Sermons

August 17, 2025

Leaning Into a Miracle

I remember once a parishioner gave me a sermon. We were standing in the church office and he said to me, “I just had an epiphany! I figured out what the miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand was. The miracle was the sharing. They only had a few loaves and fishes, and they all shared what little they had with each other. That’s the miracle!” I paused for a moment and then said, “That’ll preach.” I’ve thought about that comment several times since then. And it finally led me to think deeply into the true nature of miracles. I’d like to share some of my thoughts with you this morning.
What is a miracle anyway? I take issue with Webster’s New World Dictionary. It defines a miracle as “an event or action . . . thought to be due to supernatural causes.” Now I realize that such a definition jibes with most people’s idea of a miracle; what I have trouble getting behind is the word “supernatural.” I don’t think the word has any meaning. For something to be “supernatural” it would have to be outside the realm of “nature,” in other words, something that happens in a way that’s not the way things happen in this natural world. So you see my problem? I think miracles are part of the way things happen in this natural world. The fact that we often can’t get our minds around some things that happen doesn’t make them somehow “beyond nature,” it just makes them a little mind-blowing.
And if you want your mind to be blown, just consider the power of this moment recorded in the gospel of Matthew: five thousand people gathered in a large grassy area on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. They had traveled from all around, been there a long time, and it was late in the day. The disciples passed out a little food, and people did not stomp on each other trying to get to it. It is not recorded in the gospel that anyone was trampled, or beaten up, or accused of taking too much for himself. There’s as great a miracle as you can find. People sat together in this huge crowd and shared what they had and what they were given with each other. I imagine many people leaning to pass a basket of food to someone – leaning into a miracle.
That’s the posture for miracles, I’ve decided – leaning. There are a lot of reasons for leaning. And this morning I’d like to take some time to consider the many ways and times and occasions we might have to lean. One of them is like the experience of those who gathered in the lake shore with Jesus, leaning to reach across the gulf that separates one person from another to share a precious piece of bread. That kind of leaning goes against our nature. We’re hard wired by our DNA to get what we can for ourselves. It’s a question of survival. And with the future so unknowable, with tariffs, national debt, and the weak job market creating so much uncertainty, with the ever-present possibility of a devastating illness or catastrophic natural disaster, we all know the wisdom of the old adage: “you can never have too much.” And leaning toward another person to share what you have is miracle enough in my book.
People also lean toward one another to consult, to confer, to share ideas and to learn from others. You see it all the time at conferences, lectures, and meetings – people leaning together to share a thought. That may not sound very exceptional, but I would submit that on capitol hill today it might indeed constitute a miracle. America is built on the possibility that just such a miracle can happen day in and day out, that three separate branches of government, two separate houses of Congress, representatives of different political parties and different constituencies can, in fact, put aside narrow interests in service of the larger interests of the nation, and lean towards each other to govern. There has perhaps never been a time when such an assumption seemed more like banking on a miracle.
And sometimes our leaning is a very personal matter. It can have to do with simple decisions or with life issues. You’ve all heard someone say something like, “Well, right now I’m leaning toward not going.” And what decision we make in any moment can have a significant impact on our lives, or on those around us. Aristotle offered some good counsel as we consider which way to lean. He said, as I recall, “Temperance and courage are destroyed both by excess and deficiency and are kept alive by observance of the mean.” The term “mean” to Aristotle did not refer to some lukewarm, non-committal middle ground; it meant taking the right action at the right time. It is, indeed, left up to each one of us to know when it’s wise to press on despite the obstacles and when it’s better to stop beating your head against an impervious wall. Making such decisions cannot be boiled down to some formula, simple enough to write up in a self-help book. It requires of us that we draw upon every bit of knowledge, instinct, and intuition that we have at our disposal, along with some reliance on that invisible hand of grace, that indefinable virtue of maturity, and, admittedly, a little luck. And when we lean in the right direction, I consider it nothing short of a miracle.
People can lean also either away from or towards that which is unknown, unfamiliar, or frightening. Our world is filled today with people who are frightened by one another because they are different. It all grows out of the seed-bed of fear that is the instinctive human reaction to the “other.” But the prophet Isaiah spoke the Lord’s word to the ancient Israelites and advised them not to lean away from those strange people from distant lands, but lean toward them, and discover them leaning toward you as well. He put it this way, “See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you . . .” When humanity grows up sufficiently I truly believe we will put all of this fear, distrust, and hatred of one another behind us. We’ll learn to lean toward rather than away from our distant brothers and sisters. And to my way of thinking that will be quite the miracle.
Jacob found himself leaning as he walked away from a wrestling match with the Almighty. It’s a bizarre story recorded in this thirty-second chapter of the book of Genesis. Jacob lies down to sleep by the river Jabbok, and in the middle of the night starts wrestling with a divine being who gives him a new name, “Israel,” and who, in the process, strikes him on the hip and puts it out of joint. Jacob regards this encounter as a miracle and says, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” But as he leaves his camp, he is leaning to one side, limping because of his injury. It’s only then that the greatest miracle happens. Jacob, perhaps because of the blessing he wrested from the Lord at the cost of a dislocated hip, summons the courage to come face to face with his brother, Essau – the same brother whom he cheated, and whose birthright he stole. Jacob fully expects that Essau will want to kill him, and he humbles himself, leans forward and bows. But upon seeing him, Essau runs to him, leans toward him, embraces and kisses him. And Jacob, who had come face to face with the Almighty the night before looks into his brother’s eyes and says with the conviction of one who knows, “To see your face is like seeing the face of God.”
Sometimes profound and life changing lessons are learned the hard way. Those painful lessons can leave us scarred or wounded. But they can also leave us blessed by courage and self-awareness. And that’s when the real miracles happen, when we find ourselves free to lean toward an estranged brother or to look deeply into the face of an opponent and see the face of God. In my book that’s miracle enough.
So, what’s a miracle? I think it’s when a human being discovers that he or she is more than a collection of needs and wants and survival instincts, but is, in fact, a child of hope, a child of promise. It’s when someone is so blessed and perhaps so injured by that discovery that they are freed to be more than they are; they are freed to share what they have, freed to listen and learn and to yield where necessary, and to persevere and struggle where necessary, freed to learn about and accept those who are very different and alien, freed to enter into reconciliation, to humble one’s self and to see the divine countenance where you might least expect it.
And freedom is indeed the byword for such miracles. Isaiah got it right. Leaning into miracles is not a rare exercise, it’s not exceptional or expensive. It’s simply what happens when we’re encountered by holiness in the midst of the routines of life and, by grace, respond. Such miracles are readily at hand, and freely available.
Isaiah entreated us to “incline our ears” and hear – to lean toward him so we would not miss his word. Here’s the clarion cry that rings down through the centuries to rattle us out of our well-ordered, self-absorbed lives, our familiar fears, and our dependable prejudices: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” Those are words you can lean on. And by my way of thinking, that’s a miracle.

