Sermon for Sunday, October 28, 2012 ShrineMont Job 42:1-6. 10:17 Mark 10:46-52 “See”

I have had three conversations in the past week where people said, “I’m struggling in my faith.” For each of them, the nature of the confusion or struggle was different. In the end, though, it was simple: they looked up to God, and they just felt like they couldn’t see him.

It’s not an unusual thing. We want to see God, or at least feel his presence, especially at difficult times or turning points in our lives. It would be ever so much better if we just felt that God, like a comforting parent, would be prodding us in the right direction, or saying “You’re fine – keep going.” But sometimes it seems he is nowhere to be found.

Over the past few weeks we have been hearing of the story of Job, the man who was tested in extraordinarily difficult ways. He lost his children, his wealth, and his health. His friends tried to help but really only made matters worse. He stayed faithful to God, but as more and more bad things happened to him, he asked God, “Why aren’t you helping me out here? I’m feeling pretty alone right now.”  God, being an Old Testament kind of God, finally got a little annoyed with Job and said, “Kiddo, I’ve been with you from the start and I’ve been with you all along. Don’t question me.” And Job sat back and said, “I guess I was wrong to ask you questions. You were there all along, although I was so wrapped up in my own problems that I couldn’t see you. I heard, but I didn’t understand. I didn’t see. Now I do.”

Seeing God. It’s what we seek, isn’t it?

In our Gospel today, Bartimaeus is a blind beggar who calls out to Jesus and says, “Hey there, Jesus, help me out here!” I suspect Bartimaeus was like one of those folks who beg on the street corner. We see them every day as we drive to work, and they’re a little annoying with their cardboard signs and sad faces.  Begging is their profession, something that some of us would say that they choose to do for a whole host of reasons. But unlike the folks on the street corner, Bartimaeus had no other option. There was no work for a blind man. It may have been that he was turned out by his family. But I suspect that he was at that same spot every day except the Sabbath, calling out and asking for money from passersby. He may have gotten pretty good at recognizing particular people by the sounds they made: old Joshua had a bad limp, and always walked with his little dog, so the sound of their steps was a step-drag-patter-patter along the hard sand of the road.  When Bartimaeus heard that step-drag-patter-patter, he called out “Joshua, old friend! Can you spare a few coins for a blind man?” Miriam had eight children, and he could hear them talking and fussing at each other from a quarter-mile away. As they approached, Bartimaeus  would call out “Miriam, good mother! Can you give a coin or two to me in thanksgiving for your wonderful healthy children, who all have the sight that I lack?” When he heard the rolling of wooden wheels and the clop of hooves, he knew the Roman centurion was going past, and he didn’t call out – he simply hid himself, because sometimes the soldiers would beat beggars who asked for alms at the roadside.  

But one day, Bartimaeus sensed something different, a different energy around him. He heard people walking on the road, a good crowd of them by the sound of it, people whose steps he didn’t recognize, voices he hadn’t heard before. Yes, there were some of his neighbors in the crowd, but there were newcomers as well. And as they approached, the words left Bartimaeus’ mouth before he even thought of them: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

He wondered if he was possessed by a demon, that he should say such words. He didn’t know this Jesus. He had never met him before. He had learned in the temple that a Son of David would come and be the anointed one, the Messiah, but he had no way of knowing that this man, this stranger, was it. And yet, he knew, and he spoke. He could see behind his blind eyes who this man was.

The religious leaders, those Pharisees and priests, they seemed not to understand who Jesus was. 

They could not see. But Bartimaeus understood and cried out. Even in his blindness, he could see who Jesus was.

Some people near the annoying beggar told him to be quiet, but he cried out again, “Have mercy on me!” And Jesus heard his cry. He stopped stockstill in the middle of the road and said, “Bring him over here.” So the crowd, including those people who had just said “be quiet,” guided him over to Jesus, this man whom Bartimaeus had never before met. And Jesus said “What do you want?” And the blind beggar said, “I want to see.” And Jesus looked at him. Jesus knew that this man who was blind saw him, really saw him, in a way that the religious leaders did not. Jesus healed his eyes, praising his faith, but Jesus knew that his sight was already healed by that faith. Jesus simply repaired the mechanics.

That is the thing about sight. What do you see? When you meet a neighbor, do you see a middle-aged person with a slight limp and graying hair, or do you see the joy in his face that he’s gotten a new job, or the loneliness after the death of a beloved one? When you come to church, even a church like this, to worship God, do you see the cross and the chalice and the cup or do you see the ineffable love and strength of the God who made us? What do you see?

Oftentimes, as Job discovered, it is hard to see God. We have to work to sense him among us, alongside us, within us.

