June 10, 2018                         Part of the Family                          

This week, I was going around asking people where the best fish restaurants were in the area. I did this because, for a number of years I lived in Smithton, IL. And Smithton, was settled by northern germans who ate fish in Germany, and brought their recipes with them. Fried Catfish, Fried Walleye, Fried Bluegill, but especially fried Cod. Every restaurant and tavern in town, all 4 of them had fish on the menu. And every summer there were three town picnics at the park, where the main dish was fried cod. Fried Cod in a heavily spiced corn meal batter. I never liked fish before I moved to Smithton, but they really knew how to fry fish.

Anyway, my story this morning is about one of the members of the church I served in Smithton, who I had the chance to share a table with at one of these fish fries. Now as I said, he was a member of the church I served in Smithton, and he came to the Sunday morning bible studies and seemed genuinely interested in the gospel of Jesus Christ, about God’s love for us all, and God’s forgiveness of us which calls us to love and forgive one another. But what I didn’t know was that a number of years ago, he had a falling out with his brother, and his brother had stopped coming to church.  

Well, as I said, I met this man at the park and he went on for at least a half hour about his brother, and about all they had done to each other, and how their feud had gone on for some 10 years, and they hadn’t spoken in the last 5. And when he finally took a break to draw another breathe, I said, “Wow, you must really love your brother”.  “Love my brother?” He answered, “Pastor haven’t you been listening to what I have been saying for the last half hour?” “Yes,” I replied, “but you must really love your brother to carry this grudge for him for 10 years.” And then I said, “If this was a member of the congregation that you had an argument with, what would Jesus expect you to do?” And the man replied, “Well that’s church!, this is my family.”

Funny thing isn’t it? How some people think you should treat family different from you church family. Some think you should treat your biological family better than others, and some think you should treat your church family better than others. And I think that is where our gospel lesson comes in this morning. Jesus is off preaching and doing a wonderful ministry of healing and caring for others. But here comes Mary, and his brothers and sisters. They’ve come for an intervention, to call him back to his true family, to stop this craziness, rather than continue on in this ministry. And what is Jesus reply? Who are my mother and brothers? Whoever does the will of God.

Dr. William Willamon, professor of preaching at Duke University tells a story of a woman who grew up with an abusive father, and married an abusive man. One time, after she had been struck by her husband, she had to go to the store. With the bruise still on her cheek, she put on some make-up to hide the bruise and went to the store. There the checker noticed the bruise and told her, “Honey, I know exactly what your going through, I went through it too, you need to go to church!” The checker asked for her phone number and residence and told her she would pick her up for church at 8 am. Sure enough, the woman went to church, and years later, when asked why she loved her church, she said, “Because they have been the family God intended me to have.”

Now I am not saying that all church families are better than our biological families, some are, some aren’t. But what I am saying, is that if we live and love and treat each other as God wills for us to do, then we will find that family of God in which we are mothers and brothers and sisters all of one another.

One final note. A few weeks ago I was talking with my neighbor about his church, and the wonderful church family he had there. And I said, “You know, I don’t think young people realize how important a church family can be. I know they run into hypocrites in the church, and that’s a big turn off for the younger generation, but in churches I have found so many wonderful people who help each other through injury, illness, surgery, divorce, loss of a job or home, family problems and the death of a loved one, I think that a lot of people are missing out on that family that God wills for them to have, and maybe by becoming a part of that family, it can even help them to show their own families, however broken they may be, how to be a part of God’s family as well

Oh, and that man I talked about earlier, called his brother, and they talked, and the man’s brother eventually came to church on Sundays again.

And that’s the good news of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

June 3, 2018              A Sabbath Rest                                        

          This morning, our scripture readings contain two passages which speak about the Sabbath day. The first is the passage from Deuteronomy, which expands upon the commandment to keep the Sabbath day, and the other passage comes to us from the gospel of Mark, where Jesus tells the Pharisees that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. 

         Walter Brueggeman, a famous UCC professor and preacher, noted that once upon a time, there was no Sunday, no Sabbath. The slaves in Israel worked every day of the week. When Moses asked Pharoah if they could go have a festival to worship their God, Pharoah replied that the slaves had too much time on their hands, and that from then on would make bricks without straw. This meant that in their time off, probably after sunset, they had to go glean the fields for the straw they needed. And so, we have this picture of the Israelites working 24 hours a day in shifts, 7 days a week without rest.

         Reflecting upon his comments, I remember that years ago, there used to be “blue laws” that forbade businesses from operating on Sunday. Last week, someone mentioned that Wednesdays used to be church night, but now groups schedule events then, and on Sunday mornings as well. Someone once told me, “that the younger generation has taken back Sunday for themselves”, but what is it they have gained?  Another day for games, trips, vacations, and parties? Another day for some to celebrate themselves, and another day for some to work overtime? Another day of buying and selling, of stress, debt, and worry, 7 days a week without rest?

         God gave the Sabbath commandment to the Israelites, so that they could rest from Pharoah’s 24/7 oppressive cycle of consumption and production. The Sabbath commandment was given not just for them to rest, but to provide rest for their families, friends, and even foreigners and strangers, to not demand work from them either. The Sabbath commandment was given to us, to break this oppressive cycle in whatever nation God’s followers found themselves.