August 10, 2025

Why Are We Here?

I thought it might be a good time in the life of our church to ask a simple question: Why are we here?
What is this building here for? What are these people doing here? If we are excited about making it possible for us to continue to be the church into the rest of the twenty-first century, what does it mean to be the church in this twenty-first century?
I have some rather straight-forward answers to those questions this morning. First, I believe we here because we are a community of transcendent faith. We have come here and stay here together because we are people of faith, and we work to further the depth and reach of that faith.
Now, if you listen to a lot of the preachers, read a lot of the tracts, and analyze a good share of the theology from the Christian Church in the last century or more, you might be left to draw the mistaken conclusion that faith means believing in things that don’t make sense because you’re supposed to. That’s just the sort of thing that has turned a lot of people off from Christianity. It almost did for me.
I reached a point (somewhere in my late teens or early twenties) of thinking that all the stories I’d heard about things that happened in “Bible times” were a lot of hooey. Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, the parting of the Red Sea, the immaculate conception, walking on water, the whole nine yards. None of these were events that connected with my every-day experience of life. I read the stories in the Bible, and I said to myself, “Self, if all those things were going on for all those thousands of years way back then, how come they’re not going on today?” I was forced to conclude that it was probably all made up, didn’t really happen, just some fancy embellishments on what might have happened if it had happened they way some folks wanted it to – kind of like Santa Claus.
I figured out Santa Claus by the time I was seven. It would be nice to believe in Santa, but the Miracle on 34th Street is, after all, just a movie. And the stories about people being miraculously raised from the dead, and seeing burning bushes and hearing God talk to them were, after all, out of a book. Consequently, I figured, faith is a crock!
I was confused by thinking that faith meant believing things that don’t make sense because you’re supposed to. And I wonder, how many people have been cheated out of a certain power in their lives by rejecting faith because they equated it with such silly and juvenile notions.
If faith were just a matter of believing things are real that you can’t see, or that don’t add up, it would be like the observation of the man who was told by his doctor that his ailment was purely psychosomatic. It was “all in his head,” the doctor said. He replied, “Now, let me get this straight, doc. If I believe I’m well, then I’ll be well, right?” “That’s right,” said the doctor. “Fine, then,” he said, “if you believe you’re paid, then you’ll be paid!”
The faithful life is so much more.
Every time I remember, or again encounter, the story of Ann Frank, of all the fear and suffering she endured as a young Jewish girl hiding out with her family from the Nazis – a story told in a tattered diary that ends with tragic silence – I’m reminded of the graffiti written by a young Jew on the wall of a Warsaw ghetto:
“I believe in the sun,
even if it does not shine.
I believe in love,
even when I do not feel it.
I believe in God,
even when I don’t see him.”

Faith does not mean believing in things that don’t make sense because you’re supposed to. Faith means believing in the only things that finally do make sense in a senseless world! Faith means living into the truth of Christ, and drawing deeply from the well of life, regardless of the cost. It means trusting love in scorn of the consequences. It means clinging to joy in the very face of despair. I believe that’s what Jesus meant when he said, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
And that child, that young girl, Ann Frank, lived out her days in a hiding place of terror, abundantly! Sometimes I truly believe that if the lion and the lamb ever develop the courage and good sense to lie down together, it will indeed be a little child that leads them.
That’s another reason we’re here: to lift up the value of children; in fact, to be like them. Children somehow seem to have an innate confidence in life. They’re born in 5th gear, with the windows down, and a grin on their face. But the cold slaps of reality on the behind quickly teach children to let go of their instinctive faith in life.
