the specifics of the message from the other Christian missionaries.
We know this because Paul’s writings are the ones that made it into the Christian canon of Holy Scriptures – not those of the other Christian missionaries. Over the next six weeks we will see what exactly that message was. The sheet with “Key Topics” gives you some highlights but I encourage you to come back to hear more in person.
As we wrap up for today I want to leave you with the questions with which we began: How do you make choices? What voice or voices do you listen to? How do you know God’s will for your life?
God wants to speak to you. Are you ready to listen?
Let us pray: God who speaks in many ways – in the burning bush, in the howling wind, in the still small voice – help us to learn to hear your voice, to distinguish it from all those other voices that compete for our attention. Help us to trust your radically inclusive love to fill us, to surround us, and to guide us on the path you would have us take. All this we pray in the name of your precious Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Honoring God’s Covenanttag:www.leslieveen.com,2009:/sermons//3.5082009-11-26T17:59:47Z2009-11-26T18:02:54ZScripture: Genesis: 9:8-17 Theme introduction This week we continue with the sermon series based on A Social Creed for the 21st Century. We’ve been using this creed, which was adopted by the PC(USA) in June 2008, to help us as...Leslie
Scripture: Genesis: 9:8-17
Theme introduction
This week we continue with the sermon series based on A Social Creed for the 21st Century. We’ve been using this creed, which was adopted by the PC(USA) in June 2008, to help us as a community to explore different topics that seldom, if ever, get discussed in most churches.
I am not speaking on Rock ‘n Roll. Much to my chagrin. It really would have been run to complete the cycle since I preached on sex in August and drugs in September. But I guess since I am preaching on the topic of “For All Creation,” I am, in a way, preaching on the rocks. Just saying.
We will hear the story of God’s first covenant with creation – the covenant with Noah – and we will highlight a portion of the Creed to help us to discuss how we are to treat creation and what can we do in the face of looming environmental crises.
Sermon
When we talk about the stories of the bible, we tend to focus on the people in them and God’s interactions with those people and not so much on the rest of creation. That’s understandable. We are, after all, people. We want to see how the stories there relate to us and to our daily lives. We often look to see if God acts in similar ways towards us as God did to the people spoken of in the Scriptures.
One of the main messages of the bible is that God is steadfast and trustworthy. That point is made time and again. And each time that it is made, the explanation is given that we can know that these are truly characteristics of God because they are evident in how God treats each generation of the ancestors. Generation after generation saw God dealing with them in the same way that they had heard God had acted towards those who came before them. And this helped each generation to know that God really is steadfast and trustworthy.
Focusing mainly on the people in the bible stories is one of the main ways that we learn these same lessons for ourselves today. They help us to have and maintain faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God who was and is the God of steadfast love.
But, having said that, we have to acknowledge that humans aren’t the only creatures spoken of in the Scriptures. God created so much more.
As we begin our conversation this evening, I would like to ask you to share images or stories from the bible that come to your mind. Passages that deal with other parts of God’s creation besides human beings. What animals or other parts of nature stick out to you from the bible and the stories told there?
[Get feedback.]
- the rainbow from the story of Noah
- the animals that went on the ark with Noah
- the sea monster that was created to live in the waters of the sea (Genesis 1:21 – God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.)
- Balaam’s ass that would not let the prophet flee a hard word of prophecy
- the rocks that shout out God’s glory even if human’s won’t
- the whirlwind and fire through which God spoke to the prophets
God created a vast and highly complex world (or, as some argue, worlds). But we often become myopic when we study the bible and talk about our faith. We too easily ignore all the pieces and parts of creation that are not human.
Again. This is somewhat understandable.
The bible does say that man and woman were created in God’s image. No other part of creation was given that distinction. And this has given many the sense that humans are therefore superior.
That feeling is reinforced by the creation stories that put humans in charge of caring for the rest of creation. And they are further reinforced in the New Testament by Jesus’ admonition to not worry. In Matthew 6:28-30 Jesus says to his followers: And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will God not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
From that quick survey, I’d say that we have competing message coming to us from our Scriptures. On the one hand, our loving God created all that is and called it good. But on the other, God created humans to be special and gave them responsibilities over the rest of creation.
This reality has driven us to act in rather competing ways with regards to the rest of creation. It has us talking out of both sides of our mouths, as the old saying goes. We try to be good stewards of God’s creation, but we also act with impunity at times since God has given us dominion over all that is.
It’s fairly easy to see the ill effects of that latter behavior on the rest of creation. And that is what our selection from the creed for this evening urges us to think about. So, help me flesh this idea out a bit. What are ways that human actions have caused problems for other parts of God’s creation? I think we can all name threats or environmental issues that our world is facing today. Anyone want to offer some?
[Get feedback.]
- global warming
- drought/water rationing/water contamination
- over population
- deforestation
- loss of species
- etc.
It can get overwhelming pretty quickly to think about these things. The problems seem so huge that it often leads us to be paralyzed into inaction or to live in denial and disregard the problem all together.
But God calls us to resist those reactions. In the Hebrew Scriptures, God makes three covenants with the ancestors and the Hebrew people. They are often referred to by the name of the main person involved in the covenant with God. They are the covenants with Noah, Abraham, and finally with Moses.
The first of those is God’s covenant with Noah.
But it’s not just a covenant with Noah as our Scripture passage for today points out. It’s a covenant with Noah, Noah’s descendants, and with all of creation. God repeats six times in nine verses that the covenant is very wide reaching. God really wants to get the point across. Listen again to the wording about the covenant from these verses. God says:
1) I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you….
2) This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you….
3) …the covenant between me and the earth….
4) ….my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind….
5) …the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth….
6) …the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth….
Doesn’t that make you want to say, “Okay! Okay! I got it! Enough already!”?
God cares for all of creation. God has an everlasting covenant with all of creation. God is the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of all that God made.
