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Genesis 1:1-5 1 John 4:7-16
I have strayed from the lectionary this morning and offered a couple of scripture readings that are part of what I want share today. I have decided to simply talk with you this morning because what I have to say are things that have been on my heart for some time and come from a very deep place in my head and my soul. The impetus for sharing all this in a sermon grew out of a conversation with Nowell at coffee hour (a lot of things seem to grow out of conversations with Nowell at coffee hour).
Let’s begin at the beginning:
Bereishit bara Elohim
Et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz
V’ha’aretz haiyta tohu vavohu
V’choshech al pnei tehom
These are the opening words of the book of Genesis in Hebrew. The words tohu vavohu, which we usually translate as “without form and void” are very dark and mysterious words. They describe a virtual endless sea of chaotic nothingness. Genesis tells us that God brought order out of this chaos to create all that is.
Well, you and I are co-creators with the Almighty. Quantum physicists today tell us that we create the ordered world around us by observing it. That’s a rather mind-blowing assertion. Let me give you my take on how that happens (it may not entirely jibe with the latest theory of biocentrism, but it works for me).
We, all of us, are every minute of our lives, swimming, so to speak, in a virtual sea of quantum particles, waves, and energy. And we, ourselves, are part of that sea. That vast, endless ocean of tohu vavohu (if you will) connects everyone and everything. We are oblivious to most all of it. That is because we have these five senses that we have developed that limit our perception. For example, our eyes are designed to collect information from a tiny slice of the vast electromagnetic spectrum. We do not see ionizing radiation, including gamma rays and x-rays. We don’t see ultraviolet or infrared light, or microwaves, or radio waves. We do not see free electrons, atoms or molecules of hydrogen, helium, or oxygen. We don’t see background radiation. And perhaps most significantly, we don’t see Higgs bosons that make up the Higgs field, filling all of space everywhere. What we see is that small slice of the electromagnetic spectrum that we refer to as “visible light.” It is only visible because that’s the stuff our eyes are tuned to decipher. And the information from our eyes is transmitted to these magnificent brains of ours (far beyond any current computer’s capability). And our brains, in turn create a picture in our minds of the world around us.
We may also think that we hear everything there is to hear, or smell everything there is to smell. If you think that, just take a walk with a dog sometime. Dogs, by the way don’t see the world the same way we do. They have a different array of cones in their eyes for detecting color. They mostly just see blues, perhaps some yellows, but no reds at all. Everything else is just a dull grey. Have you ever considered how different our world would seem to us if we had different sensing apparatuses? Like bats and dolphins who navigate the world using sonar. Dolphins, by the way, can, with their sonar, detect a school of fish ahead, and have a picture of that school of fish in their heads. They can then transmit a sonar signal to other dolphins who then get the same picture of the school of fish in their heads. Have you ever wondered what the world would look like if we had different kinds of sensing organs, or if the sensing organs we have worked differently? The world would be a very, very different place.
There is so much more out there than we can perceive. But the truth of our existence is that we are connected, each being a part of this grand mix of tohu vavohu. And we, each of us and all of us, are, by the limited perceptions of our senses, creating reality in every moment out of the the tohu vavohu in which we swim. In other words, our separateness is simply a matter of perception. In truth, all is One. We are part of each other, and part of the trees, and the sidewalks, and the sky. The whole of the universe is One.
This is not just me speaking. It was one of the most eminent physicists, Bernard d’Espagnat, who wrote, “. . . we know for sure . . . that, in some respects
at least, the world is non-separable. . . non-separability is now one of the most certain general concepts in physics.” Albert Einstein wrote that: “A human being . . . experiences himself and his feelings as separate from the rest, an optical illusion of his consciousness.” And the famous physicist, Erwin Schrödinger (of “Schrödinger’s Cat” fame), said, “There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind.” How’s that sound coming from a physicist? It seems like Quantum physics is sounding more like Zen Buddhism all the time.
The prophet Jeremiah had an amazing vision. In the midst of hearing the voice of eternity castigating the people of Israel, Jeremiah looked around and experienced everything as, in his words, tohu vavohu. Perhaps he had a glimpse into the truth about this sea of quantum stuff in which we swim: that all is indeed one.
And now a word about love. In our epistle reading this morning John says, “. . .everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. …for God is love.” We have a dear friend to whom we were recently talking. She told us about an experience she had long ago as a young mother. Her daughter had a small New Testament that she loved to play with, even before she could read. One day the little girl accidentally tore a small piece out of one of the pages while she was playing with it. Our friend said she picked it up off the floor and read it. It said, “God is love.” That phrase has been a touchstone for her throughout her life. It could be a touchstone for us as well. “God is love.” That’s an amazing statement. He doesn’t say that God loves, he doesn’t say that God wants us to love, he says “God is love.” I take that to mean that the divinity that lies at the Ground of All Being (to use Tillich’s phrase) is pure love. And, therefore, it is love that fuels, motivates, and drives our being.
Ask any biologist what it is that makes the evolution of life forms work, and they might tell you it’s natural selection. But if you press them further about what drives that, they will probably say it’s the survival instinct. So, what is the survival instinct but a love of life and a love of self. I want to survive because I love myself and I love being alive. That’s the blood, as well as the pumping heart, of living things. It’s what makes life work, because, as the biologist will tell you, it’s what makes evolution work. And without that, living things can’t keep hanging on in an often unfriendly world. But the love of life and the love of self are prerequisites for loving others. And it turns out that is built in as well. That same survival instinct leads living beings to love and care for their offspring and then also the members of their family, or clan, or the community of other beings like them (If you are fortunate enough to take this to the extreme of loving even your enemy, as Buechner writes in our bulletin meditation, that is God’s love). Our Area Minister, Rev. Carol Steinbrecher, whom many of you met, recently wrote an article in which she mentioned that even trees have networks of roots that they use to nourish and care for members of their cluster that are in need of nourishment.
In a very real sense, we cannot choose to love or not love; love is simply built in as a part of our core being. Yes, there are people, times, and circumstances when that being is distorted and hatred or violence reign. But that does not destroy the love that is part of our created self. That cannot be destroyed, because it is the spark of divinity that lies within us. Indeed, in those opening verses of Genesis, the ancient Hebrews shared their insight that God created human beings in God’s own divine image and blessed them and saw that it was good. So, we who share that divine spark of divinity are made of love. John said it, you know, God is love. In Colossians, Paul says that “love . . . binds everything together in perfect harmony.” And in 1 Corinthians, he says that “love never ends.”
So where has all this brought us? Well, here’s the conclusion: The latest determinations of quantum physics as well as the findings of biology and anthropology come into remarkable agreement with the insights of the ancients . All of the universe is not a collection of individual planets, stars, objects, or people. All is one. And because of that, you and I are inseparably part of each other. We are bound together in this infinite sea of tuhu vavohu, out of which, we as co-creators with Divinity in every moment are creating order out of the chaos around us through the wonder of our limited but remarkable senses and brains. And at the heart of our being, the divine fuel that drives us and the power that literally gives us life and allows us to sustain that life is love.
Who knew?
Jesus’ command in this passage to go out and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that he had taught them is often called “The Great Commission.” The important words here are “go out.” Jesus didn’t expect his followers to stay in Jerusalem and minister to and support one another. It was time to expand beyond the borders of Israel, beyond their comfort zone and outside of their community.