In his book on faith development, John Westerhoff talks about an “owned faith” – a faith that is truly yours, not your parents, or your preachers. He tells us that the principle task of developing such a faith is the gradual process of unlearning all of the things that taught you to give up the faith of your infancy. Maybe that’s part of what Jesus meant when he said, “unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Children are born open, accepting, and trusting. They have to be taught to be racists.
Children are born curious and searching. They have to learn how to close their minds.
Children are born with faith as their primary existential attitude. They have to acquire anxiety, fear, and defensiveness.
To become like a child, and therefore a candidate for the kingdom of heaven, is simply to unlearn one’s prejudice, closed-mindedness, and defensiveness. It is not to do away with doubt, it is not to subscribe to a catalogue of beliefs, it is not even to use all the right religious-sounding words.
To become like a child is to run up the window-shade on existence, and approach life with expectant confidence. And to create a place where people can learn and grow and experiment in order to finally do just that, is a wondrous thing, and that is what we are here for!
We are also here to, as Jesus said, “love one another.” But love is really simply another form of faith. Young people frequently confuse love with lust and therefore become jaded when they learn that it doesn’t last. Folks who have been married long enough to ride out some of the major relational storms didn’t bat an eye, I’m sure, when I said that love is simply another form of faith. True love between marriage partners is an attitude about life in relationship, the way faith is an attitude about life in the world. It’s a constant returning, a dependable trusting, and a dauntless caring. Love in any form is like that.
And we learn about it also from children. We should all be moved to tears by the faithful love of the child who relentlessly interrupts, pleads, demands over and over, “Mommy,” “Daddy” because they have a word to share. And even when ignored. Even when given the “I don’t see you. You’re invisible because you’re interrupting” treatment, they keep it up. They will not be turned away. They will not be denied a relationship with you. They will not give up on you! We can learn a lot from them.
And the kind of love that exists between friends can be like a healing balm to calm a troubled spirit. But that also is a form of faith, because every friend you can ever have will someday disappoint you. Every person you trust will in some way’s let you down. Every relationship you cherish will in some ways never be quite enough. Love is that friendship that does not fail when the friend does. People learn about such love in this place.
There is also a love that stretches beyond the close circle of family and friendship – love translated into institutions, programs, structures. Another name for this kind of love is justice. We are not here, as Isaiah pointed out, to “trample the courts” of the Lord with “offerings . . . solemn assemblies . . . appointed festivals [and] . . . prayers.” We are here to “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”
Those who love this church, and who have loved it over many years and through many pastorates, have demonstrated love by their tenacious confidence in one another, their dependable commitment to ministry and mission in the name of Christ, their unyielding gentleness in the face of adversity, and their dependable presence through storms and struggles, trials and traumas. Such love is, in some ways, its own reward. It nurtures the flowering of something within the heart that is very durable and very beautiful.
To create an environment in which such profoundly meaningful ways of loving can blossom and grow is very worth doing, and that is why we’re here!
In short, we are hear to learn. We are here to learn about faith and love. And it is that joyous learning that gives us hope. These are the things that abide.
Is faith “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” as the author of this letter to the Hebrews claims? In a manner of speaking, yes. But not as we often think. Faith is not about disgruntled belief, begrudging acquiescence, or closed-minded compliance. It is indeed about that for which we hope, about believing in something worth believing in, about nurturing the confidence to boldly pursue that which is “not seen.”
“By faith,” the writer of Hebrews continues, “Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go. By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise.” By faith, you and I are called to go out into the world to proclaim the inheritance of Divine Love. By faith, we sojourn in the glorious land of promise.
And that is why we are here!