That should affect how we view and treat all of creation ourselves. If God values it enough to make a covenant with it, then we should not be so quick to abuse and despoil it, should we? Knowing that God’s very first covenant was with humans as well as every other created thing should give us pause when we think about how we encounter and use the resources of our earth.
The social creed, and we through it, pledges that we will be stewards of God’s good creation by working for:
- Adoption of simpler lifestyles for those who have enough; grace over greed in economic life.
- Access for all to clean air and water and healthy food, through wise care of land and technology.
- Sustainable use of earth’s resources, promoting alternative energy sources and public transportation with binding covenants to reduce global warming and protect populations most affected.
- Equitable global trade and aid that protects local economics, cultures and livelihoods.
The middle two pledges here are easy for those of us in the Bay Area to ascent to. California, and Bay Area cities in particular, has taken the lead for years in pushing for better environmental use policies and public awareness of environmental threats. But even with the strong leadership that comes from this area, there is still a great amount of work that can and should be done to address issues of the quality of air, water ad food, and access to them as well as sustainable use of resources. We can feel good about efforts in those areas even as we continue work to improve in our response to those concerns.
But the first and fourth points will require much more work. I don’t believe that we are as good at addressing these points even in the Bay Area.
Now, that is a gross generalization I am sure. There exist pockets of people throughout the region that are highly aware of these issues and are working to address the exact points of these pledges. But on the whole, we need to do more to live into them.
Living simply goes against the American cultural norm. Recently we have begun to back off somewhat from the mantra that bigger is better. But that ideology is deeply ingrained in our psyche. It will take a lot of work to change that way of thinking.
And while globalization has become a dirty word in many circles, have you ever found yourself in a new place and been comforted by the sight of a brand name restaurant, coffee shop, or store that you recognize. Such places save us from the risk of being disappointed by the product of the unknown local shop. And what about the desire to go to the big brand store because you know the items there will be cheaper and will help your money go further? Is that such a bad thing?
These are value judgments we are all forced to make on an almost daily basis. And that is what this social creed is getting at. We, as Christ followers, are called to think and value things differently that the culture at large. We are called to value things the way that God values them, not as our fellow human beings value them.
We need o have an attitude adjustment.
That is precisely why the National Council of Churches, the Church World Service, and the PC(USA) have all adopted this Social Creed for the 21st Century – to help us adjust our attitude; to help us get our attitudes more in line with God’s attitude.
I’d like to end our time this evening by highlighting things that we are already doing or things we know we can do to treat our environment with more respect and to be good stewards of God’s good creation. What are things that you do to combat and slow the global environmental crisis?
[Get feedback.]
- recycle
- compost
- take public transportation, bike, or walk whenever possible
- buy local and organic food
- buy fair trade products
- shop at stores that sell such products
- etc.
There are lots of ways that we can begin to make a difference. And if we all start making small shifts in our every day living it will quickly add up to significant change that will benefit all of creation – including humans, us. Amen.
Walking a fine linetag:www.leslieveen.com,2009:/sermons//3.5032009-09-24T03:51:15Z2009-09-24T03:53:17ZTheme intro: This evening we continue with the third sermon in our series based on A Social Creed for the 21st Century. The topic that we will explore tonight is “Those Affected by Drugs.” This issue is one that necessarily...Leslie
Theme intro:
This evening we continue with the third sermon in our series based on A Social Creed for the 21st Century. The topic that we will explore tonight is “Those Affected by Drugs.” This issue is one that necessarily comments on society’s understanding of what drugs are and policies that have been put into place to stop the use of illegal drugs. These are conversations that don’t often take place within the walls of religious places (much like my last sermon topic). But shouldn’t they? We will talk more about that in a moment.
Sermon:
Okay. So. Drugs.
Like I said earlier, there’s no way to hold a discussion about this topic without in some way addressing policies about drugs. And when we go there, we bring politics inside the church building. That makes many people uncomfortable. So before we go any further I think we need to have a brief discussion about the First Amendment to the Constitution and the whole idea of the Separation of Church and State.
The First Amendment reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
The idea of the separation of Church and State came up at the same time as the Constitution was being drawn up. The Founding Fathers worked to find a peaceful solution for how the religious views of those in all the different states coming together in the new union could be maintained and respected. This idea has come to mean two things: the secularity of government (so that no one religion has a say in how it is run) and the freedom of religious exercise.
I’m wondering how these historical ideas influence you? How do you understand the role of faith in politics? How does what you hear within these walls affect your understanding of how our world should be run? Or does it? Should faith and politics mix?
[get comments from the congregation]
I firmly believe that the national government should be secular. I believe this because if faith becomes a part of our public policy making, then first we have decide which faith that will be. Will it be the Roman Catholic faith that gets the voice? Or how about the Southern Baptist? Or maybe the Buddhists should take the debate. Or Muslims. Or Scientologists. How would we decide that? Majority vote? But then, within each religion you have different factions that hold stricter to some beliefs than to others. Which of those would hold sway over our way of thinking.
Okay. So I think I’ve made my point here. A decision was made way back at the making of our union as the United States of America to allow many different religions to be honored on our shores. And there is no going back from that (nor should there be). So that necessarily means we need to have a non-biased, a.k.a. a secular, government.
But, having said that, I don’t think that that is entirely possible. Because we each make our decisions based on whatever overarching principles guide our lives. For those of us who are Christians, our understanding of who God is and how God wants us to live shapes how we think about the world. And, in turn, that shapes the policies we fight to enact to allow us to live into what we believe God is calling us to be as individuals and as a society.
People of faith don’t, and shouldn’t, check that faith at the door when they walk into the political arena. People of faith do need to tread lightly, making sure not to push their own religious beliefs onto those who do not share them.
I have props. (I used to teach elementary and middle school – some habits die hard!)