But the gift of Christ in our lives is that we have been given someone who was human like us, someone who talked as we talk, who walked and got tired and enjoyed a good meal. When we see Jesus, though, we don’t only get a picture of a human being. We get a window into what God looks like. We can see God, through Jesus Christ. We are not alone. He is like us, and understands us better than anyone can. He is with us, and feels our joys and our pain better than anyone can. He is in us, and sees the world in which we live with clarity, and sometimes with sadness.

Job had it right. We may have some sense of our Divine Creator – Job talked about hearing God – but it takes a special patience and a special faith to actually see God. And this place helps us see God, doesn’t it? Look up at the blaze of colors in the trees. Look at the water running in the spring. Smell the crisp damp air and see the reds, oranges, and greens of newly harvested apples and pumpkins. God is here for us to see, and for us to seek, if we trust our faith and our senses.

Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, March 25, 2012 Jer 31:31-34, John 12:20-33 "Write It On Their Hearts"

A student went to his rabbi and said, "Why is it that the Lord says 'I will write my Law upon their hearts?' Shouldn't it be 'IN their hearts'?"

"Ah," the rabbi said. "The Lord understood how difficult would be for us to understand his great Word. He knew that the only way would be for us to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. So He wrote his word on our hearts. It is only when our hearts break that those words can fall INTO our hearts, treasured forever."

When the prophet Jeremiah wrote the passage we just heard, he was facing a people who had for a long time been estranged from their God. They had failed in the relationship.

Jeremiah could have simply said "you guys have messed up, yet again." In point of fact, Jeremiah did say that on a regular basis. But God gave him a different message to share with these wayward people.

It was a message of forgiveness, of faithful love, of promise for a changed future.

What does Jeremiah say God's message is?

"We're going to change the ground rules in this relationship. We're going to craft a new contract between us. The old one didn't work. You got overwhelmed by rules that no longer made sense. So we are going to keep it very simple in this new contract. The slate is wiped clean. I'm not going to beat you over the head about past mistakes. Suffice it to say, mistakes were made. But this isn't about the past, it's about the future. So no more rules. It will not be about rabbis and scribes teaching those complicated rules. It will be about you and me. Only you and me. You will feel me in your heart, no middleman. That's because I love you, and Ihink you love me, too."

That was an odd thing for a prophet to pass along to God's people...aren't prophets always about telling people to obey the rules to ensure a good relationship with God?

But here was Jeremiah, saying that God's messsage was that the old model hadn't worked, that there needed to be a new covenant. The word would be upon them...but how would they feel it, how would they realize what was happening?

Perhaps, as the rabbi said, their hearts would have to be broken open to fully experience what God was putting upon them.

Perhaps our hearts have to be broken open to fully experience what God is putting upon them.

This prophecy foreshadows the bearer of the New Covenant - Jesus Christ. The evangelist John makes clear that Jesus is that Word, written on our hearts. He begins his gospel account that way: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

And by the time we get to the point of today's story in John's gospel, Jesus is clearly understood to be the one who brings that new covenant that Jeremiah prophesied. But simply bringing the word is not enough. How do we start to feel the love that the word brings in our hearts?

What has to happen? Our hearts have to be broken open. And how are they broken?

A thousand different ways.

The theologian in me reflects on Jesus' death, a story that we will relive through the next two weeks very closely. Every time I read the passion story, it breaks my heart. I see this tired and aching man, with black and blue marks on his face, with whip marks visible through his tattered robe, with a thin stream of blood running down the side of his face, with stupid but powerful people asking stupid but damning questions. I see him, and my heart breaks.

The ex-politician in me reflects on the discourse in the political arena in recent weeks, with people using their religious beliefs as weapons against those with whom they disagree - a gross misuse of God's Word - and my heart breaks.

The pastor in me reads the story of the shooting of a young man by a local watch vigilante, not in self-defense but simply because he didn't want him walking through his neighborhood, and I think of all the times that Jesus was in places where he shouldn't have been...and my heart breaks.

And when my heart breaks, I feel God's word falling into it, Jesus saying "I will draw all people - ALL PEOPLE - to myself."

And I feel the healing of those words around the torn edges of my heart.

Jesus tells us that he is about to do something that will break his heart,and our hearts. He reminds us that he does it not because he walks with joy toward his death, but with great trepidation. He also reminds us that he does it for a reason - pure love for us.

Every day, we face bad news. It's on our computers, on the nightly news, on the radio. Every day our heart breaks. But if, through our heartbreak, we become vulnerable to God's love, it is worth the pain.

This is why Jesus is willing to walk toward the cross, to the horrific death of his human body. To Jesus, it is worth the pain to open up our hearts to feel God's redeeming love.

So in these next two weeks, as we approach the glory of the resurrection, we should not be afraid to let our hearts once again be broken. That is how God's Word, God's love, God's grace, comes into us in this season of Lent and beyond.

Amen.