July 27, 2025

Pray Like This

The Gospel reading for today is Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, and it seems to me that it’s probably about time I had something to say about prayer.  It is not an easy topic because it’s not easily understood.  None of us really knows how prayer works, or even what it means for prayer to “work”.  We often pray for certain things to happen: for healing from disease, surgery, or injury, for justice to be done, for relief of the many ills of society and those around us.  Does prayer “work” if these things come about, and does it not “work” if they don’t?  If that were the case, we would have given up on prayer long ago.  Certainly good outcomes do result, but our overall batting average wouldn’t get us into the major leagues.  So why do we bother?  I think it’s because we have a profound, inexplicable need to send our thoughts, our hopes, our imaginations into the depth of Being and to wait in stillness for a reply.  That reply comes to each of us in different ways but over the millennia we have come to find it trustworthy.

There are a few things that strike me about the prayer that Jesus taught to his disciples.  When they came to him and asked him to teach them about prayer, he didn’t suggest that they empty their minds and meditate as many of us have learned to do from Eastern religions (a practice, by the way, I find very helpful).  He didn’t advise them to come out with whatever pops into their heads.  He didn’t say, as any well trained Rogerian counselor might, “It sounds like you have something to pray for.”  No, surprisingly, he said, “When you pray, say . . .” and he gave them the specific words to pray.  What that tells me is that these words he gave them are important and we should stop and pay attention to them.  So, let’s do that.

He begins with a word of praise to the One he referred to as “Our Father”: “Hallowed be your name”.  We don’t often in our private lives consider hallowing the name of the Almighty, partly because the whole business of that name is so confusing.  The Hebrews considered the Lord’s name to be so sacred that it should never be spoken, or even entirely written down.  When they came to the name of Yahweh in their writing they wrote only the consonants and left out the vowels.  Then when they were reciting the text aloud and came to those four consonants, they substituted the word adonai which means Lord.  Each religion seems to have a different name for the Lord of Hosts.  We often use the word God as if it were a proper name, but it really is more of a symbol to stand for that unknowable, undefinable “Ground of All Being”.  So, with all the possibilities for naming “Our Father” (as Jesus put it), what does it mean for that name, or for all those names, to be hallowed?  Maybe Jesus’ petition here is more like: May the time come when the Lord, by whatever name we use, be universally regarded as holy.