Here we have the two parts of the Constitution of the PC(USA) of which we are a part. Part I is the Book of Confessions – a collection of ten creeds and confessions taken from different periods of the Christian church. Each one offers a snapshot of essential beliefs of the time in which it was written. We believe that gathering all of these together in one book offers a richer, more complete, understanding of who God is, how God works in the world, and who God wants us to be. This is the first part of the Constitution because we have to know answers to those questions before we can get to Part II, the Book of Order, that offer suggestions of how we are to be in community together.
Belief grounds action. Not action then belief.
Now, granted, the Book of Order offers guidelines for a Christian community seeking to regulate its life together. But this way of being offers us a model for how we should regulate our life in general. Our faith should ground us. It should influence our every action. It should affect the decisions we make.
So with that in mind, let’s get back to our topic for the evening – drugs. Well, really it’s “those affected by drugs.”
When you hear that phrase, “those affected by drugs,” who do you think of?
[get responses from the congregation]
How many of you have watched some or all of the HBO series “The Wire?” It was a series all about drugs and politics in the fine city of Baltimore, MD. Every person in that show was affected by drugs. Many of the characters never took drugs, but their lives were intricately involved with those who moved, sold, used, and benefited from the illegal drug trade. I think that show did a great deal to help us understand what a huge problem drugs are for our society.
Did you know that the War on Drugs began officially back in 1969? It’s as old as I am! Then President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs hoping that in doing so he would be able to rally forces and resources to rein in the ever-growing problem of the use of illegal substances.
That’s a long time to be at war. Forty years. And yet, here we are, no closer to winning that war than when it first began.
And that is why on May 13th of this year, President Obama’s administration declared they would no longer use that term because it is counter-productive and is contrary to the policy favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce drug use.
All I can say to that is “Hallelujah!”
According to Wikipedia (as always, my go to source for information – so take it with a grain of salt), the number of arrests for drug offenses in the 1980s rose 126%! The number of arrests for all other crimes at that time only rose by 28%. A high number, to be sure. But nothing compared with the rise in the number of drug-related arrests.
And then there’s a report from the U.S. Dept. of Justice that states that from 1990 through 2000, “the increasing number of drug offenses accounted for 27% of the total growth among black inmates, 7% of the total growth among Hispanic inmates, and 15% of the growth among white inmates.” And the numbers in California are even higher since the approval of the Three-strikes law fifteen years ago.
Is arresting people who have any involvement whatsoever with illegal drugs the answer to the problem? There has been much, often heated, debate about that. Statistics and reports have been cited by both proponents and opponents to this method of dealing with the drug problem.
But we as Christians need to stop and ask ourselves that all too clichéd question: What would Jesus do?
I believe our passage from Mark for this evening gives us one glimpse into how Jesus would and did respond to someone who was seen as a danger to the public. Someone who had repeatedly been chained and restrained, but who had always managed to break free.
Now the text doesn’t say that this man that Jesus encounters is on drugs. It says the man is “with an evil spirit.” But I would dare to say that a fair number of people who have tried to quit drugs (even the legal drugs tobacco and alcohol) would say that the desire for those drugs was like an evil spirit that would not let them go.
Again, to draw from the show “The Wire,” Bubbles tried many times to get off of drugs but he kept finding himself drawn back into using. I know some of you have not seen the end of the series yet so I won’t say how it all ends for him. But throughout the show we see the crazy lengths he would do to get enough money for another hit. He humanized the drug user for me in a way I had never seen before. He truly wanted to stop, but his addiction was so much larger than him. I found myself pulling for him each time, hoping that this time would be the one that he would finally break free.
In the show, Bubbles didn’t get jail time because he was an informant for the police and because the police were concentrating on getting the dealers. But in real life, our jails and prisons are filled to overflowing with people who have been caught possessing and/or using drugs.
But Jesus didn’t try to bind this man again as the local people had. He didn’t order that the man be thrown into jail. And he didn’t continue to isolate the man – leaving him to run wild among the tombs on the outskirts of the town. No, Jesus spoke to that demon within and told it to get out. Jesus addressed the problem directly. Jesus gave the man treatment not judgment.
Unfortunately for the pigs nearby, Jesus also listened to the wishes of that demon named Legion and allowed it to go into the pigs sending them running into the water to drown. That didn’t work out so well for the pigs or their owners who came charging after Jesus. But that’s another story.
Jesus was calm in the face of this crazed man who had sent everyone else scrambling for chains and bonds to hold him.
Jesus spoke words of healing. Addressing the man’s problem not the problems the man was causing.
Jesus accepted this man whom society had shunned as a beloved child of God and did not give up on him.
I chose to read the lines from A Brief Statement of Faith from the PC(USA) this evening because they draw together all of these aspects of who we believe Jesus is and what Jesus came to do. Listen to them again:
Jesus proclaimed the reign of God:
preaching good news to the poor
and release to the captives,
teaching by word and deed
and blessing the children,
healing the sick
and binding up the brokenhearted,
eating with outcasts,
forgiving sinners,
and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.
That sounds very different to me from what has been our policy with regards to drug offenders.
So what do we do?
Well, I think a very large first step has already been taken. Backing off from the War on Drug language enables the focus to be more on treatment and reducing drug use. With this simple, yet monumental, change we de-escalate the rhetoric and that will allow us to be more calm and levelheaded in the debate about how to best move forward.
I will leave you with some suggestions from the book that we are using as a basis for this series, Social Creed for the 21st Century: Jesus and the Social Gospel. In it, the author argues for decriminalization of drugs.
At the mere mention of that concept many people’s suspicions are raised. Doesn’t decriminalizing drugs mean making them legal? Wouldn’t this just be making our country like the area of Baltimore that came to be known as Hamsterdam in the show “The Wire”?
“No,” this author argues. His idea for what decriminalization includes two important steps.
First, we must “remove the artificial surplus value of drugs making [that] surplus … unavailable to organized crime.” By making drugs illegal, we force them underground and encourage trafficking and abuse.