When we have our own community, it’s easy to get focused on what’s happening within the community and forget Jesus’ command to go out and make disciples. Often this happens without our even realizing it and soon we’re focusing on managing the needs of different members of the congregation, different personal dynamics, and even buildings that are in need of renovation. It’s easy to forget what the mission of the church ought to be – to go out and make disciples, to be present in the community and be a visible example of everything that Jesus teaches us to be. Even Worcester Fellowship has faced this challenge by becoming too insular and losing sight of its original mission.
Several years ago, I was the Prison Ministry Pastor for Worcester Fellowship. I’d like to share the journey of Worcester Fellowship; how Worcester Fellowship started, how it lost track of its mission and then found its way back again. Worcester Fellowship was founded by two women, Liz and Mary Jane, who started their ministry walking the streets, handing out socks and granola bars and connecting with the homeless community. After several months of connecting with the community, Liz and Mary Jane let people know that they would be having worship on Worcester Commons on Sunday afternoons. They had their first worship service on Easter Sunday 2007. No one came, but they continued connecting with people on the streets and started partnering with churches in the area to provide bag lunches. They began to provide lunches and socks each Sunday prior to worship. People started coming for lunch and eventually a few people stayed for worship. Volunteers from the churches that brought lunches started staying. Soon a small community began to form consisting of people without housing, people at risk of losing their housing and people who were comfortably housed and had never experienced homelessness.
As the community of Worcester Fellowship grew, they defined their mission as a church among men and women without homes that is dedicated to ending isolation through pastoral care and nurturing community.
As a core community began to form, members of Worcester Fellowship asked to start various groups. The pastors supported these groups because it was a good way to empower people who really didn’t have a lot of control over their lives. When I first got involved with Worcester Fellowship, there was a Prayer Team, Fund Raising Team, Leadership Team, Art Group, and then we started a Prison Support Group. Because the members of Worcester Fellowship didn’t have a lot of leadership opportunities in their lives, there was a lot of conflict over who should lead these groups and how they should be led. Eventually a lot of the pastors’ time was taken up by attending group meetings and refereeing conflicts. The focus became more on managing these groups and less on providing support and community for people on the streets. As a result, Worcester Fellowship became insular and lost the connection with the homeless community that Liz and Mary Jane worked so hard to build. Even the people who came for lunch but didn’t stay for worship began to feel to feel disconnected. Worcester Fellowship began to be known as the organization that hands out lunch and sock on the commons.
When Warren, the new pastor and executive director, joined Worcester Fellowship, he realized that Worcester Fellowship had become too focused on leading groups and had gotten away from its mission of providing pastoral care and nurturing community to at-risk adults. So we stopped running groups, and started spending more time on the commons. We also started Thursday Café, a day shelter open every Thursday afternoon that provides food, companionship, rest and hot coffee for people on the streets. Thursday Café started off small, but at the end of its second season, it had close to 75 people coming each week.
Spending more time on the commons on Sunday afternoons and providing the Thursday day shelter helped us to become more connected to the community that we were trying to support and helped us to fulfill our mission. We still didn’t have many people stay for worship after lunch, but Thursday Café continued to grow and our presence in the community that we served continued to grow, and make a difference in people’s lives. There were times when someone I hardly knew came up to me after we hand out lunches and said, “You guys are awesome” or we arrived on the commons to set up for lunch and worship and someone who’s never come to worship says to me, “I’ve been waiting for you.” These things remind me that our presence was needed out in the community and on the commons. We made a difference in people’s lives by being visible and present. By showing people that community is possible even when their lives are chaotic and unstable.
Of course we lost some people along the way. We lost people whose main interest was leading groups because it was the only opportunity they had to be a leader and it made them feel important to lead a group. We lost people because they moved on and didn’t need us anymore. Our core group that came to worship shrank, but the number of people that we supported overall grew.
I’ve had people from indoor churches ask me how to get more people to come to church. I always say the same thing. Get out in to the community. Be a visible presence. I’ve come across churches that were struggling to find their direction. Once they discovered what their mission was and stayed true to that mission, they grew. Some grew in numbers of people coming to church on Sunday, but not all. But all of them grew in their purpose and their existence became more meaningful for both the members of the church and the community.
There are some basic commonalities that these churches have. Allen Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk talk about some of the characteristics these churches have in their book “The Missional Leader.” One characteristic is that these churches have re-established traditional Christian practices, such as daily prayer, discernment, and hospitality. Hospitality is an ancient church practice of welcoming the stranger. Today, a stranger can be the person next door, someone from another country, or young people who feel disconnected.
Hospitality doesn’t involve expectations or agendas, but creates a space to listen. This is especially important today when there is so much noise and so much competition to be heard.
People today are longing to be recognized and included. This is one of the most important aspects of Worcester Fellowship’s mission. We would go out into the community and see the people that were so often invisible to the public. We recognized them and gave them worth. Not all church missions will be to provide hospitality or support to people on the streets or in prison, but there are many people disconnected and alone in all of our communities. We just need to discover who they are, listen to them, and find out what they need and how the church can support them.
It’s also important to stay focused. There is so much need today that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the different groups of people that need support and community. On common aspect of missional churches is that they have a specific mission and they stick to that mission. As the experience of Worcester Fellowship shows, once you lose sight of the mission and try to include too many projects, it’s easy to lose focus and get overwhelmed.
Most importantly, these churches are open to where the Holy Spirit leads them. This is why Jesus included the Holy Spirit is his commission. Through prayerful listening many church communities have been guided to where the greatest need is and have been able to stay focused on what their true mission is.
I invite you this morning to consider what the needs are of your community today. How can you listen to what your community is saying it needs the church to be? How can you as a church respond to those needs?
Throughout his ministry, Jesus used a lot of metaphors to talk about the kingdom of God. In today’s reading, he refers to the Kingdom of God as a mustard seed, yeast, a hidden treasure, a pearl and a fishing net. I don’t know if Jesus told all of these parables back to back like it is in the reading or if the writer of Matthew connect them together himself, but these various images of the Kingdom of God shows that the Kingdom of God can be found in many forms and in many places, sometimes it even comes in unlikely forms and in unlikely places.
Take for example, the mustard seed. The mustard seed creates a plant that can become a weed. It grows quick and is pervasive, very quickly taking over an entire area – taking space and nutrients from the plants around it. As one description of mustard seed puts it, “Mustard is a tiny seed with a lot of spunk. It will grow just about anywhere, is rarely bothered by pests, and is prolific to boot.”
Yeast can be viewed in a similar way. When you mix yeast into the flour, it affects all the flour it comes into contact with, transforming the dough into something it wasn’t before it came in contact with the yeast.
Jesus is saying two things with these metaphors. 1) The Kingdom of God effects everything that is comes into contact with and changes it into something different and new 2) The kingdom of God is in everything, even in the most unlikely places, like among the weeds, in a piece of leavened bread, or among people on the streets.
I’ve seen the kingdom of God in some unlikely places. One of those places is inside the prisons. Some of the state prisons have gardening programs and the inmate plants vegetable and flower gardens throughout the prison grounds. They plant everything from pansies and petunias to sunflowers. Some of the flower stalks grow as large as you and I. The plants and flowers change the environment of the prison grounds from bleak and dreary to bright and colorful. Many staff and inmates feel that the flowers bring a calmer and more positive atmosphere to the prison.
The inmates also plant Morning Glory, which is a vine and like the mustard seed is prolific and grows everywhere. As vines do, the Morning Glory grows up to the top of the fences in the prison covering the fences so that you couldn’t see through them. One day, the Correctional Officers told the inmates that the plants couldn’t block the visibility of the fence and that the inmates would have to tear all the Moring Glory down. Disappointed, the inmates tore down the all the Morning Glory; however, there was a section that was too high for them to reach. So it stayed on the fence, but it was detached from any root system it needed. That piece of Morning Glory continued to live and stay green for days, perhaps weeks afterward. Even the flowers that had bloomed on that piece of the vine remain alive for several days after. I don’t really remember how long the plant survived, but it was long enough that whenever the inmates walked by that section of fence, they would see that Morning Glory still alive despite the efforts to tear it down.