Today's Sermon: Luke 14:1,7-14 “Hosts”

Why would Jesus go to eat dinner at the home of a Pharisee? We know that he didn’t think very much of the way that the Pharisees were teaching religion, and they didn’t think very much of him in return.

Nevertheless, Jesus went. To a dinner that was bound to be an uncomfortable one, because, of course, they would be watching everything he did to see what a bad person he was. He knew this, but he went anyway. And he didn’t shy away from using it as a teachable moment, to share some ideas about what he thought was important.

Now, the gospel of Luke is full of stories that are set at meals or at banquets. They’re usually uncomfortable meals for one reason or another. Sometimes, they’re meals in stories or parables that Jesus made up to make a point. Sometimes they’re real events in Jesus’ life, at least as the evangelist who is telling the story portrays them. But there is always a teachable moment, when Jesus takes the quotidian event – a group of people sitting around a table eating a meal – and turns it into something else.

And this little passage from the Gospel is no different.

Jesus knows he is walking into a tense situation. Haven’t we all gone to a dinner party at one point or another in our lives with people that we don’t care for, or who hold some power over us in our lives, or who have treated us with less than kindness? Haven’t we had that feeling in the pit of our stomach that means if it turns bad again, we’re going to have to still sit there and smile one of those artificial smiles while our stomach is churning with acid, and just survive it until we can go home and brew a cup of tea and say “why did I go to that stupid dinner?”

I don’t know if Jesus suffered any acid indigestion after one of those dinners, but I’m sure it wasn’t particularly pleasant for him.

But even as Jesus goes into the party knowing he is being watched closely, he, too, is watching closely. He decides to address a part of what he observes – how people are choosing up seats – with a little parable of instruction. Simple wisdom: if you take a favored seat and the host moves you lower down the table, you’ll be embarrassed, so save yourself the embarrassment by seating yourself in a humbler seat. Then the host might even move you up to a more favored place. At worst, you’re not embarrassed. At best, you look really modest and you get all sorts of positive attention when the host moves you up to a better spot.

Now, if you’re one of those who have been jockeying for the best seat around the Pharisee’s table that evening, this little lesson might be a bit embarrassing to you, but you can’t really say anything, because Jesus hasn’t said directly to you, “Why are you making a fool over yourself about where you sit?” And when Jesus says, “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted,” it’s just generalized enough that you might be thinking – very quietly and only to yourself – “wait a minute…did he just insult me?”

Very subtle, our Jesus.

But then he continues with another bit of teaching. This one sounds pretty strange to the Pharisees, and particularly the fellow who invited Jesus to dinner, because he was doing it as much for political jockeying as for anything else. For that matter, it sounds strange to us, because we live in a world where entertaining each other is both pleasure and a kind of social responsibility. We are invited to a friend’s for dinner, and shortly afterwards we invite them to our house to return the favor. It’s the way we live together and it is a lovely thing.

But Jesus suggests that we NOT invite our friends and neighbors, that we host a meal for those who cannot return the favor. Jesus doesn’t want us inviting folks over who we like, or because we feel obligated, or because we expect that they will feel obligated in return. He wants us to invite the very people who cannot return the favor. The crippled, the lame, the blind. The very people that the Pharisee wouldn’t invite to his home because those people were the ritually unclean. A Pharisee would never eat with someone like that, either in his own home or in the dwelling of “those people.”

There’s the challenge, then. Can we be host to people whom we wouldn’t ordinarily invite to our table? Whom will we host?

Ahhhh, host….an interesting word. It means, of course, the person who offers hospitality.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about hospitality:

“The word hospitality derives from the Latin hospes, which is formed from hostis, which originally meant to have power. The meaning of "host" can be literally read as "lord of strangers." hostire means equalize or compensate…

The Greek concept of sacred hospitality is illustrated in the story of Telemachus and Nestor. When Telemachus arrived to visit Nestor, Nestor was unaware that his guest was the son of his old comrade Odysseus. Nonetheless, Nestor welcomes Telemachus and his party lavishly, thus demonstrating the relationship between hostis, "stranger," and hostire, "equalize," and how the two combine in the concept of hospitality.

Later, one of Nestor's sons slept on a bed close by Telemachus to take care that he should not suffer any harm. Nestor also put a chariot and horses at Telemachus' disposal so that he could travel the land route from Pylos to Sparta rapidly, and set his son Pisistratus as the charioteer. These illustrate the two other elements of ancient Greek hospitality, protection and guidance.

Based on the story above and its current meaning, hospitality is about compensating/equalizing a stranger to the host, making him feel protected and taken care of, and at the end of his hosting, guiding him to his next destination.”