And, second, we need to admit that there will still be a demand for drugs. So the author argues that the government should regulate those drugs now deemed illegal in the same way that it regulates the legal drug tobacco. His argument is this:
If our government controlled the distribution of extremely dangerous drugs, we would know where the drug users are and where their drugs came from, and they, the addicts, would have a chance to receive the treatment they need to kick their habit.
Is this idealistic? Probably. Could it actually work? The author argues “yes. Look at Denmark and Holland!”
But author acknowledges that we Christians have to figure out how to walk the fine line between “the private policy we have…to keep our bodies as unpolluted temples provided by God and available for use solely for God’s purposes” and instituting “public policy that helps the addicted to set themselves free.”
How do we reconcile our belief that drug abuse is a sin because it dishonors God’s good gift to us with creating a public policy that allows people to use drugs legally? How do we let our faith inform our politics without condemning others to a life of addiction?
I think the answer lies in where we place the emphasis. Will we value God’s call to treat our bodies as temples for God over God’s example of healing love shown in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
God, in Jesus, works to set the captive free and to bring about wholeness and healing for all of creation. God calls us to join in that endeavor. How will we respond to that call?]]>
Can we say that in church?tag:www.leslieveen.com,2009:/sermons//3.4982009-08-31T04:53:15Z2009-08-31T04:54:49ZTexts: Song of Songs 2:8-13; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 So, the Song of Songs. Here we have a book of secular love poems about a heterosexual, erotic, passionate relationship. A book where there are no direct references to religious, ethical,...Leslie
Texts: Song of Songs 2:8-13; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
So, the Song of Songs. Here we have a book of secular love poems about a heterosexual, erotic, passionate relationship. A book where there are no direct references to religious, ethical, or national values. A book where God is never directly mentioned! What is this book doing in our Holy Scriptures?!
No, seriously. What is it doing in our Scriptures?
Have you ever heard a sermon based on any passage from this book? Have you ever heard any reasons why this book was included in the canon? Anyone want to venture a guess as to why first the Hebrew and then the Christian religious leaders decided to include this in their sacred writings? Why is it in the Bible?
[get comments from congregation]
Many religious scholars believe that this book first made it into the Hebrew canon because it was seen as an allegory for God’s love for Israel. It was most likely written following the return of the exiles from Babylon. This was a time when the Hebrew people renewed their covenant with God and renewed their faith in the God of their ancestors – who had repeatedly been described as the God of steadfast love. These people had been conquered, separated from each other and removed from the land that God had given them. Now that they had returned, they were struggling to reaffirm their belief that they were God’s beloved, chosen people. I can see how reading these love poems through the lens of an allegory of God’s love would be of great comfort and strength to the Hebrew people. It was in that context that the book of the Song of Songs was brought into the sacred writings of the Israelite people.
And the Christian religious leaders drew on and expanded this line of thinking when they were making their own decisions as to which books should be officially accepted into the canon of sacred Scripture. No longer was this seen as an allegory about God and God’s love for the chosen people – that was too exclusive – now it was about God’s love for the Church through Jesus Christ. The faithful, passionate love expressed by the lovers in the Song of Songs provided great imagery for new Christians for how God loves them and how they should love God in return. We see this type of thinking really fleshed out in the writing of the mystics like Julian of Norwich, or Teresa of Avila, or John of the Cross, or many, many others.
So, an allegory for God’s love for God’s people or the Church. Hmmm. I can see it. But it’s a stretch. That’s not really there in the text. A leap has to be made to get to those allegorical meanings.
If we just take the text as it is and honor what is written without reading into it, what are we left with?
We have a celebration of adolescent love. Love as its own justification. Love – the highest and fullest expression of the human heart.
And what’s so wrong with that? Why are we so quick to move on from that topic? Why are we all to ready to make that leap to the allegorical meaning? Why does it feel wrong to talk about passionate love in church? Or, do you not feel there is any problem here? Does anyone care to offer any thoughts about why we skip over or rush through this book so often in our reading of the Bible?
[get comments from congregation]
Three people or peoples stand out in my mind as highly influential for the American Christian’s understanding of the body and how it should be regarded: Paul, St. Augustine, and the Puritans. All three of these had an almost Gnostic understanding of the body, or flesh, as being bad in comparison to the spirit within which is seen as good. While the Gnostic duality of bad flesh vs. good spirit was ultimately rejected by the Early Church leaders, that idea still seeps into our thinking today – often without us even realizing it.
But the creation stories in Genesis and Jesus’ teachings would have us believe otherwise.
The creation stories show the human body and sexuality as healthy, joyous gifts from God. God create a human and proclaimed him “Good.” Then God created a partner, different from but complimentary to that first human, and also called her “Good.” And they were created to enjoy one another. And that was equally as good in God’s eyes.
But then came the fall.
Ah yes. The Fall.
With this great fall entered the idea that flesh = bad. Because the flesh craved the apple and the power that the apple represented the flesh then became a bad thing. It was the flesh that was covered up to hide what had been done. It was the flesh that was punished for the disobedience that had been demonstrated. Flesh = bad automatically from here on out because of what we call “original sin” – that tendency to want to do our own thing instead of following God that is in each of us from birth.
And yet, Jesus pointed to another cause. In the passage from the Gospel according to Mark for today Jesus says:
“For from within, out of your hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile you.”
The heart – the seat of human will and character – the heart is the problem. Not the flesh.
Okay. I’m sure we can all nod our heads in agreement with Jesus’ statement. We get that. I’m sure we have a great many anecdotes or examples of ways that thoughts from within have defiled us or people we know. It’s the heart that takes pure, innocent, passionate love like that described in the Song of Songs and turns it into something darker and not so pure.