That small plant spoke volumes to the inmate. It showed them that life exists even when death is around them. It represented the presence of a higher power, a presence greater than themselves, the prison staff and even the prison itself. They saw God’s presence in that small, flowering vine. This is how the inmates interpreted the survival of that small piece of plant.
That Morning Glory reminds me of the mustard seed in Jesus parable. It grew out of control in a way that made it interfere with the normal functioning of the prison, but its presence, especially that little piece high up on the fence, showed the inmates and perhaps some of the prison staff that God was present even there in the prison, a place that is often so negative and dark that it is hard to imagine God being present at all. But there is was. That one small reminder that God is with us no matter where we are. Like the mustard seed, a small thing can have a big impact.
Jesus uses these metaphors to show people that God is present in the common things that we encounter in our every daily life. A plant that is also a weed, a treasure hidden in a field, a single mother struggling to make ends meet, a person living in prison or on the street whose brokenness reflects the face of Christ, and in each and every one of us. God is present no matter what anyone experienced in life and what their life circumstances are. These are all the unlikely places where we encounter the Kingdom of God.
These metaphor are also strange and unexpected. They are meant to jar us out of our conventional wisdom and look at the world in a different way. One of the blogs I like to read is called The Walking Dreamer written by Allen Brehm, a Presbyterian minister. In one of his blog posts, Brehm says, God’s realm of justice, peace and freedom in this world is something unexpected. It works contrary to our expectations. Conventional wisdom says that using humility, self-sacrifice and mercy to transform the whole world isn’t the way the world works. In our world money talks. Might makes right. Nice guys finish last. Those who lay down their lives for others become doormats. Humility means weakness. Mercy means being taken advantage of. In a world that works like that, Jesus’ vision of a new realm that would bring justice, peace and freedom seems ludicrous.
Even those who identify themselves as disciples of Jesus often adopt the means of this world to “force” theirs issue. Not content to just continue sowing Gospel seeds, waiting patiently for the harvest, leaving the outcome vulnerable to circumstance, with no guarantees but the promise of faith and hope, many who call themselves Christian take the shortcuts that they see working in this world. They try to guarantee the success of God’s realm by shrewd calculation and slick marketing. They try to ensure the success of their Gospel seeds by any means, including manipulation and deceit. But what they miss is the truth that you cannot promote the justice, peace and freedom of God’s realm by methods that are unjust and unpeaceful and unfree. You may find some success by those means, but it will not be God’s realm that you are promoting. It will much more likely be something of your own devising.
In the midst of all this, Jesus’ strange parables remain as an encouragement to those who will wait in faith and hope. Just like presence of the Morning Glory, the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast in the dough suggest that, despite all obstacles, God’s realm of justice, peace and freedom is here; it is real among us now. These parables point to the promise that one day God’s realm will define all of life in this world. As unlikely as that may sound, Jesus was no fool. I think he knew that his message about God’s realm was unlikely at best—as unlikely as the success of weeds and leaven—and at worst it came off as ludicrous. The “kingdom” that he brought to the people who were looking for it was something different entirely from what they were expecting. What I’ve learned in life is that sometimes something unexpected can be more satisfying than anything we could have imagined. When and where and how we least expect it, God’s justice, God’s peace, and God’s freedom break out in this world in unlikely ways and unlikely places.
This is another joint sermon. It was written with a close friend of mine named John. I got to know John while he was incarcerated at the Concord Prison. He filled in for the Chaplain after the Chaplain moved on to San Quentin and we started writing sermons together. This sermon is different than the healing sermon I did two weeks ago. That sermon I started, John added his comments and I put it all together. This time John started the sermon and I added my reflections to it. A lot of this comes from John.
Miracles are an important part of Christianity and Christian life. If we are to believe that God’s love is present throughout our lives, then miracles are a visible sign of God’s love in our life. Though not all prayers are answered, answered prayers are a part of the miracle dynamic. Miracles and answered prayers are promises that Jesus has made to us as revealed in scripture. The Gospel of John 14:13-14 says to ask for what you need in the name of Jesus and it will be done. In verse 16:24, Jesus re-emphasizes that asking in His name will bring joy. Often, an answered prayer, or a miracle, brings joy.
So how about the miracles that come our way, that we don’t even ask for? Miracles are God’s grace, a reminder that God is thinking of us – even when we aren’t in touch with God. How often do we recognize these miracles as well – miracles? How often do we hear the words lucky, fate, or coincidence; as if trying to separate these miracles from God? What do we consider a miracle? Does a miracle have to be so opulent, so over the top to be considered a miracle or can someone offering a smile or seeing a beautiful sunset be considered a part of God’s love?
This reminds me of a miracle that I almost missed. Several years ago, while I was in seminary, I took a course on children’s Christian education. One of the assignments I had was to interview children about how they understood God. I interview a co-worker’s daughter. I remember her daughter telling me about a time when she was on an airplane and when she looked out the window, she saw the hand of God in the clouds. I told one of my classmates about this and she said that a boy she interviewed looked up into the clouds and said that he saw the hand of God.
For years, I kept thinking about the hand of God and I wondered why I had never seen it. I’ve had my fair share of inspirational and even miraculous moments, especially in nature, but I had never seen the hand of God. For years, I kept wondering why I had never seen the hand of God and even became envious of these children who had seen the hand of God, while I hadn’t.
A few years later, I was driving down Rt 2, and I noticed that the clouds had a very unusual pattern. They were almost feathery looking. I don’t recall ever seeing clouds that looked like this before and they were fascinating. I kept looking up at the clouds as I was driving. Suddenly, some of the clouds changed shape and they looked like the side of a cupped hand. I thought about the hand of God in the clouds, but I decided that my mind was playing tricks on me and I was just seeing things.
The shape of the hand turned back into clouds, and I thought yep, I’m just seeing things. Then the clouds turned back into the shape of a hand. I was still doubtful of what I was seeing. The clouds continued to change back and forth from clouds into the shape of a hand, and back to clouds. I continue to watch this transformation until my mind finally said, “That is the hand of God.” Immediately, the shape of a hand turned back to clouds and stayed that way.
This moment has always stayed with me, and I really believe that it was God’s way of showing me not only that God was present all around me, but that God knew the desires of my heart even desires I had never spoken out loud.
I also think about how easy it would have been to just think that it was all in my mind and not a sign from God, and I wonder how many other signs I may have missed because I doubted or wasn’t paying attention.
John told me that for a solid decade, while incarcerated at Concord, he kept a record of daily miracles and answered prayers in several volumes. He found that on the days when he wasn’t feeling God’s love, he would open up one of these books and be reminded that Jesus was always taking care of him – that Jesus was right there by his side. Recently, when he was transferred to Shirley Maximum Security Prison, he began that ritual again. In no time, despite being thrown to the roaring lion, Jesus was right there providing people for his protection, friendship and evangelization. When the DA transferred him to the Middleton Jail, the miracles never ceased. John says that Satan can’t hide or mask the miracles that Jesus sends us. Only we can stop the miracles when our secular vision prevents us from seeing and accepting the gifts from above. I asked earlier what is considered a major miracle and what is considered a minor miracle? Maybe our friend Bartimaeus in the Gospel of Mark can help us.