Which leads us directly into a related plea: that the “kingdom” might “come on earth.”  How unlike our prayers that is.  You and I generally begin with immediate and specific concerns.  How many of us put at the top of the list in our praying a petition for the advancement of the Lord’s will in the world?  I know I generally don’t.  And that brings me to one of the things about this prayer that makes me a bit jittery.  It reads like a prayer lifted up on behalf of the whole world.  Not only are we praying for the Kingdom to come on the entire earth, but it is all in the first person plural.  The “our” and “us” and “we” sounds like it means all of us.  Whenever we recite this prayer together I feel quite presumptuous.  Who am I to offer a prayer on behalf of all humanity?  Consequently, I often find myself praying more quietly, and sometimes even almost muttering the words.  I guess that’s the nice thing about Malotte’s choral version; when you sing it like that you have to belt it out, and presumption be damned.  A woman in one of my previous churches came to me once and mentioned that in the Episcopal Church they pray every Sunday for the nation and she missed that.  I think she was lifting up a significant idea.  Especially in times like these, prayers for our nation and prayers for our world are not only terribly important, they are part and parcel of what Jesus told us to be doing.  Perhaps we should be offering the prayer that is attributed to Mother Teresa: “May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”

After praying for the kingdom to come, Jesus then asks that we will all receive at least minimum sustenance: our “daily bread”.  It’s the only tangible thing he prays for.  He does not ask for a Mercedes Benz, or a low interest loan on a new house, or that the carpets that were damaged when the water pipes broke won’t be mildewed.  He asks that everyone get just the minimum they need to survive.  And, truth is, if that were the case all the way around, this would be a far better world.  I think so much these days about the children and babies starving to death in Gaza.  You might notice as well, that Jesus does not pray for health or healing, topics that constitute a major share of the prayers you and I most frequently lift up.  I find that fact interesting.  It’s as if Jesus, the great healer, doesn’t regard prayer as a primary means of bringing that healing.  I’m not sure what to make of this, but it does help me to think about the priorities of prayer.  Most of the things Jesus says to pray for (beyond basic sustenance) are related to broader themes like forgiveness, trial, and the reign and will of the One he called “Our Father.”

Which brings us to a real doozy.  He asks that our sins might be forgiven.  But most of us don’t pay attention to how this is put.  He says (in the version we usually repeat), “Forgive us our trespasses (or “debts” or “sins”), as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  I think you and I generally say these words as if they mean: Please forgive us, and we’ll try to forgive others, too.”  But I like Luke’s rendering because it brings the point into sharper focus.  He puts it: “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”  In other words, we’re good enough to forgive absolutely everyone, so surely you, O Lord, must feel compelled to forgive us!  The point here is the assumption that, of course, you and I forgive everyone who is in any way indebted to us; there’s no question about that.  Really?  I think this is a part of the prayer that should really give us the willies.  Should we make sure we have forgiven everyone in our lives, before we presume to throw this prayer in the face of the Almighty?

Finally, he asks simply that we not be brought to the time of trial.  Good luck with that.  It sounds like Jesus.  He prayed fervently not to be brought to the time of trial in the Garden of Gethsemane just before he was arrested, whipped and executed on a cross.  Humanity is always brought to the time of trial.  So what might this petition be about?  My sense is that it means something like: Let us not be tested beyond our abilities.  And that, conversely, might be like saying: May our strength be sufficient for the trials that come.  Truth is, it’s in those times of trial that we find out who we really are. . . or, perhaps better put, we remember who we are (like Jesus, in the midst of his agony at Gethsemane, remembered who he was).

Ultimately, prayer is about remembering.  In spite of my discomfort, the prayer of Jesus forces me to remember that I am a member of the human family, and as such have as much right, and perhaps as much responsibility, as every other human being to speak on behalf of the entire race.  Prayer causes us to remember our relationship to the Creator, and therefore to the created order.  It reminds us that we are part of all that is, and bear a great responsibility for a covenantal relationship with all of creation.  Prayer helps us remember the needs of the world, to remember forgiveness, to remember the profound worth of the trials of life.