What effects does this turning from innocence have on us as people and on our society as a whole? Are there things that you can think of and name that we can see on a daily basis that come from seeing flesh as bad and letting evil thoughts come from our hearts as Jesus warns? How does the flesh = bad idea influence how we live and act in this world? Any thoughts?
[get comments from congregation]
Words are important. How we describe things is important. Whether we recognize it or not, how we describe the world around us greatly influences how we interact with it.
For me, it shows up in simple ways like how we value or don’t value one another as human beings. When we fail to see that God created each of us and called us “good” then it’s easier to put less value on each of us as human beings. And from there I see how we easily can get to human trafficking and the sex trade.
When we fail to see that God made us as sexual beings and that was a good thing then we don’t value sex. And when we don’t value sex then things like rape, prostitution, and a general degradation of the human being aren’t that hard to get to. And women are disproportionately affected in this. Everyone suffers under this framework, mind you. But women and non-straight men suffer most directly the ill consequences of this thinking.
God created sex and God called it good!
Can we say that in church?
We can and we should. I think a big part of our problem with how we regard sex and our bodies comes from the fact that we don’t talk about it. And we especially don’t talk about it in church. When something becomes taboo and can only be talked about in hushed tones, then there becomes something nefarious about it. And then, if it begins to be twisted or not understood in healthy ways, there is no good way to correct it. When we can’t talk about something openly, there is no way to talk about the ways in which it can and often does go awry. And then it ends up a headline in the newspapers. That’s not a healthy way to deal with this topic!
So let’s listen to this passage from the Song of Songs again. [read it again]
Here we have the young female lover telling how her male lover comes to her just before dawn and beckons her to come out with him to the blossoming springtime fields.
Can you imagine the thrill in her heart to see him coming, trying to get a glimpse of her over the wall and through the lattice? Can you imagine her pulse quickening when she hears his voice floating to her across the still morning air? Can you imagine her yearning to go and join him running through those fields?
God created us to feel all of these emotions. God created us as passionate beings. Our sacred Scriptures begin with this very idea: God created a couple with a great love story – an innocent and perfect love between equals.
That is what God envisions for all of us.
Because of our propensity for sin, we cannot have that perfect love story on this earth. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. A right love in God’s eyes is one that strives for that ideal. Too often the last quality – that of being equal or enjoying mutually of the relationship – is the one that is often missing. Too often power dynamics come into play and then the relationship becomes more about control and less about pure love.
God created each of us to be in relationships with others as well as with God. The first human was not complete until that perfect match of a fellow human was created. All the other creatures were not sufficient as companions for the human. Only another human was able to fill that role.
God desires shalom, or wholeness, for every one of us. And part of that wholeness comes from meaningful relationships – with family and friends but most especially from a perfect love between equals. May it be so for each of us. Amen.
Meditations on Marriagetag:www.leslieveen.com,2009:/sermons//3.4932009-08-10T18:29:10Z2009-08-10T18:30:03ZLove is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you...Leslie
Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathless, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and that is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from the branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.
Here you are. Can you believe it? What a journey the two of you have been on. A high school friendship that led to deciding to date one another. Moving to college and trying to keep that connection going only to have it break apart. Going your separate ways and years later finding yourselves both in the same city striking up your old friendship once again. And as the situation evolved finding yourselves dating once again. This journey that began so many years ago – a journey with many ups and downs – has led you to this day. The day you have chosen to proclaim your commitment to one another before your family and friends.
You have known the crazy, temporary madness of being in love of which the author speaks. And you have made the decision that your roots are inextricably entwined so that your future is inconceivable without the other being a part of it. You have moved from being “in love” to having true love for one another.
And this love that you have for one another has very deep roots. Roots strengthened because of your many years together. Deep roots that have allowed you in the past, and will continue to allow you in the future, to weather the storms that have come your way. You both know that storms are an inevitable part of life together. But this has not scared you away from one another. Rather, it has drawn you closer together. You have made the decision to face those storms together and to join in the hard work of nurturing your true love for one another.
But you both know that a root system is made all that much stronger when more roots are added to it. So you have gathered around you family and friends and have asked us to join with you in this journey. You have asked us to walk with you - to celebrate with you in the good times and to lend our support in the hard times. And we have accepted this invitation. A strong community of family and friends is vital for a healthy marriage.
As we gather to celebrate your love for one another and to witness your commitment to one another I would like to share these words from the Christian scriptures which give advice for how to live together. In the book of Colossians, the author encourages his listeners saying:
“As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (3:12-14)
That’s a tall order. We’re to have compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and forgiveness for one another. Any one of those on its own would be hard enough. But all of them together seems like too much to ask. It can be hard to do but love makes it all possible. May your love for one another continue to deepen and grow and may it embolden you to have all of these characteristics in your dealings with one another.
Amen.]]>
Can I have Option A?tag:www.leslieveen.com,2009:/sermons//3.4902009-07-06T19:07:55Z2009-07-06T19:08:25ZTexts: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; Mark 6:1-13 What a study in contrasts we have in our Scripture passages this morning. We are given two very different outcomes for people who listen to God and follow God’s will for their lives....Leslie
Texts: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10; Mark 6:1-13
What a study in contrasts we have in our Scripture passages this morning. We are given two very different outcomes for people who listen to God and follow God’s will for their lives.
First, we have David. He listened to God and followed God’s will for his life and in the process he won not only the support of his family and the members of his own tribe but also from all the tribes of Israel. These tribes had been fiercely loyal to Saul and Saul’s descendents up until this point, making it impossible for David to become the king even though many years had passed since Samuel had anointed him as the next king over Israel and Judah. Once David had consolidated the support from all of the tribal members, he was finally able to become king, claiming Jerusalem as his residence, and growing ever more powerful.