In the story of Bartimaeus, what is the minor miracle and what is the major miracle that occurs? It’s kind of a trick question. Bartimaeus is lined up to see who Jesus is, but unlike all the secular observers, Bartimaeus has a spiritual view despite his physical blindness. Though he can’t see Jesus, Bartimaeus can see that Jesus is from the line of King David, and just in case Jesus doesn’t catch wind of Bartimaeus’ plea for pity, a second call is made, “Son of David, have pity on me.” Even though Bartimaeus has spiritual insight his secular need to call a second time should never be needed if he is calling for Jesus.
Jesus calls Bart and immediately Bart springs forth throwing off his only cloak to join Jesus on the road. Bart approaches Jesus, but not before the secular world tries to silence Bart. Isn’t that a normal reaction from the secular world. They are in such misery not having God in their lives that they don’t want Bart to be well. Raise your hand if you have experienced that. You might have felt that in making your decision to come here today. People may ask why you go to church or say “You didn’t used to go to church,” but as John says “you’re right, I didn’t, but I wasn’t well then either.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks. How many have been privileged to hear those words? If you haven’t, we need to change that. Right now, make the same request that Bartimaeus is about to make. Teacher, I want to see. That’s it! Transform your secular view to the spiritual world and you will see an endless supply of miracles. No more secular blindness. Just the pure unadulterated love of God. Bartimaeus can see. I want that for everyone here. Jesus tells Bartimaeus “Go your way, your faith has healed you.” So let’s answer one of the earlier questions. What was the major miracle and what was the minor miracle? Both answers are in verse 52. Jesus said, “Go, your faith has healed you.” Immediately Bart received his sight and followed Jesus along the way. If you said that Bartimaeus’ renewed eyesight was the major miracle, you wouldn’t be completely wrong. However, I say regaining eyesight is the minor miracle in this story. The major miracle is that Bart is told by Jesus to go his own way, but Bart instead follows Jesus. He will now see things happen he never thought possible. That’s a great miracle. The secular miracle of gaining eyesight leads to the spiritual eyesight of seeing all that Jesus has for us.
I invite you to ask Jesus for sight. Not for physical sight but for spiritual sight. Where is God leading you, this church, this community right now? What miracles or inspirations from God are around you right now? What miracles or inspirations have passed you by? If God were to take all of your missed miracles and put them in a box, how big would that box be? Would it be a small box big enough to only hold a few missed miracles, or would it be an enormous box, so large you would need a ladder to get to the top of it? You are in a place right now to decide which path you will take. These miracles might be a call to follow Jesus on the way.
I’m sure everyone has heard the story of the good Samaritan. This story is generally viewed as saying that if someone needs your help, you should help that person. However, this story is saying much more than that. The fact that a Samaritan stops to help the injured person when others did not is key to the story.
In Jesus’ time, the Israelites and the Samaritans had a long history of bad relations. The Samaritan were half Jewish and half Gentile. The Samaritans had their own temple, their own Torah and their own way to worship. Both Jews and Samaritans believed their religion was the correct one. Because of this, there was a long history of hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans. Neither generally interacted with one another. That’s what makes the parable of the good Samaritan so significant. While the religious figures, the priest and Levite, walked past the injured man, the Samaritan, because of past experience with the Israelites would have been the one expected to walk past the man, was the one who stopped to help him. The Samaritan was able to look past any biases or assumptions he may have had towards the injured man and instead saw a fellow human being in need.
I often think about who in our society is seen as worthy of love and acceptance? Do they have to be nice, pretty, smart, talented? Who fits into the conventional categories that society determines is worth love and acceptance, and who doesn’t fit into these categories? As much as I try to accept everyone that I encounter for who they truly are, I find that I also put people into categories of who is not pretty enough, smart enough, nice enough, not successful enough, etc. I haven’t always shown enough love and acceptance to the people who I put into the “not enough” category.
I learned this lesson from a severely disabled child at the Franciscan Hospital for Children several years ago while I was a Chaplain Intern there. Her name was Salma. Salma was a 12-year old girl from Qatar. Her parents were first cousins and Salma was born severely deformed. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t see, her deformities made her really hard to look at, but she carried within her a compassion that I had never experience before.
I met Salma while I was walking in the children’s ward looking for a child to visit. As I was walking through the ward, I saw a child sitting in a wagon in the hallway. As I approached this child, I saw that the child’s face was severely disfigured. It was so hard to look at that I looked away and immediately thought, not that child. I continued walking around the ward looking to see which children weren’t doing anything. I didn’t see many other children so I went up to one of the nurses and asked which child could use a visit. The nurse replied that I could visit Salma. She pointed the way to Salma’s room and told me she would bring Salma in. I went into the room and waited. After a few minutes, in came the nurse pulling the wagon with the disfigured child in it. I immediately felt guilty for having past by the one child that needed a visit the most.
The nurse introduced me to Salma and suggested I read to her. I began reading a children’s bible story to Salma. After a few minutes of my reading Salma put her hands to her ears and started screaming. She screamed until I stopped reading. Once I stopped reading, she stopped screaming. When I started reading again, she started screaming again with her hands to her ears. I read, she screamed, I stopped, she stopped. This went on for a while until I finally asked her if she wanted me to read to her. She wasn’t able to speak, so she couldn’t tell me what she wanted. I didn’t know what to do. I was lost because my normal ways of communicating through talking and gesturing didn’t work. So I sat there and stared at her unsure what to do.
Salma had a xylophone in the wagon with her, and every once in a while she would reach over and hit a note on the xylophone. Relieve to see something that she liked to do, I encouraged her to keep playing. After a little while, I had to leave and ended the visit, but I continued to think about Salma and how much she seemed to love music. I really love music too and I realized that was something I could share with Salma; something we had in common. So, the next day, I brought in my IPod to play music for Salma. I played some of my favorite songs for her and she sat and listened to them. I was kneeling by the wagon, holding the IPod in front of me choosing the songs to play. Salma had amazing hearing, and she could hear me pressing the buttons on the IPod. She reached out to touch what I was playing the music on. I realized this was the way she communicated, though sound and touch.
I continued to visit Salma with my IPod, playing her songs that I thought she would enjoy. On each visit she would reach out and touch the IPod. Then she got braver and felt my hands holding the IPod. After a few more visits, she skipped the IPod and started holding my hand. When I went to leave she didn’t want to let go. I stayed as long as I could listening to music and holding hands. This is what our visits consisted of the rest of the time I spent with Salma. This is how we communicated and connected through music and touch. It was strange to me to not be able to communicate through talking, but I discovered that through touch, I connected with Salma at a level that I had never experienced before. Then I began to appreciate and later cherish being able to sit quietly with Salma without feeling like I had to say or do anything. I began to look forward to this time with her.
I also noticed that other people had trouble getting past Salma’s deformities. They seemed to feel awkward and didn’t know what to do with Salma. I remember seeing Salma’s father talking to her and trying to interact with her and she wasn’t responding. I said to another intern, “I don’t think he knows what to do with her.” The other intern said, “I don’t blame him.” Salma’s father and the other intern couldn’t see past their expectations about how people should be with one another and missed the beauty and love that Salma could bring into their lives.
Salma went back to Qatar, where she came from. I will never see her again, but I will never forget everything that she taught me. Salma taught me that a beautiful person can be inside a body that is really hard to look at. She taught me that it is possible to connect with someone if I open my mind to the possibility of what the other person has to offer, and to receive someone else’s gift of compassion in whatever form they have to give it. She also taught me to let go of my own assumptions and when I could do that, I was able to receive God’s love and compassion through this little girl.
