Stand Up, Raise Your Heads

Luke 21:25-36

November 29, 201

Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

5

Every time I’m in a bible study

or reflection on any of these apocalyptic

readings that mention all kinds of world

events happening at once that cause

fear and foreboding and stress and confusion

we always say the same thing

“This reading is really appropriate right now”.

So, it might be redundant, 

but I’ll say it again,

“This reading is really appropriate 

right now.”

I mean the list is too long, 

I’m sure I’ll forget something:

Islamic terrorism, Christian terrorism, race relations,

droughts, floods, other natural disasters,

disputes between countries, inside countries.

Huge big world engulfing events,

and small personal, terrible tragedies.

The signs seem to be there.

The reality may be that maybe

the world is always on the brink of destruction.

There has always been one natural or human disaster or another

that make these readings just really appropriate at any time.

Life on this planet can be exhausting.

One option we have I guess,

is to ignore the outside world

forget about geo-political events,

things happening in other cities or countries,

just worry about ourselves,

and our families and our immediate neighbors.

This is actually an option that Christians have taken.

We have the extreme example in the Amish

who don’t engage in the world

and don’t yield to modern conveniences or temptations

  

But other Christian groups have asked the same question

should Christians hold office? should we vote?

should we put ourselves outside the events of the rest of the world?

The logic being that as Christians, we know

that we are not of this world, that

Our kingdom is God’s kingdom and no matter what happens,

we’re just called to live our lives and

pass through here as unaffected observers.

We see this lived out popularly today in churches

who mostly focus on self-improvement and

personal prosperity, home, family and personal happiness.

No matter what’s going on in the world, just keep

my family safe and protected and I will keep

the joy of Christ in your heart and a smile on your face.

These are very popular these days.

It’s kind of the mega-church way of being.

I actually understand where that’s coming from,

But I don’t think that view is completely genuine to who Jesus was.

Another option that people have taken

is to be hyper-aware.

To watch for every sign, every political

and world event is a sign

of God’s judgment and displeasure

Every day feels like it’s closer to the end

every sermon is a tale of caution,

and is there to assign blame and inspire

 fear and dread in the hearer.

This group engages in politics for a particular

idealistic religious outcome, some even hoping that

more destruction and pain will somehow bring

Christ’s return faster.

Pat Robertson and that man and woman

who come on TV late at night and talk about

their take on news events in the world

take this view of world events.

I can possibly understand where this comes from too,

but I don’t think this is completely genuine to

what Jesus tells us to do.

In the Gospel for today, Jesus tells us to

Be alert at all times,

Not to bury our head in the sand

and avoid the world.

And that makes sense.

Jesus became incarnate in our world

Jesus became human to be with us

to live with us and suffer the same things we do.

He was not just an unaffected observer

the world who kept to himself and his family

and avoided political or world events.

But he didn’t just watch and say,

Look out, that’s not good, this is the end of the world here.

He got involved, he commented on the political systems,

he preached about the religious systems,

he went around the systems and through the systems

started his own system of forgiveness and love

and eventually was a victim of the systems of this world.

So, I think we’re supposed to engage,

as much as Jesus did, not just as casual observers,

or hyper vigilant worriers

We’re supposed to notice the signs,

look at the world with a critical eye,

look through even terrible events and 

see God’s presence and work all around us.

But when we see these events,

the signs in the stars and moons and

the roaring of the seas and the distress in the nations,

as terrible as they might be,

we’re told to “stand up and raise our heads

because our redemption is drawing near.”

In other words, we’re not supposed to

face these things with fear and hysteria,

but with confidence, always knowing that

whatever happens, God is with us.

God will be with us. God will not leave us.

As we watch the world on the brink of destruction every day,

Jesus wants us to “stand up straight and raise our heads”

Jesus doesn’t want us to forget what we’ve

learned, what we believe, and what we value.

Jesus doesn’t want us to let fear dictate our words and actions.

“Do not be afraid” Jesus says this more times

than anything else in the scriptures.

Because he knows how strong fear can be.

He knows how fear can change people

how it can make us react instead of act,

how it can make us do things we wouldn’t

normally do and we’re not proud of later.

Over the last couple of weeks, in response to the

terrorist activity in Paris, many American

governors in the US announced that they would not be

accepting refugees into their states.

Just four days after the attacks in Paris,

Ohio passed a resolution not to accept Syrian refugees.

Senators voted to add extra red tape

to the process of refugees from Syria resettling in the US

almost ensuring that they would not be able to get it.

We already were only allowing a small number of

immigrants and refugees to come into our country.

The number has been dramatically reduced  since the fear of 9-11.

These resolutions would make it almost impossible

for refugees -  people escaping wars and destruction - to settle here.