         So what should we do on Sunday, our Christian Sabbath? First of all, find a community of faith and join them in worshipping God. Second, find a way to serve others, to listen to their problems, and to meet their needs. Third, spend some quality time with your family, some activity where you actually have a chance to communicate and interact with them personally. Now some may say, “I can do that on Wednesday night, or Saturday afternoon”. Great!  That’s when you do your Sabbath – but be honest with yourself, Sabbath is God centered and focused on others. It is a day of rest from the “me” centered life, which the Pharoah’s of today’s world use to divide and enslave us.

         In closing, I would note from our gospel lesson, that when Jesus challenged the authority of the Pharisees, by allowing his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath for their own nourishment, and by healing the man with the withered hand, they began to plot to destroy him.

         I think this is Mark''s way of telling us that the world wants us to turn away from our observance of the Sabbath law. To skip Sundays for this and that reason, to meet the demands of parents or kids, or sports teams, social clubs, or whatever. But God has commanded a Sabbath day, not for God, but for you, to be freed of these demands, and to give you a true rest from the world. And that is the good news of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

May 27, 2018                        Life in the Spirit                                  

         A few years ago, I heard a speaker at a College Graduation ceremony tell a group of graduates about the challenge of life that they would be facing as they went out into the work world. “The challenge of life,” he said, “was not to stay a live, but to stay in love!” And then he told the following story.

         There was once a study done of 700 MBA students, for those who don’t know, MBA means Masters of Business Administration. Anyway, those 700 students were asked why they were getting their degrees. Of the 700 students, 500 said they were getting their degree to make money and pay their bills. The remaining 200 said they were getting their degree because it would help them make what they loved doing into a business.

         Now, 10 years later, all 700 of these students were contacted again, and the funny thing is, of the 500 who said they were getting their degree to make money, only 1 had become a millionaire. And even more interesting, was that of the 200 who said they were getting their degree to so they could do what they loved, 107 had become millionaires.

         “And so,” he told them, “The challenge of living is not to stay alive, but to stay in love!”

         I thought of this story because all three of our scripture passages this morning speak about the difference between living life in the flesh and living life in the Spirit.  and the life of the spirit. When we live solely for the purpose of staying alive, for the purpose of accumulating things, or wealth, or pleasures, we are living according to the flesh!

But when we live for the purpose of love, for the purpose of creating, or being reconciled to others, for sharing the abundance of God’s grace and gifts with one another, then we are living according to the Spirit. So as Christians, the challenge of life, is not to live according to the flesh, but to live with that passion of love for God and for one another that is life in the Holy Spirit.

         Now all three of our scripture passages this morning are all concerned specifically with what it means to live according to the Spirit in the context of religion.

         Isaiah is a priest in the temple of Jerusalem, he has lived a holy life according to the law. He has offered sacrifices for the sins of others on numerous occasions. He is above reproach in all his dealings with humankind.

But in the presence of God, he recognizes that for all his human virtue, he is just as lost and sinful as any sinner in the world. And so he cries out to God, and God forgives his sin, and then God calls and sends Isaiah out into the world to proclaim his message.

         And for those who have read the message of Isaiah, one knows that the message of the book of Isaiah is that God’s will and God’s laws should not be done according to the flesh, for personal gain or appearance or profit. But that God’s will and laws should be done simply for the love of God, to create life, to reconcile people to one another, and to show God’s mercy and compassion and justice for all.

         Paul himself knows all about the difference between life in the flesh and life in the Spirit. In his ministry, Paul is constantly beset by Judaizers. Jewish people who demand that all of Paul’s converts live according to God’s law. But Paul knows the error of the Jewish religion. That using the laws of God, or any law, as a means for personal salvation is using religion as a means to live according to the flesh.

But to live in with that same passion and love for one another that God has shown to us in Jesus Christ, is to live according to the Spirit. Again, as in Isaiah’s message, This Spirit is a spirit of love by which we seek to create life rather than destroy it, to reconcile people to one another rather than divide them, and to seek justice and mercy and compassion for all people, rather than seek the injustice of our own advantage over others.  

         People who live in this Spirit, Paul contends, are far more likely to fufill God’s law, because if they love God, they will joyfully do what God commands. While those who live according to the flesh, will grumble, avoid, and twist God’s commands to their own ends.

         And Jesus this morning discusses with Nicodemus the religion of the flesh that the Jews have created with life in the Spirit to which one must be born in order to be saved. Now the Jewish leaders of Jesus day, had created some 613 laws that must be observed for salvation, and they had turned their religion into a fleshly observance of these commands. As Jesus himself said, they had tied up heavy burdens upon the people, and did not lift a finger to help them. But Jesus helped them, by telling them that if they loved God, they would fulfill all the demands of the law. The focus of their faith shouldn’t be on the fleshly observance of the law, but on loving God, and in loving God, in loving neighbor.

        

         So what does this have to do with us. We don’t have a church that demands we obey all the Jewish laws, we don’t refuse communion to those who the pastor or the church council decide have not done enough to receive it. But there is still that tension in our churches between the flesh and the spirit, there is still that tension between doing what we believe is enough to be saved, and living in the Spirit of God’s love. There is still that grumbling about what we must do to keep the church going, versus the joy of doing the work of the church and making a difference in people’s lives.

         This tension exists in every church, and in every church, there are wonderful examples of those who offer their lives in service to God and to one another. There are wonderful examples of people who live in the Spirit, because they love God, and seek to realize God’s purposes and plan for their lives and for the world. These people do not come to worship, participate in missions, fellowship, and fundraisers  because they have to, they do so because they want to, they want to share God’s love with others, and with the whole world. And I encourage all of you to grow in that Spirit as well. For therein lies life in the Spirit and life everlasting! Amen.