Jesus tells us to come to him with all the burdens, expectations and assumptions that we carry with us. We don’t need to carry this heavy load. All we need is to learn from Jesus, to learn what he can teach us about humility, love and compassion, and about how to be in relationship with God and with one another. Jesus doesn’t require rules, regulations, and burdensome assumptions and obligations – things that weigh us down and make us weary. We can let those things go.
Instead, what Jesus asks of us is much simpler and much less burdensome. Jesus asks us to be merciful, loving and kind with everyone. He asks us to love God with all our hearts, minds and souls and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light.
So, I invite you to shed the burdens, expectations and assumptions that are weighing you down, and to follow Jesus in the way of love and compassion. I ask you to think about who you have put in your “not worthy” category that could use your acceptance, love and compassion. Jesus said that it is easy to show love toward those who we already love. God will show us how to love those who seem unlovable.
Last week, I talked about Restorative Justice, and how Restorative Justice repairs harm that was caused. Repairing the harm allows people to heal from transgressions cause by others, and from their own transgressions. Today, I would like to talk about the power of God to heal us, even in our most broken places.
This sermon was written a little bit different. It is a joint sermon with someone close to me, who has gone through a long period of time healing his own demons. He now spends a lot of time helping people heal from their own demons, so I asked him for his perspective on this story. His comments are interspersed throughout the sermon.
I choose today’s reading, because to me the possessed man represents one of the most broken people in the Bible. This, is a man filled with many demons, these demons represent many things. They represent spiritual illness, mental illness, drug addiction, or intense physical or psychological pain. These demons can also represent smaller afflictions, such as shame or low self-worth.
Whatever these demons are, they control this man. He is living outside of his village in the tombs. They have isolated him from his friends, family, and other support systems. They have cause him to rip off his clothing. They have even driven him into the wilderness, perhaps the physical wilderness, or perhaps into the wilderness in his own mind. Even other people’s attempts to control him have failed. He has been shackled and bound, only to break free of those shackles. That is how strong his demons are.
His demons refer to themselves as Legion, meaning a vast multitude, but it doesn’t start out as a legion. It’s a development of one demon that is not attended to. It maybe a childhood affliction of abuse that was kept secret, bullying that progresses to loneliness, loss of a job and a hit to our pride. A marriage gone bad. Sadly, we find there are so many reasons to isolate, as the Garasene demon does. Once we isolate, we are left to our own thoughts, which only invite more demons of self-pity, self-loathing, and depression.
Our own demons, maybe not be as severe as this man’s, but I’m sure many of us have gone through times where we felt lost in the wilderness of our own pain, grief, addictions or whatever it may be that binds us. The things that we have tried to shackle ourselves to so that we can control the demons fail, and it seems we are left to deal with these demons on our own. But we don’t need to end up in that situation where we hurt so badly, we seek temporary relief or worse, lash out as a hurt person hurting others.
We also don’t need to be alone. Jesus sends people our way to try to help us look past the pain, but like the Garasene demons we chase them away. The residual pain of what first afflicted us is so far removed from what ails us currently, we can’t even identify the source of that pain without help. Yet, our pride kicks in and pushes people away. Our pain becomes so aggravated we scare people off and we want to hide when the bell of hope and help rings.
But them something happens. Jesus is at the door. Jesus the physician, the healer. Jesus the savior. When Jesus arrives, our demons, like the Garasene demons know who is at the door.
It is the demons, not the man, but the things tormenting the man, that recognize who Jesus is and sees that Jesus has the power to expel the demons, and heal this man. The demons know that Jesus has power over the things that afflict this man, a power that this man himself didn’t have. Jesus banishes the demons and heals this man down to his very soul.
The next thing that happens is that Jesus sends the demons into a herd of pigs who run off a cliff. The pig herders tell the villagers what happened, and the villagers come to see. There’s a part of this story that I missed until recently. I was always so focused on the exorcism of the demons that I didn’t pay much attention to the response of the villagers.
The story says that when the villagers saw the formerly possessed man clothed and calm, they were frightened, and told Jesus to go away. The Garasene individual did not want to hurt anyone. He sat at rest, and it was the people around him, who may have given up on the poor guy, who were so confused by the order of events that they choose to banish Jesus. Like many of us do, when we need to place blame onto somebody or something, Jesus is the easy target. Sadly, by banishing Jesus, the cycle only continues, as the demons see a Jesus-free soul to attach to.
Sometimes healing can be scary. Sometimes affliction is our comfort zone. It’s something that we are so used to feeling, that not having it is uncomfortable. It’s like losing a part of our selves. This can go for our own afflictions, or for the afflictions of those we can about. Sometimes the discomfort caused by these afflictions is so normal, we would feel lost without them.
Healing does not always happen quickly and easily like it happened in our story this morning. It’s often a long and difficult process. A passage that always resonated with me when I went through difficult times was Psalm 23. Most people are familiar with this one. It’s starts off very reassuring “The Lord is my Shephard, He lays me down in green pastures and leads me to still water. He restores my soul and leads me on the right path.”
It’s the next verse (verse 4) that has really helped me through difficult times. This verse says, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley. I fear no evil. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me.” This verse, to me, is where deep healing really happens. Sometimes we have to go into the dark shadows to get to the place we need to be.
I have always known, this dark valley, as “the valley of the shadow of death.” This is the place of things lost and broken. This is the place where things go to die. Not the healthy parts of ourselves, but the broken parts of ourselves. There are things that have to die, or end, in order for us to be reborn anew and healed. We need to go through the valley of death, all the way through, if we are to be fully ourselves, fully whole, fully the person God created us to be. We need to go through the death process in order to have new life.
It’s easy to hang around at the entrance to the valley. Maybe we go in a few feet; stay a few minutes and then come right back out. We know we need to go through the valley, but it’s hard and its uncomfortable, maybe even painful. So, we hover around the entrance hoping that will be enough to heal us. Sometimes, we are dancing around the edges, thinking we’re doing the hard work when we’re only just touching the surface.
But we need to enter fully into the valley, and go all the way through so that we can reach the end of the healing process. We have to go all the way through, so that we can be fully healed.
What the psalm tells us is that God is with us all the way through to guide and comfort us. God does not leave us to walk through the valley alone. Jesus finds us in our most desperate situation, and comes Himself, as many people who have been forced into that dark valley by life circumstances, such as people on the streets or in prisons, have found.
The good news is that Jesus heals. The good news is that when Jesus removes our afflictions, we are not left empty, but are filled with the spirit.
We just have to enter the valley of death, and trust Jesus along the way.
In today’s reading, Jesus encounters a chief tax collector name, Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a Publican for Rome. His job was not to collect taxes to be used for the benefit of the people of Israel. Instead, he collected taxes and gave the money to Rome. Publicans also became very wealthy by collecting taxes in excess of what Rome required and keeping the difference. To the people of Israel, someone like Zacchaeus was a traitor and a crook. In today’s time, Zacchaeus would be the equivalent of a Wall Street CEO who is doing shady business deals with a foreign country that works against the interests of the U.S.
When Jesus comes to Jericho, Zacchaeus goes to great lengths to see Jesus, by running ahead of the crowd and climbing up a tree. Perhaps he knew that he was in need of healing. Jesus must have seen it too, because Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house for dinner. Zacchaeus’ response to Jesus coming over is one of the key points in the story. Zacchaeus immediately says that he is going to make amends for the harm that he caused. Not only is he going to give back what he took. He is going to give back four times more than what he stole.