And then we have Jesus and the disciples. Jesus, God incarnate, returned to his hometown after having a great start to his ministry. He had healed many people and attracted great crowds who wanted to hear his teaching. But when Jesus tried to teach to his neighbors and friends in his hometown he was met with skepticism and questions about his authority. These people knew him as a carpenter. And that for them in no way qualified him to speak about the nature of God’s kingdom or to speak on God’s behalf. And the disciples, whom Jesus sent out to continue his work, were sent with only the clothes on their back and their staff. They were not to take anything else – no luxury items, not even the basics for survival on their own. They were to depend on people who were willing to take them in and give them a place to heal and teach.
David listened to God and was welcomed and given great power and material wealth. Jesus and his disciples listened to God and were met with hostility and a stripping down of their material wealth. If you were offered the option of following God’s will for your life and having it turn out either like (A) David or (B) Jesus and his disciples, wouldn’t you choose Option A – David? I certainly would!
Who volunteers to be met with skepticism, hostility, and questions about one’s authority to teach? And who volunteers to give up all they have to strike off and rely on the charity of others as they do God’s work? I’m sure some people do, but it is definitely not the norm. I think most of us would prefer to be financially secure as well as welcomed and respected by those around us.
There is a propensity in religious communities, whether it’s acknowledged or not, to believe that if all is right between God and a person, then that person will have good health, will prosper, and generally will have good things happen to him or her. This belief isn’t just made up out of our desire to be well-off, it is actually based in stories from the Bible. Can you think of any Bible passages or stories that reinforce the understanding that being a good Christian or having everything right with God will result in good things for a person’s life?
Maybe you think of Esther who took great risks and ended up becoming a beloved Queen. Or her uncle Mordecai who stood by the gates and after helping Esther know what action was needed in their situation entered the inner sanctum of power with the king. Or maybe you think of Abraham who listened to God, uprooted his whole family and was promised descendants as numerous as the stars.
In addition to our story of David for this morning, two examples came to my mind. The first comes from the beginning of the story of Job. Listen to how that story begins:
In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. He had seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. (Job 1:1-3)
Job was blameless and upright, fearing God and the size of his family and the number of animals he owned and servants he had working for him showed it. He prospered because he was a God-fearing man. When all of this gets taken away from him as a test of his faith, his friend Eliphaz asks, “Who, being innocent has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed?” He obviously thinks that Job has done something to deserve punishment from God. And Jobs other friends show they hold the same opinion as they seek to counsel Job and offer him advice on how to make things right.
Job’s story was shocking to those who originally heard it and passed it along because it went against traditional knowledge. Everyone knew that if one were upright and feared God then good things would happen. But if a person sinned against God then judgment would come in the form of disaster. But this was not the case with Job. He was an upright man and still disaster befell him. In the end he was exonerated by God and was once again blessed by God with a large family and wealth. But for a while, this upright man had all of that stripped away.
A second story that sprang to my mind comes from the Gospel according to John. The story tells of Jesus healing a man who was born blind. It begins, “As Jesus went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” The disciples’ question shows the conventional wisdom of the day. If someone had a physical disability or suffered in other ways, it showed that either that person or that person’s parents had sinned.
But Jesus upended traditional thinking here by saying, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Jesus pushed back on his disciples’ assumptions to argue that not all bad things that happen are signs that someone has sinned. Sometimes people experience difficulties or have disabilities so that God can work through the situation and God’s glory can be shown.
These stories both show us that people have long held the belief that health and wealth are signs of being right with God. But these stories also show that God has other ideas – that health and wealth are not necessarily indicators that all is right with God. Just because someone has a disability or looses wealth or property because of a disaster, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that person (or a relative) has sinned. And likewise, just because people have a lot of wealth or property or look like they have a good life it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are upright and God-fearing.
Personal health and wealth and one’s standing with God are not linked in that way.
And yet, the feeling persists for many people that they are. There is a large movement in our country to preach what some have called “The Prosperity Gospel.” This line of thinking pushes people to believe that if they are right with God then God will bless them with good health and lots of wealth. They should have a large home. They should own many fancy cars. All of this is seen as outward signs of God’s good pleasure with a person.
I find this type of thinking troublesome though because it leads us back to a situation like that in the Gospel of John. We blame the people who are not in perfect health or aren’t fabulously wealthy, telling them that it is all their fault that this is the case in their lives. It might be because of their own actions, but it very well might be because of something else, something outside of these people’s control.
Our Scripture passages for this morning don’t tell us that God was displeased with Jesus and the disciples and that’s why they met with such a rough time. In fact, quite the opposite is true.
The passages for this morning tell us that God was with both David and Jesus and the disciples. In David’s case, God’s presence helped him to have great authority and to become king. And that, in turn, brought with it a fortress to live in as well as many material possessions. But in the case of Jesus and the disciples, the only way that people would understand that it was God working through them and not something that they were doing on their own was to go out with nothing but the clothes on their backs and their staffs.
God was with them all – working in and through them to make God’s glory known. But God was working in different ways. God can work through powerful people as well as seemingly non-powerful people.
God wants to be with us as well – working in and through us in whatever situation we find ourselves. Maybe we will be blessed with good health and financial security because of it or maybe we won’t. If we are, we should always remember that it comes from God and share of it generously with those around us in need so that our actions may give glory to God – the giver of all good gifts.
If we are not blessed with good health or many material possessions, I would encourage us to resist the urge to jump to the conclusion that God is not pleased with us or is punishing us. We should take stock of our lives, make sure that we are right with God and then trust that God will provide exactly what we need from the people around us.
That’s a hard thing to do. It puts us in a vulnerable position. We don’t like to be dependent on others. We would much rather provide for ourselves. But God wants us to be open to these types of situations because this is a way that God reminds us that it’s not about us and how we will provide everything for ourselves, but rather it’s about God and how God will provide for us.
God calls us to open ourselves up to God’s presence working in and among us. God calls us to be wholly dependent on God. And when we do we will be blessed by God – maybe in large ways or maybe in small ways. But our lives will show God’s glory to those around us and that is the true blessing. Amen.