I want to share with you an excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize lecture delivered in 1986 titled, “Hope, despair and memory”.  He writes, “A Hasidic legend tells us that the great Rabbi Baal-Shem-Tov, Master of the Good Name, also known as the Besht, undertook an urgent and perilous mission: to hasten the coming of the Messiah.  The Jewish people, all humanity were suffering too much, beset by too many evils.  They had to be saved, and swiftly.  For having tried to meddle with history, the Besht was punished; banished along with his faithful servant to a distant island.  In despair, the servant implored his master to exercise his mysterious powers in order to bring them both home.  ‘Impossible’, the Besht replied.  ‘My powers have been taken from me’.  ‘Then, please, say a prayer, recite a litany, work a miracle’.  ‘Impossible’, the Master replied, ‘I have forgotten everything’.  They both fell to weeping.

“Suddenly the Master turned to his servant and asked: ‘Remind me of a prayer – any prayer .’  ‘If only I could’, said the servant.  ‘I too have forgotten everything’.  ‘Everything – absolutely everything?’  ‘Yes, except – ‘Except what?’  ‘Except the alphabet’.  At that the Besht cried out joyfully: ‘Then what are you waiting for?  Begin reciting the alphabet and I shall repeat after you . . .’.  And together the two exiled men began to recite, at first in whispers, then more loudly: ‘Aleph, beth, gimel, daleth . . .’.  And over again, each time more vigorously, more fervently; until, ultimately, the Besht regained his powers, having regained his memory.

Wiesel continues, “I love this story, for it illustrates the messianic expectation – which remains my own.  And the importance of friendship to [one’s] ability to transcend his condition.  I love it most of all because it emphasizes the mystical power of memory.  Without memory, our existence would be barren and opaque, like a prison cell into which no light penetrates; like a tomb which rejects the living.  Memory saved the Besht, and if anything can, it is memory that will save humanity.  For me, hope without memory is like memory without hope.”¹

Elie Wiesel gave us much to remember and much to hope for.  But we are like the Besht; we cannot pray if we cannot remember.  I know many of you, like me, are finding that our rememberer just doesn’t work the way it used to, but, thankfully, there is a guide for us. When we come together we help each other remember what truly matters in life. And when we repeat together the prayer of Jesus, it causes us to remember the great needs of our world, to remember the world’s need for the kingdom of holy love, to remember that forgiveness is stamped in our DNA and must be rendered to all, to remember that even the greatest trials in life can be the refining fire for our souls, to remember at last who we are and whose we are.

Let’s sing together the prayer that Jesus taught disciples to pray.

¹ http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-lecture.html.

July 13, 2025

Waiting for Tomatoes

Dadgie has always been the gardener at our house.  Every year, she creates a beautiful garden array of flowers in our raised garden bed planter boxes on the deck.  She used to start everything from seed in the late winter or early spring indoors under lights, but now she starts very few things from seed.  But she has hunted around for the very best plants, and when she found dependable growers, she stuck with them.  Me – I’m lucky if I can tell the difference between a petunia and a pepper plant.

But this year, just a matter of days ago, we bought a tomato plant and put it in one of our deck planters with the flowers.  It’s an Early Girl tomato plant and we have it where we can readily see it from the dining table.  We’re a little impatient, but we can’t help watching and waiting for tomatoes.  At this time of year, I guess a lot of us are waiting for tomatoes.  There’s nothing like a tomato fresh from the garden.

This all came to mind as I was reading from today’s old testament lesson in the book of Amos.  I picked up my Bible and encountered this odd exchange between the Lord and Amos – that’s what got me thinking about tomatoes.  The Almighty showed Amos a basket of summer fruit (I think, of course, of tomatoes – which are actually a fruit, by the way, not a vegetable).  And the Lord says, “Amos, what do you see?” And Amos says, “A basket of summer fruit.”  And then, out of the blue, the Lord Almighty takes off on this harangue about “the end” coming upon the people of Israel.”  And then says, “I will never again pass them by.  The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day . . . the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place.”  And I’m sitting there scratching my head, wondering, “whatever became of the basket of tomatoes?”