What Zacchaeus offered to do was to pay restitution to the people he harmed. Restitution is part of a process called Restorative Justice. Maybe you have heard of Restorative Justice in the news. It is becoming a common way to address harm someone has caused rather than going through the courts and the criminal justice system. The focus of RJ is on repairing harm rather than punishing the offender.
The Rev Fred Anderson describes the principles that form the foundation of Restorative Justice. First, authentic justice requires that it focus on the harm that has been done to people and to communities. Second, restorative justice emphasizes offender accountability and responsibility. Third, those most directly involved and effected by a crime should have the opportunity to participate fully in the response and restorative process, if they desire.
This is where retributive justice, which is what our current criminal justice system is based on, and restorative justice, that we often find promoted throughout scripture, differ.
With retributive justice…victims’ suffering is often ignored. With restorative justice…victims’ suffering is acknowledged.
With retributive justice…blame is central. With restorative justice…problem-solving is central.
With retributive justice…the focus is on the past. With restorative justice…the focus is on the future.
With retributive justice…differences are emphasized. With restorative justice… commonalities are searched out.
Restorative justice is a vision of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm through cooperative processes that include all “stakeholders,” including the person most directly affected by the crime (who is the victim), friends and family of the victim, friends and family of the offender, and members of the community. Restorative Justice recognizes that the entire community is also harmed even in a crime that directly affects only one or two people.
Professor Howard Zehr writes that “restorative justice REQUIRES, at minimum, that we address victims’ harms and needs, that we hold offenders accountable to put right those harms, and that we involve victims, offenders, and communities in the process.”
I volunteer with a local organization called Communities for Restorative Justice, or C4RJ for short. C4RJ works with local police departments to help juvenile offenders understand and repair the harm they have caused. Usually the incidents are minor, like shop lifting or, in one case, breaking into an unused building to play a game called Air Soft. Most of the time, they don’t even realize that their actions will have negative effects on others. However, as Restorative Justice is becoming more commonly used, the cases have also become more complex, including incidents such as assault and grand larceny.
Part of the restorative process is to bring all those who were affected together to try to understand what happened and how the offender, or offenders, can repair harm to the victim. Often the victims just want to understand why the incident happened. In one case that was very memorable to me, a group of kids decided to take golf carts joy riding around a golf course in the middle of the night. Things got out of hand and the kids tore up the golf course, destroyed one of the golf carts and cause $20,000 in damages. The owner of the golf course arrived the next morning to the damages. When people showed up to golf, they had to be turned away. The people who worked at the golf course had to fix all the damages. This was a ripple effect was the unintended consequences these kids didn’t anticipate or were aware of.
The owner of the golf course was obviously very upset by this and wanted to understand why these kids had done this. He felt like it was a personal attack against him or the golf course. In reality, these kids just weren’t aware of the effect their actions would have on other people.
In almost every incident, the offenders are not thinking. Often when I ask them if they thought they were doing something wrong at the time, they say no. They often don’t realize they did something wrong until the police get involved.
In C4RJ’s process, the victim, offender, the offender’s parents, the police, and case facilitators, who help the offender through the process, meet together to hear from the offender about what happened and why it happened. The victim shares how the incident impacted him or her and how others were also indirectly impacted. Then, everyone together discusses and agrees on what the offender needs to do to repair the harm. The victim has a voice in what the offender needs to do so that the victim will feel like the harm has been repaired.
Often the offenders do some community service, write letters to apologize not only to the victim but to others affected, such as their parents, and spend time reflecting on the decisions they made that led to the incident. The goal is for the offender to understand the decisions that led to the incident and where he or she could have made different choices that wouldn’t have led to causing someone harm.
Once the offender has completed all the items agreed upon to repair the harm, everyone involved, the victim, offender, offender’s parents, police officer, facilitators come back together and recognize what the offender has accomplish. The victims hear the offenders talk about what they have done to repair harm and what they have learned through the process. The offenders also have the opportunity to reassure the victim that the incident will not happen again to the victim or to anyone else.
In the case of the golf course, at the beginning of the process, the golf course owner was visibly upset by what had happened. At the end of the process, when we all came back together and the golf course owner, who had received an apology from the kids, had a chance to understand why these kids did what they did, was reimbursed for the damages and saw the work these kid did to make sure they never did this again, was noticeably much less upset than at the beginning of the process. He was able to accept their apology and move past the incident. This is one of the benefits that Restorative Justice can bring.
In John 14:27, Jesus says “Peace, I bring you.” I believe that at the end of the process, the golf course owner was able to find peace about the incident.
Data shows that Restorative Justice works as well or even better than the traditional criminal justice system. According to various studies, the recidivism, or reoffence rate with Restorative Justice is 15% and between 30-60% with the traditional criminal justice system. Victim satisfaction with Restorative Justice is 80% and just 55% with the traditional criminal justice system
Restorative Justice does not just apply to crimes and the criminal justice system, but also to heal relationships. It is an approach that can help individual and communities address harm and conflict. Restorative Justice is becoming more common in schools to help kids learn healthy ways to deal with conflict. It has been used in prisons to help inmates and violent offenders learn healthier way to deal with conflict. It has been used in various countries to respond to genocide and civil war. And it was part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to bring healing to South Africa after apartheid.
You may have noticed that I’ve said repair the harm a lot because this is the focus of RJ and this is the focus of how Zacchaeus responded to Jesus. Jesus told Zacchaeus that salvation had come to him because of his willingness to repair the harm that he had caused.
As I thought about Restorative Justice over the past few days and the struggles that this country is going through. I started wondering what would it look like if people listened to one another about how the current dynamics are affecting them and their communities. If people listened to one another about how the harm they have experienced could be repair. What if Restorative Justice could bring healing to our nation, communities and families. What if Restorative Justice was the way to salvation and new life? What if Restorative Justice was our way forward?
I have often heard people say that they think of me when they hear the passage from Matthew where Jesus says that when you visit someone in prison, you are visiting Jesus. However, the passage that most reminds me of my own experience in the prisons is the conversion of Saul, who later became Paul. Like Saul, I was zealous against people who I thought were a danger to society. I thought that all people in prison were a danger and that everyone was safer if we just kept these people locked away. However, when I started entering the prisons, instead of finding dangerous men, I found hurting and broken people. I encountered Christ in each suffering and broken person that I met and came to realize that by creating more suffering for these people, I was in effect persecuting Christ. The scales began to fall off my eyes and I began to see suffering and humanity in a whole new way.
This morning, I would like to talk about my experiences, my own transformation, and the experiences of the men that I have gotten to know. These men have worked to repair the harm they have caused, to grow and be better people. These are the stories that don’t often get told. I often feel I am one of the few voices people in prison have. I would like to share their stories with you and give them a voice. I hope my experiences can bring you hope and light this morning.
I first began to visit the prisons in the fall of 2008. I started a meditation group in the Concord medium security prison and ran the group for about two and a half years. When I first began running this group, I immediately noticed things weren’t as I expected. The men coming to this group weren’t the scary, dangerous men that I saw in the news and on TV crime dramas. I’m not going to say that there aren’t dangerous people in prison. There definitely are very dangerous people in prison, but the men that came to my meditation group were not dangerous, nor were they scary. They were like anybody else that I knew. They could have been my next door neighbor, a co-worker or even a friend. As I got to know these men better I realized that they were in fact someone’s neighbor, co-worker, friend, father, brother, and husband.