And the governors and senators were just reacting

to the initial fear of the American people because

a majority of Americans polled said they would want

to restrict the number of refugees coming into the country.

All because of our fear.

Most pastors and religious leaders have been

disturbed by this series of reactions, and rightfully so I think.

Because it’s not just about refugees and people in need,

There are lots of injustices in the world to be riled up about -

This is about ourselves, selling our values and our souls out to fear.

We are Americans,

a country of immigrants and refugees.

All of our ancestors -- unless we’re Native Americans,

at one time, left bad situations in our home countries

and came to the United States hoping for a better life.

We’ve proudly quoted the poem that’s quoted

on the side of the Statue of liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Can we only quote this ironically now?

And most of this country, and definitely most of the

people who have been elected into

the house and senate and governors are Christian.

A religion that outlines again and again for us,

Welcome the alien and the stranger,

For you were once aliens in the land of Egypt.

I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

show hospitality to strangers.

Are we only supposed to live by those values

when things are going perfectly well?

or are we supposed to live by our values

in difficult and scary times too?

We are nestled right now between two holidays

Thanksgiving and Christmas.

On Thanksgiving we celebrate

the refugees who came to America

from European countries and were welcomed

by those Native to this country.

And on Christmas, we watch as

a middle eastern family shuttles around without a home,

dragged around by government bureaucracy,

and has to have their first child in a cave with animals.

And then we watch as they take their

little child and run off to Egypt to escape

a crazed power-hungry leader

who doesn’t care who he kills in the process.

That little child grew up to be the savior of the world.

And our savior tell us, “Hold your head up.”

Do not let your fear dictate your values.

Just remember when you see these things,

“Your redeemer is near” God is always with us.

That’s why we can be both incarnate in the world

and observers of the world.

Not hysterical at every passing event,

but staying true to what Jesus has taught

and what God has created us to be.

Our theme for Advent is “Get Ready”

we get ready for Christmas with lists

and recipes and plans,

but Getting Ready for the coming of Jesus is simpler.

Getting ready for the coming of Jesus

means a constantly remind ourselves

what we already know:

That we are all sisters and brothers

That we are all children, loved,  blessed, and forgiven by God.
It means reminding ourselves over and over again

what we value and hold true.

And remembering

that no matter what happens in this world,

that God is always with us.

God's Love Will Have the Final Word

Mark 13:1-8

November 15, 2015

The temple that Jesus was sitting

in front of was impressive.

Herod’s temple was an extension of the one

that was already there.

It took nearly 100 years to build the addition.

It took 10 thousand laborers

the stones were between 1 and 100 tons.

Most of them were 10 tons each.

The temple was supposed to be built

for the glory of God, but of course,

it was also built to show the glory of King

Herod and his kingdom and the religious

institution that was supposed to be at the

head of their entire society.

The might and strength of the structure was intimidating.

Might and strength are impressive to us.

The illusion of permanence is  

tempting to us.

We like to think that some things 

will last forever.

Things that humans create like buildings 

and cities and societies and religion

We can sometimes confuse the strength

of human made things with God.

The disciples were taken with the large stones and the impressive structure 

of the temple.

But the temple was not permanent.

Around the year 70, 

the Roman army came in

to Jerusalem to put an end to the ongoing

Jewish insurrections against their leadership,

they meant to take over the temple

and make it a temple to one of their gods,

but in the midst of the battle,

someone set the beams inside the temple on fire

since it seemed like a loss, they

broke the stone to steal the gold gilding out of it.

The impressive temple that took hundreds of years to build,

only took about a week to destroy.

In that event, it’s estimate that The Roman Army

killed 600,000 Jews.

The rest they threw out of Jerusalem.

Terror has been part of our world for a long time.

humans killing humans has been a part of our reality

since Cain killed Abel it’s a foundational

event of our existence.

Even then, we knew it wasn’t right, but still it goes on.

Again, we’re here after a week

of shocking violence.

Bombings in Lebanon, in Baghdad

 the crash of a Russian plane

that looks like a bombing, and Friday,

in Paris, a coordinated attack in several places

that killed over 120 people.

First we have the horror of seeing

the fear and pain on people

watching them run in fear and cry in agony.
And then we have the worry about

where this new development will lead us next.

  

Whether it’s a terrorist act or an individual

mass shooter, the reality of violence and death

seems like it’s still all around us today.

In a rush to react, we could easily lose our way.

In the gospel

Jesus warns his disciples and us that as we’re waiting,

we will see these kind of things and we will hear

about wars and rumors of wars and other scary things,

But he tells us that we shouldn’t be led astray.

On one level these apocalyptic texts might not

 seem very comforting at a time like this,

They remind us that nothing will last forever,

this world that we love,

the people the buildings,

institutions, relationships, nothing will last forever.