The Greeks were not alone in this approach to hospitality, of course. In the Middle East, it has always been a cultural norm – a necessity in a place where water and food are in very short supply – to provide hospitality to the stranger who comes to your door. Thus, it forms the core of so many stories in the Old Testament, from Abraham at the oaks of Mamre to Lot and the three strangers he protects from the hostile crowd, to Elijah being fed by the poor widow who had almost nothing in her food stores.

So Jesus tells this parable, he is not introducing an entirely alien concept of what hospitality means – this is a core value to the people of Israel.

Why does he tell the story, then?

I suspect it has much to do with his mission, to rebuild the relationship between God and God’s people. As the people have forgotten what it really means to live as God would have them live – as they have become so wrapped up in following the laws that they have forgotten the relationship – they have forgotten their desert nomad roots. They have forgotten the true nature of hospitality, as they have forgotten the true nature of loving God. Jesus is reminding them of what it is truly all about.

In a way, Jesus is taking back their understanding of what a host is to the way it was originally meant to be.

He explains what a host is – someone who welcomes the stranger, offering food and drink without expecting anything in return.

How interesting, then, that we use that same word “host” to denote the bread that is served at the communion table, the body of Christ which is served to us as the members of the Body of Christ! The two forms of the word “host” are related, of course, but in this form, it comes from the Latin hostia, meaning “sacrificial victim.” And we know that Jesus was the sacrificial victim, offering himself to redeem us. But he also is the ultimate host – in the sense of hospitality - at the meal which we are about to celebrate. He has followed that Greek concept I mentioned earlier, equalizing himself and all of us, all of us who are strangers, to provide sustenance, protection and guidance. He is both the one who invites us to the meal and the one who is the feast.

In our own lives, we have had moments where we have had the experience of this kind of hospitality.

When I was very small, perhaps four years old, my parents and I went to one of those intimidating dinners like Jesus going to eat with a Pharisee. It was at the home of my father’s aunt and uncle. Great-Uncle Joe and Great-Aunt Anna. They were elderly, very proper, and they had an apartment full of breakable objects. They had never had any children, so they didn’t have a clue about child-proofing the apartment. Everywhere you looked was something that was incredibly interesting to a curious and clumsy four year old, something that was a cause of incredible stress to my poor mother. And Great-Aunt Anna was a stickler for proper table manners…another cause of stress to my mother. Although she trained me well, I WAS only four. One never knew when I would behave perfectly, or whether I’d suddenly turn into a clumsy and boorish little monkey.

Well, we came to the beautifully set dinner table, and Great-Aunt Anna’s maid, Ethel – yes, of course she had a maid - brought out the first course. Grapefruit halves. A lovely small Limoges plate with a half a grapefruit on it, with a sterling silver spoon set alongside it. Now I looked at it and smiled. I knew what grapefruit was. We had it at our house regularly. So I picked up my spoon and began to dig in. But wait! No! My mother had always segmented the grapefruit so I could easily take out a segment at a time. This grapefruit had not been segmented. My mother, sitting to my left, sensed me stiffen up. But not wanting to seem like she was commenting on the preparation of the grapefruit, she simply worked on her own half. I was as stubborn as the grapefruit, and dug in with my little spoon again and again, getting a bit of the pulp onto the spoon, but nothing like the whole segment I was used to. And cradled in the half-circle of the fruit was a whole lot of delicious grapefruit juice. I was hungry – meals at their house always started much later than at our house – and I wanted that grapefruit juice. So I dealt with it in my own inimitable four year old way. I picked up the grapefruit half, lifted it over my head, and squeezed the juice into my mouth. My mother’s deep quick intake of breath told me I had done something wrong, but the table was silent. Stunned by my faux pas. This was certainly not what Emily Post suggested for the eating of grapefruit. I looked up. They were all looking at me. I knew I was in trouble.

And then, Great Uncle Joe, who had a voice like a Victorian Shakespearean actor, suddenly leaned back and laughed. A loud guffaw. “That’s the way to do it, Mibi!” And Great-Aunt Anna tittered, and my mother looked down at her plate, breathing a silent prayer of thanksgiving, and my father took anther sip of his Scotch. And I knew somehow, that I had been given a reprieve. That they were willing to be hospitable, to accept me in all my strange four-year-old simplicity. They were willing to be my hosts in the way that Jesus suggested that we be hosts. And in that moment I was fed not only grapefruit, but love.

Because that’s what true hospitality is. Jesus teaches us that unless we are willing to love the people we host enough to put ourselves completely at their service, unless we are willing to provide sustenance however they need it, without an expectation of a return, simply because we are meant to love them, we aren’t doing what Jesus did for us.

Jesus was and is the ultimate host, in every sense of the word. We will be reminded of that in a few minutes when we continue with the Liturgy of the Table. His act of love is what saves us. Our act of love might, in a much smaller way, save another stranger down the road. May the bread – the host – that we consume in this holy meal give us the courage to do that.

Amen.