During the time I spent in the prison, I got to know Jack who got addicted to Oxycontin after a back surgery. When he could no longer get a prescription, he started buying Oxycontin on the street and then realized he could make a lot of money selling it. Then there was Antonio from Sicily, whom I felt a camaraderie with because of my own Italian roots. Antonio burnt down one of his restaurants for the insurance money and was sentenced to three years for arson. Another man in my group, Jason, got in a fight with someone harassing his sister. He knocked the man unconscious and his sister then stole the man’s wallet. Both Jason and his sister spent some time in prison for assault and robbery. The most unexpected of all was Tee who was serving two life sentences for a crime committed twenty years earlier. He was one of the most joyful people I had ever met and would often draw me pictures of Garfield and Tweetybird. There were also a few men, like Scott and Ray, who were repeat violent offenders trying to make an effort to improve their lives. All of these men were like overgrown kids who had become lost, broken, and abandoned. Overtime, they would become like my own children. I would worry when they struggled, ask about them if I hadn’t seen one of them in a while and listen to their hopes and dreams.
I can honestly say that I am a better person from having spent time with the men in Concord. Their encouragement and acceptance of myself helped me to become the person that I am today. The faith and confidence they placed in me to guide them to a better life helped me to have faith and confidence in myself. Hearing their gratitude to be alive or the fact that even though they had lost everything, they were better off than they had been before coming to prison helped me to re-evaluate my priorities. The little things that I often took for granite no longer seemed so important, and I found more joy and gratitude with what was already present in my life.
In the prison, scripture also came alive in ways it never had before. I used to joke that I’m going to write a book titled, “Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Jesus I Learned in Prison.” Unfortunately someone has already beaten me to that title, but there is a lot of truth in it. Jesus’ life and death, and the struggle of the early Christian community took on a whole new meaning for me in the light of prison, incarceration and death row. Thought I have never met anyone on death row, I have heard that many death row prisoners identify with Jesus’ arrest and execution. A lot of prisoners can also strongly relate to the struggles of the Apostle Paul. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard prisoners remind me and one another that the Apostle Paul spent many years in prison. These are the things that the men hold on to so that they can overcome their feelings of worthlessness and maintain some sense of dignity.
Watching the men at Concord form and develop their own sense of Christian community taught me what it means to be a church. Like the early Christians, I watched the men in Concord struggle to form a community, fall apart in times of crises and struggle to come back together. Like the early Christians who were forming churches in a time and place where they were not the majority religion and often found themselves harassed and persecuted, the fledgling Christian community in Concord found itself the minority within a hostile and oppressive environment. During the times when their community began to fall apart, I became like the Apostle Paul, encouraging the men that they are all one in Christ and urging them to keep the community together.
It was especially important for these men to maintain cohesion within their new community so that they could support and encourage one another to continue in the Christian life. Just as I’m sure it would have been easier for some of the early Christians to abandon their new way of life together and go back to the ways of the culture around them, it would have been easier for the men in Concord to go back to the hostile and violent ways of the prison. However, they knew that was not the kind of life they wanted for themselves and the people they cared about. So they supported one another in their efforts to continue in their new life together, and over time this new community became stronger and began to be a light within the darkness of the prison showing other prisoners and the guards a new way to live.
The similarities to the Christian story don’t pass these men by. Some of the men pointed out to me that they are like Paul writing to various communities offering encouragement and hope. Others who have been transferred from one prison to another start up Bible studies and prayer groups in each place they stop. They see the similarities with the early Apostles who travelled throughout the region starting new churches.
Despite everything that I have learned and all the wonderful experiences I have had with the prisoners, ministering to prisoners has been a bittersweet experience. The joy that I experience is frequently met with heart ache and struggle. Over the years, I watched dedicated volunteers get barred from volunteering without being given a reason why. I watched inmates after years of working hard to improve themselves get turned down for parole because they hadn’t done enough. I watched funding that in previous years went to provide mental health and addiction recovery treatment to women diverted to expand prisons for women despite the fact that 90% of women in prison suffer from mental health issues and addictions. I watch the Christian community in Concord fracture, fall apart, and struggle to come back together again.
Over the years, I also learned a lot that I didn’t know before going into the prisons. I learned that the mistakes we make continue to define us into the future. I learned that those who enter the prisons eventually have to pick a side. My focus was to help the inmates, so it appeared to some that I had picked the side of the inmates. I was told I picked the wrong side. I also learned that while the United States has 5% of the world’s overall population, it has 25% of the world’s prison population, and that the size of the prison population in the United States is surpassed only by the former Soviet Union and South Africa during Apartheid. I learned that a system designed to enhance public safety doesn’t always work with the public in mind.
I no longer run the meditation group in Concord. I have gone from volunteer to visitor, visiting men and women in various prisons in the area. Visiting is a different experience than volunteering. Instead of spending most of my time at the prison sitting with the inmates, I started spend most of my time at the prison sitting in the waiting area with the friends and families of the prisoners. The waiting area needs a chaplain. I’ve sat with women struggling to watch their small children while they make sure that they are following the strict guidelines of the dress code. The dress code is for security reason; however, it’s very detailed and easy to miss something. It’s not unusual that after a long wait, and finally being brought into the search area, called the trap, they are sent back out again because they are wearing knit pants, shorts under their skirt or some item of clothing that doesn’t follow the dress code. They have to fix their clothing and then it’s another wait with young children and babies until they are brought into the trap again. After awhile you learn the routine and things go smoother, but, many times, there has been a long wait. There were days where I waited three hours to get in only to have five minutes remaining of visiting time.
Over time, I noticed that the longer the wait is in the waiting room, the great the sense of despair. I had heard about the despair in prisons, but I never felt it until I began sitting in the waiting room. There is a palatable sense of despair that overcomes people. Even I have struggled with this sense of despair. So, I’ve tried to bring something positive to the experience. Recently, after waiting three hours to get in, I looked at the woman next to me and said, “It’s usually like this.” She said to me, “You are smiling” and I said, “What else can I do?” I can smile or I can feel the despair.
The men at concord have frequently told me that they miss the light that I bring into the dark place. This light shows them that God is present. That’s why it is important to them that I am there. That light is also needed in the visiting room, in the waiting room and everywhere else in the prison. So, my goal is to continue to bring light into the prison, in any way that I can.
Occasionally I ask myself, with everything that I have seen and experienced, “Would I do it again.” The answer is yes, every minute of it and I wouldn’t change a thing. Despite the challenges and sometimes heart aches that come with prison ministry, the sense of joy and fulfillment are profound. So I say to you just as Jesus said to his followers, “Follow me.” Follow me into the prisons. If you do, you will be profoundly changed and you will never look back again.
When I looked at the lectionary scriptures for this Sunday my first thought was to skip the lectionary! -They seemed so negative, so troubled and despairing. I thought, there is no way I can relate these to my last sermon here in Baldwinville! After I thought about it for a while, I decided the contrast and connections with the passages were too great to pass up.
Jeremiah is the consummate prophet. He feels the weight of God’s message heavy on him. To say the least, he is not popular. The leaders of the nation see him as disloyal, to the extent that they consider him being something of a traitor. He counseled surrender to King Nebuchadnezzar after all. He said that it was inevitable that the Babylonians would conquer them and destroy Jerusalem and the Temple in the process. He said it was God’s judgement for the spiritual failure of the nation; the failure to be just and caring, and remain true to God.
He was ridiculed, beaten, and imprisoned, but he kept preaching. Finally at the last minute he escaped to Egypt. Few clergy are treated as roughly as Jeremiah. -I have known a couple of clergy people who were run out of town over the years for religious/political views, or anti-war sentiment, but nothing like the O.T. prophet. Then again few of us are quite as provocative and daring as Jeremiah.