Life is uncertain.

Everything, even the strongest thing, is temporary.

But in some ways this gospel is comforting.

It helps us to put things in perspective.

They remind us that the world has

been shaken before and here we still are.

And it reminds us that even when

these awful events happen,

people of faith need to keep our heads.

The temptation then is the temptation now,

Like Jesus says, people will come,

many of them in Jesus name,

and tell us that it’s the end of the world

as we know it.

But as Jesus says, it’s not the end.

These times may be difficult,

but it’s not an end, it’s a beginning.

Jesus tells us to see these pains as birth pains.

The time of pain that comes before  joy.

Jesus tells us that these wars  and violence

will not be the end, because wars

and violence and tragedy will not

have the last word.

The world would like us to all lose our heads.

War mongers would like us to be angry

and demand more violence and retaliation.

Hate groups would like us to lump all Muslims

and refugees together and blame them for this.

The TV news would like us to keep watching

obsessively in fear for the next tragedy.

The devil would like for us to

give up in despair, to lose hope in humanity,

lose hope in peace, lose hope in hope

But Jesus asks us to keep things in perspective

and not to let us get caught up in hype or despair.

And so I tell you this:

Although it doesn’t seem like the case after

the past couple of weeks especially,

Actually, right now we’re living in 

one of the most peaceful times in the world’s history,

Look it up, it was in the Wall Street Journal

about four years ago. 

(here's the article)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111904106704576583203589408180

Violent crimes are falling in every country,

Even in places like Mexico 

that we think of as out of control the murder rate was almost

 ¼ of what it was in 1940.

There are less wars between countries,

less civil war, less personal violence.

I’ll read you the beginning of the article

so you know I’m not making it up myself:

It's impossible to learn about these catastrophes without thinking, 

"What is the world coming to?"

But a better question may be,

"How bad was the world in the past?"

Believe it or not, the world of the past was much worse. Violence has been in decline for thousands of years, and today we may be living in the most peaceable

era in the existence of our species.

The decline, to be sure, has not been smooth. It has not brought violence down to zero, and it is not guaranteed to continue. But it is a persistent historical development, visible on scales from millennia to years.

Just in the last 60 years, deaths from

violent crime, brutality, and war have fallen significantly.

The difference is, we now we hear about every

tragedy, as its happening, not days or weeks or

even months or years later like we would have

back in the old dark ages of 1995 and before.

We see video and pictures as it’s happening

we hear stories, like we’re there,

we see videos, we are emotionally

invested and involved in these acts,

not just distantly removed,

reading about the statistics later.

There is less of it,

but it hurts more now that we see it in front of us.

And thank God for that.

And as humans are horrified by the reality of violence.

Rightfully so.

We’re getting to think that it doesn’t have to be like this. 

We are growing more empathetic to other people

even people of other nations.

As a human race, we are beginning not to tolerate this.

We’re not in agreement about what should be done,

or how to stop it, but we’re all in agreement that

these incidents are tragedies shouldn’t be happening.

If we can see through the tragedies, and our sorrow

we have to see, God is doing something here.

And even in the midst of horrible events,

we see signs of hope and openness and people’s

desire to help.

On Friday night the people of Paris

were tweeting out on social media “portouverte”

which means “open door”, meaning

they were offering their little bitty Paris apartments

for random people to stay if

they couldn’t get to their homes.

People weren’t shutting themselves off in the face

of terror, people were opening themselves up.

Strangers opening their doors to strangers.

God is doing something here.

Even with these of horrible, terrible, meaningless violence, 

something wonderful is being born.

We might be in the middle of birth pains now,

but something is being born here.

It might not be born in any of our lifetimes,

but I have hope that God is doing something here.

As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote

in a time so filled with violence and hatred:

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Jesus reminds us that

As long as we’re on this side of the kingdom,

our lives will be filled with beginnings and endings.

things dying and things being born again.

This is one of the lessons of the cross

Another lesson of the cross is that pain and death

and violence, will not have the last word.

It cannot have the last word

because God will have the last word.

And our faith doesn’t lie in big stones,

or military might, or institutions,

or political savvy.

it lies in the eternal love of God  

The love of God is not based on

our strength or the size of the stones or weapons

we can use to keep us safe,

The love of God is not based on our security or

success in anything.

The love of God is based only on the love of God.

It is the Alpha and the Omega,

the generator of the universe, it will be forever

God’s love will have the final word.

Love Until it Hurts

Mark 12:38-44

November 8, 2015

Two small copper coins that added up to a penny.

So this story is usually a good start for a stewardship sermon

The widow gave a little bit, but she gave “more”

because she had less money to begin with.

So if you have less money like the widow,

keep giving the little bit, don’t worry about it.