Prayer: God of steadfast love, you promise to be with us, working in and through our lives no matter what situation we might find ourselves in. Help us to be open to being used by you. Help our lives to bring glory to your name. We pray this in the name of your precious son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Keep your calmtag:www.leslieveen.com,2009:/sermons//3.4872009-06-22T19:06:29Z2009-06-22T19:07:52ZTexts: 1 Samuel 17:33-49; Mark 4:35-41 There David stood, proclaiming his desire and ability to take on the much larger enemy, Goliath, to the complete and utter amazement of King Saul. “Could this one be serious?” Saul must have been...Leslie
Texts: 1 Samuel 17:33-49; Mark 4:35-41
There David stood, proclaiming his desire and ability to take on the much larger enemy, Goliath, to the complete and utter amazement of King Saul. “Could this one be serious?” Saul must have been thinking. It was obvious that David would lose a thousand times over based on the physical attributes of the two combatants in question.
And there Jesus was, sleeping in the face of a terrifying storm that threatened to sink the boat. He did not rise to lend a hand to the rest of the crew in fighting against that eventuality. He did not give any suggestions to how they might get themselves safely to the other shore. He just lay peacefully on a cushion while the tempest swirled.
How could David and Jesus remain so calm while chaos, fear, and panic raged around them? Why didn’t they get sucked into the anxiousness with which they were confronted?
Why? Because they knew a different way. A way that God had prepared them for. A way that God would empower them to traverse successfully. They saw things differently. And that allowed them to find peace in the midst of the panic and storm.
If David had followed conventional wisdom on hand-to-hand combat, he most certainly would have lost. And that’s what King Saul was envisioning. Hand-to-hand combat was what Saul knew best. It’s what he excelled in. It had served him well before and during his reign as king. So when David presented himself to Saul as the one willing to go up against the largest and most feared of all the Philistine fighters, how could Saul do anything less that guffaw?
Could this kid be serious? He was short. He wasn’t very strong. He wasn’t a fighter in the army so he didn’t have his own armor or training in how to use the weapons. How could he think he would ever triumph over a skilled warrior many times his size?
But David was persistent. He argued that his time minding the sheep had more than prepared him to face enemies much larger than himself. He had gone up against lions and bears and come out of it well – not only in one piece but having saved the sheep in the process. Going up against the giant Philistine didn’t seem all that different in his mind.
But David’s argument failed to impress the king. So he pulled the God card. Seeing the non-plussed reaction of the king, David said, “The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” David knew that if Saul wouldn’t listen to him, a lowly shepherd, he most certainly would listen to God. So he used that angle to soften Saul’s resolve.
And it worked. King Saul really didn’t have any other options. None of his warriors were stepping forward to take on the challenge. He didn’t really want to send any of his best men into what would surely be a death sentence. And this young whippersnapper seemed so bent on taking on this giant, why not let him have a try?
So King Saul assented. And he set about preparing David in the way that he would any member of his army. He brought out the best armor – that happened to be his own: a bronze helmet, a coat of mail, and a large sword. Not only was all this armor heavy and unfamiliar to David, but it was also made for Saul who was much taller and larger than him. It must have been quite a sight. Can you imagine it?
It must have looked something like a child who has rummaged through a parent’s closet to play dress-up with the clothes found there. They don’t fit. They are too big. They just end up looking silly and don’t allow the child to actually move or function well.
David knew from the outset that the armor wouldn’t work. But, he had to go along with the king’s wishes. So David let them try the armor on him. But when it became apparent that this would never do, he went with the plan he had in mind all along. Just him, and the things that he carried with him on his wanderings with the sheep – a staff and a sling.
It wasn’t what was expected. It wasn’t what Goliath was prepared for. But it was what David knew. David was using the experiences that he had had and the gifts that God had given him to face a foe who was challenging God’s authority. David knew that the unexpectedness of it all would work to his advantage. He needed that in order to have a chance at success.
David was calm when everyone around him was in a panic because he trusted God to work through him and empower him to do great things. David knew that God had done this in the past. And that helped him to trust that it would happen now.
With this confidence in God and the gifts that God had given him, David ran toward Goliath and got off a perfect shot with his sling before anyone had any idea what was happening. Success! Much to the amazement of all present.
A similar situation faced Jesus as he lay sleeping on the boat.
It was a dark and stormy night. Nothing good ever happens after you hear those words, right?! But, that’s what it was. Now, we have to keep in mind that Jesus had called his first disciples from men he saw working ships in the sea. So these were no newbies to handling ships in less than ideal weather. It would take more than a simple storm to get them in such a state of panic.
We can imagine that they all got in the boat to make their way to the other side and little by little the wind began to pick up. The men made preparations to face it. They drew on their knowledge of the sea and the skills they had developed over the years to navigate the increasingly choppy waters. They drew on the conventional wisdom that had helped them weather such storms in the past.
But things kept getting worse. Conventional wisdom wasn’t helping. Water was coming on board faster than they could get rid of it. The waves began to be so tall that the ship was in danger of capsizing. And all of them, minus Jesus, were doing everything in their power to keep the ship upright and heading in the right direction.
I think I would have been more than a little annoyed if someone sat the whole thing out – leaving the rest of us to handle the situation. This was an “all hands on deck” kind of situations. And not all the hands were there. That’s the type of situation that breeds more than a little bit of contempt.
And so the disciples, in complete exasperation and great fear, woke Jesus and cried, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” That was the only explanation they could come up with for why this man lay unaffected by all the commotion around him not deigning to lift a finger to help in the battle against the wind and sea.
How could he be so calm while this storm threatened their very existence?
How? Jesus knew that he, empowered by God the Father, had the ability to quiet that storm. He knew that it would be powerless against him. He knew that it would only take a word from him and the storm would go away. And that is exactly what Jesus did. He spoke. “Peace! Be Still!” And all was calm.