Certainly, my time here in Baldwinville has been relatively peaceful. From the moment Jim, un-officially, but publicly and exuberantly welcomed me as minister in 2012, -before vote was even taken. I felt a welcome here and an affinity with you. His welcome was perhaps symbolic of your embrace.
While some churches had conflict over the proper response to COVID, we did not. In the strident political climate of the last few years some have found conflict in families and in churches. We have kept that on the sidelines, and you have allowed me to speak the truth as I understand it. Some might have felt I was too measured in my political speech, some might have felt I was a little too direct, but on the whole there was respect for differing views. And I always received more support and thanks for my sermons than disagreement. Ultimately, we all have been confronted by the biblical prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, and Hosea who saw that political decisions that involved moral choices around justice and equality were also religious decisions that required our best spiritual insight in decision making. Thank you for being a congregation willing to look at some of those moral/spiritual issues.
When I look at the Matthew passage, I can’t help but wonder at the pain and division that first century church must have gone through. Families torn apart over religion! -In some cases, it was Jewish families finding children, or other members, leaving the synagogue for this new variant of the faith which seemed to disrespect all the traditional rules for kosher.
In other cases, it was pagan families upset that some were joining what they judged to be a new exclusivist cult, where worshiping at a shrine to the emperor was forbidden! -You couldn’t even call the emperor “Lord.” –That all seemed unpatriotic and in fact became illegal! Some friends, and even families, were so divided that they turned others in to the authorities because of these traitorous beliefs! –And, of course, some of those friends and family were tortured and put to death for the ardency of their beliefs. Can you imagine a little house church with a dozen or two people trying to hold it together having to go through that kind of tension and struggle?
No wonder Matthew quotes Jesus saying something like, “Don’t expect discipleship to be easy! -It won’t be. It will be hard.”
But Matthew goes on to remind them that God is with them, and that Jesus presence is always in their midst. Of course, they cannot know that in another 200 years that Christianity will become the official religion of the empire. In fact I’m sure they couldn’t imagine it. It ought to remind us, as we struggle with the dwindling resources and the dwindling significance of the church in society that we can’t see the future either; we are just called to be faithful and to share God’s Good News with the world.
The next few years aren’t likely to be easy for small churches there will be changes and uncertainty, but God is still God, and God’s Spirit may yet be breathing new life into the church’s future.
I pray that you may feel God’s presence strength as you work towards that unknown future and rejoice in the hope of God’s Kingdom.
As we think about Father’s Day and families the Abraham story seems to fit right in. In fact Genesis is filled with family stories and Abraham is recognized as the father of three of the world’s great religions. This morning we had just a piece of the Abraham & Sarah story. Of course, the bible continues to trace the intricacies of this family history through multiple generations. –One of the things that makes it such an engaging story is that it’s not just their faith and goodness that is talked about in the story, it is all the foolishness and foibles of this family as well. The whole story is infused with laughter and invites playfulness.
The Bible pulls no punches. These are not saintly folks in any usual understanding of the word. –These are normal families with all the crazy dysfunctional problems of everyday families, with faith that is quite often lacking strength, and values that get twisted by emotions. It begins with audaciousness of God making seemingly impossible promises. Even Sarah laughs at these promises in today’s passage.
As for faithless foibles: Abraham as a younger man was ready to marry off his wife Sarah, to another man out of fear that the other man, who was a powerful ruler, might kill him to take her because she was so beautiful. –God saves them both from that fiasco!
Sarah, who laughs today, earlier gives up on the idea of having children and suggests a surrogate mother to Abraham. Sarah tells him to have a son with her maid, because she is convinced she is not going to bear children. Her laughter today is only a part of the absurdity she sees in continuing to hope, or expectation that that she can bear children at this point in her life. –Then once she does bear this Son Isaac, (the name by the way means laughter) she wants the elder surrogate son, the one produced by her servant, out of the picture and asks Abraham to send that mother and child both away so that her son can get the full inheritance! In Islamic tradition, Arabic nations come from this eldest son of Abraham, who is Ishmael and therefore are the rightful inheritors of God’s promises.
Certainly, the biblical story today wants to underscore that God continues to be faithful. God’s promises are sure –even when everything logical says God has let us down, or failed to deliver on expected promises. “Is anything impossible for God?” is the penetrating question posed at the end by one these strangers.
–You may note that even though Sarah’s faith is lacking, and her doubts are abundant, –she does in fact have a son. In the final analysis God’s promises really do not depend on her.
In the continuing story, Sarah’s son, Isaac, in turn has two sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau the older is Dad’s favorite & is a real man’s man. Jacob, the younger, is something of a momma’s boy. But Jacob, in a bit of chicanery, manages to get his brother to giving him the eldest birthright, and with a lot of help from mom, manages to dupe the old man, into giving him the family blessing over his older brother. Jacob then has to run away to his mother’s family to escape his brother’s wrath.
–The duplicity doesn’t end there. Jacob in turn, is later tricked by his uncle into marrying a different woman than he wants to. And then he is tricked by 11 of his sons into thinking his favorite child, Joseph, is dead, when in fact the brothers have contrived to sell him into slavery to a caravan going to Egypt.
And imagine, Abraham in our story today, God shows up in the form of three strangers. It is all out of the blue and Abraham responds with the best of Mid-Eastern hospitality, bowing and inviting them to stay. Note that he tells the men he will serve them dinner, then he immediately goes to his wife and says, “ Why don’t you dig out some more flour and bake some more bread (or cakes depending on the translations) I just invited these three guys for dinner.” In the next breath he tells his servant to take care of butchering the calf and preparing the steaks. –It sounds like a classic case of masculine hospitality! – To make matters worse, you may notice that when the meal is talked about later in the story there isn’t even a mention of the bread that Sarah has had to make from scratch on a hot desert afternoon!
-A little Father’s Day tip guys, this is not the way to win points with your wife! -Maybe you want to bear in mind that it took an act of God for Abraham to have a child with his wife! Abraham ate with the three men, Sarah didn’t join them. She stays back in the tent and listens in on their conversation. Laughing at how foolish they are.
-There are a lot more intricacies and subtleties to the story of Abraham and his descendants of course, but that is the brief outline of family history. –Now, tell me if that family isn’t at least as mixed up a family as yours!
The bible includes these stories not to legitimatize family squabbles and misbehavior but to affirm God working, even in the turbulent, mixed up twists and turns of our lives. Even when faith is lacking…even when we are something less than perfect.
–Even Ishmael, the surrogate son of Abraham is blessed by God and returns to join his half-brother in burying Abraham.
—And Jacob & Esau, the two feuding brothers, embrace many years later. And of course Joseph, the one sold into slavery in Egypt, turns out to save his family from famine as he rises to prominence there. And he reminds his brothers “You meant it for evil but God used it for good”
In some sense Sarah’s laughter at the suggestion that she is going to have a son of her own now in her later years might be seen as laughter at the whole absurd story that follows.
Common sense tells her she can’t have a child, after all she has been trying for years and she knows it’s too late now.
And common sense would tell us that a family so wracked by fighting and intrigue couldn’t possibly be used by God for some greater purpose. –But there it is in the story. God always surprising. God always moving through the cracks in our lives and the chaos of our families to let in the light and bring saving hope.
If God can use Abraham and his family God can use anyone’s! I know it may seem laughable, but Genesis would beg to differ.
Maybe we don’t have to be giants of faith, we just have to go forward with a hope for God’s purposes and a willingness to take the next step! -Sometimes even when it still seems laughable!
God still makes promises for the future and invites us to be a part of them. Just remember, the larger promises to Abraham took generations to fulfill, and even that promise to have a son took a lifetime to fulfill.
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