But if you have “more” money and you want to be

like that widow, then give even more money to the church,

And it will count as more.

It’s all about money, amounts of money, percentages of money.

Be like the widow be acceptable to Jesus

and give a large percentage of your money to our church.

Right? Someone in some church is giving that sermon right now.
If you’re quiet you can hear it.

Now there’s nothing wrong with that sermon really.

I do think this lesson that Jesus is teaching

is about giving, and faith and stewardship,

but maybe Jesus is not only talking about money.

I think there’s more.

Jesus is sitting with the disciples and watching

people put money into the treasury

people would put their offerings into large

metal urns that were small at the top and large at the bottom.

The only money was coins in that time

there were no check books or automatic transfers

so you could easily hear the difference between

a large contribution and a small contribution.

The large ones made a racket and no doubt

the people who gave them were happy to

make that racket and have everyone else hear.

  

The more you gave the better you were seen

in the eyes of the temple and the community.

And supposedly in the eyes of God.

Now, the people who gave large sums of money

may have actually been giving the same percentage

of their income as the widow gave.

We don’t know.

But I think the difference with the people

who gave out of their wealth and

the widow who gave out of her poverty

is that the widow actually felt it.

It made a difference in her life.

If she gave two coins,

that was money that she would have used

for food, rent, heat, bus fare.

She’s got no savings, no extra at the end of the month.

She gave that and she felt that loss.

The ones who gave larger sums that were a small portion

of what they had, it didn’t really make a difference to their life

they might have given a lot, they may have tithed,

but they still had enough for all their necessities

and probably some savings, movie nights,

new furniture when the mood struck,

and maybe even a week’s vacation at the Dead Sea.

They gave more money to the treasury,

it made more of an impact,

But they didn’t necessarily feel it

it didn’t make a difference in their lives.

  

A professor at Trinity tells the story of

baptism in the first century.

People were devoting themselves to Christianity

and getting baptized, washing their sins and

starting to live a new life.

But soldiers in the Roman army

would go into the waters of baptism and hold their

hand up outside the water because

that was the hand that would hold their sword

when they went into battle.

The habit of humans when dealing with God

and faith and religion is that people

feel drawn to it, but then we try to

to isolate it into a little corner of our lives

where it will do the least amount of harm

where it will cost us the least.

We say, okay, we’ll give up an hour of our lives

on an occasional Sunday but that’s it.

Don’t let my faith interfere with the way that I am already

conducting my life.

Don’t let it bother my schedule, my sports, my free time.

don’t let it change my opinion

don’t let it force me to make choices,

Don’t make me feel guilty,

Don’t challenge my convictions,

I don’t want to give up anything or change anything in my life.

I don’t want to be disturbed.

I don’t want to offend my friends.

I don’t want to have to choose between God’s way and my way.

Basically, let me keep God over here

and my life over here.

I don’t want to feel it.

If Jesus’s lesson is  only about giving the 

right amount or percentage of money to the church,

then the middle class and wealthy in our midst have it easy.

We get a free ride. All we have to do is write a check.

Even if it’s a big check, it probably all sort out next month.

So it’s not just about giving money.

It’s about giving ourselves.

If we’re doing this Jesus thing and we’re not feeling it

we’re doing it the wrong way.

- If we’re doing this church thing and we’re not feeling

uncomfortable at times, we’re not doing it right.

- if we’re following Jesus and hoping that he will just

take all our pain away and leave us happy and peaceful,

we’re not digging into the story of Jesus far enough.

-If we’re doing this and it’s not an inconvenience to our lives

there is something wrong with it.

The story of Jesus is s story of

God who loved us so much that

he would die for us.

Jesus shows us that love is not puppies and kittens,

or rainbows and unicorns.

There is joy, but love is often pain, sadness, struggle,

change, compromise, and love sometimes even involves blood.

The story of Jesus is not about skating by as easily as possible.

The story of Jesus is about loving until it hurts.

Maybe giving up money is what hurts the most for you.

Maybe it’s time, commitment, closeness,

vulnerability, forgiveness, control,

where is your poverty that God wants you to give out of?

  

That day in the temple,

the widow gave her last two coins.

I can guarantee that no one noticed the

quiet sound of them going into the treasury.

Not the rich people who had big, noisy bags of money to give.

Not the Pharisees who were too busy showing off their

long robes and making up their long prayers.

But Jesus noticed. Jesus noticed the smallest offering.

And the good news is,

And God notices our gifts too.

God knows and cares about our struggles, our worries,

God notices the little that we give that are hard for us to give.

Those little ways that we try to live out our baptismal calling.

God is with us on our journey of faith.

Even if those gifts are as small as two little coins.

Jesus notices them.

Whether we’re rich or poor.

We are not alone in our struggles here.

The good news is that God loves us until it hurts.