David, had the gifts of being quick on his feet and a good aim with his sling. Jesus, God incarnate, had the power of God at his command. Each one knew that he was ready for the seemingly insurmountable challenge that faced him. Each knew that trust in God would empower him to use his gifts and talents in ways that would save the day.
That is how David and Jesus kept their calm. They trusted God to empower them and to protect them.
Following Jesus’ rebuke of the storm, he turned and asked his disciples, “Why are you afraid?” This is just another way of asking, “Where is your faith?” David, being just a boy in the service of the king, was not able to ask such a question, but his very actions highlighted his trust in God in opposition to Saul’s lack of trust.
The calmness of David and Jesus in the face of fear and chaos put into stark relief the lack of trust in God of all those around them.
This story of David facing off with Goliath comes just after the passage that we looked at last week where God rejected Saul as king, sending Samuel to anoint someone new. And even though David had been anointed, he could not yet step into the role of king since Saul was still alive and was still very much in control of the kingdom. David had to bide his time, waiting for Saul to either realize that he no longer had God’s favor and step aside or die. Until then David needed to keep on Saul’s good side or he would surely die.
Last week’s passage told us that Saul had rejected God leading God to reject him. This week’s passage gives us a very clear example of just how Saul rejected God. It shows us that Saul did not trust God to provide. Saul did not believe he or anyone around him had the gifts and experiences from God to meet the situation. Saul did not believe that God would empower the Israelites to overcome their foes the Philistines.
David did all of these things. And because he did, he was successful in bringing down Goliath and, by extension, the whole Philistine army.
The story of Jesus and the disciples comes just after several parables that Jesus had been teaching to explain how the kingdom of God is different than what we would expect. Last week we looked at two of those parables – that of the seeds that grow no matter what amount of attention they receive from the one who sowed them and that of the mustard seed that grows to be the biggest plant in the garden.
Jesus shared these parables and more with his disciples and others gathered to demonstrate that with God all things are possible. And yet, here they are only a few hours later, and the disciples have lost all confidence in God – not even calling on God’s name for help in the face of distress. Throughout the Gospel of Mark, this is the picture that we get of the disciples. They hear Jesus’ teachings. They see Jesus’ miracles. And yet, they don’t have faith. They don’t understand what they are witnessing. They don’t trust God.
David and Jesus are calm in the face of great fear and chaos because they trust God and they know God will use them to further God’s kingdom.
Who are we like today? Are we like David and Jesus? Or are we more like King Saul and the disciples?
I bet we’d all like to say that we are like David and Jesus. And I hope that we are. But, it’s not always easy to keep our calm, to trust God to work in and through us in the face of a great challenge.
Sometimes it’s obvious, to both us and those around us, that we are the right person for a job. Maybe we have a gift or skill or have had a certain experience in our life that gives us the insight and perspective that is needed. In those times, it’s probably easier to step up and allow ourselves to be used to help the situation or tackle a problem.
But what about those times when we have gifts or skills that others aren’t aware of or maybe even doubt the usefulness of? What about those times when we are like David, having to make our case as to why we should be allowed to help? Are we as diligent as David? Do we trust that God can and will work through us, using the gifts that God has given us to face the challenge successfully?
Or maybe we have faced times when we know we are the right one for a job, but we feel overwhelmed by all that is going on in our life and we just can’t take on one more thing. We say to ourselves, “Someone else will step up. Someone who has more time than me. I’m already doing more than I have time for.”
Maybe this is true. But maybe God is calling us to make room for that challenge. Maybe God is asking us to stop doing something else and start doing this new thing. It’s not easy to know what to do in these situations. It takes trust in God.
Or maybe we have gifts and skills that we aren’t even aware of. Maybe someone is asking us to branch out into a new endeavor, encouraging us in this way because they see something in us that we haven’t even noticed. We shouldn’t be too quick to brush these encouragements off. Maybe God is speaking through that person trying to help us see that we are being called to be used in a new way by God.
What gifts has God blessed each one of us with? What life experiences have we had that would enable us to give wisdom and insight to others? God wants to work in and through every one of us to bring about God’s kingdom. Will we let God do that?
We need to trust that God will empower us. And then we will be able to keep our calm. Amen.
Good things come in small packagestag:www.leslieveen.com,2009:/sermons//3.4852009-06-15T18:07:09Z2009-06-15T18:12:54ZTexts: 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 Mark 4:26-34 What do you think of when you hear the phrase “Good things come in small packages”? Maybe you’re like a colleague of mine and you think of Christmas presents and how often the smaller...Leslie
You are God, high, lifted up, majestic.
As we say, “Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory… forever.”
You are high and lifted up;
it dazzles us that you work your will
through human agents –
those whom you call and choose and empower,
even the weak, the lowly, the nobodies.
You are high and lifted up;
it stuns us that you have worked your will
through such human agents as David,
the runt of his family,
almost left behind and forgotten,
and you called him to power and
obedience and success.
You are high and lifted up;
it staggers us that you have worked your will
through this Jesus of Nazareth,
he of no pedigree,
he of no form or comeliness,
he who emptied himself in obedience;
and you have raised him to new life,
before whom every knee shall bow.
You are high and lifted up;
it astonishes us that you work your will
through human agents like us,
people of little consequence and
limited capacity.
You call us beyond ourselves;
you send us beyond our imagination;
you empower us beyond our capacity,
and we become your agents in the world,
day by day doing justice and mercy and
compassion.
At the end of the day we still say in astonishment,
that you are high and lifted up and majestic.
We are your creatures,
and we give our life back to you,
filled with gratitude,
eager for the rest that only you can give.
Good things often do come in small packages. God calls us to act in small ways each and every day to make God’s love known to a broken and hurting world. God calls us to do these acts in humility, always keeping our focus on God, trusting that God will do great things with our offerings. May God empower us to be bold in proclaiming the Good News of God’s shalom. Amen.]]>