Well, a little research solved the riddle.  It’s actually a pun.  The text was originally written in Hebrew, of course, and the Hebrew word for summer fruit is ץ ‚ַק (qayits), and the word for end (as in, “The end has come upon my people Israel”) is ץַק (qats).  So, when Amos says, “I see a basket of summer fruit (qayits), the Lord says, “The end (qats) has come.”  Amos, or the God of the Old Testament, or someone, is just having a little fun with us.

But I couldn’t get my mind off the tomatoes.  I put down my Bible and glanced out the window at the garden.  Visions danced in my head of ripe, juicy, red tomato slices on a little plate with a dash of salt or some fresh basil.  I knew it was the waiting time.  I sighed, picked the Bible up again and read on.

It’s a pretty bleak picture, this basket of tomatoes/end that the Lord has in mind, with the land trembling, and everyone mourning, and the sun going down at noon, and feasts being turned into mourning, and songs into lamentation, and sackcloth on all the loins, and baldness on every head (I kind of resent that last one).

So, what’s all the fuss about?  Why all the trembling and wailing, and mourning and lamentation?  Well, when you get to the climax of the story, you find out what all the crying’s about.  It reads: “The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.  They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.”

So, what is it that brings on this predicament?  Why won’t they be able to find the word of the Lord?  The Lord says it’s because of those who “trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor.”  Losing track of the word of the Lord is the punishment for failing to live by the Lord’s laws of justice and mercy.

I set my Bible down again and scratched my head – still thinking about tomatoes, by the way.

The punishment for not following Divine law – that is, the “word of the Lord” – is that you will no longer be able to find the “word of the Lord.”  And it occurred to me, why should someone care?  If they don’t care about justice and righteousness and mercy anyway, why should they care about not finding justice and righteousness and mercy?  Well, that’s what got my mind off tomatoes for a minute.  Instead, I began to think about The cryptocurrency trading platform FTX that is the latest high-profile financial fraud case laid bare by American regulators. The company was led by Sam Bankman-Fried, who now resides in a U.S. prison after being found guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.  And I thought of a company named Theranos, the founders of which were found guilty a couple of years ago and sentenced to 11 and 12 years in prison. They were ordered to pay restitution of 452 million dollars to fraud victims.  And I thought, the punishment for being cheap is losing a lot of money, and the punishment for not doing your job is losing your job, the punishment for a lack of care is precisely the fruits of carelessness.

Could it be that the Lord is saying here something as simple as: what goes around comes around, that thunderbolts from heaven and fire and brimstone are not the punishment for doing evil, but that we create our own hell by how we live?  Could it be that being ugly towards people just makes a person ugly, or that being miserable consigns one to a life of misery, or that failure to live by the law of love leaves one loveless?

If so, then I suspect the inverse is also true.  After all, Amos wouldn’t have bothered to tell people about his little talk with the Lord and the curse upon the people of Israel if, indeed, there were no hope of redemption – no good news.  Could it be that compassion breeds a gentler and less victimized life, that honesty makes for a life lived closer to truth, and that striving to follow the path of goodness puts one on a very good road?

The Apostle Paul spoke of that kind of good news when he declared that the Gospel of Christ was not only for the Jews but for those who had been considered outside the circle of redemption: the gentiles.  He wrote: “To them God chose to make known how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”  Paul knew it; excluding people from the hope of redemption only leads to more exclusion, and less hope and less redemption.

I love the story about our grandson, a tall, gifted young man named Alexander.  It happened about twenty years ago, when he was in the first grade.  Back then, Pokemon cards were the big thing, and Alexander had a big and cherished collection of them.  He took some of his prized cards with him to school one day to show to his schoolmates.  On the bus to school, he took them out and displayed them for the kid sitting next to him – not a close friend, just a kid who happened to be there.  They went through the cards one at a time, sharing each treasure with the kind of joy that only a six-year-old can muster.  When the bus came to the next stop, an older kid sitting behind them got up, grabbed the cards from their hands, and tore them all into little pieces with the kind of pleasure in someone else’s misery that often times only an eight-year-old can muster.  A number of other children around the older boy laughed and took great delight in his coup.  Alexander was devastated.  His little heart was broken as he looked through his tears at all the torn pieces of beloved Pokemon cards on the floor of the school bus.

The little boy sitting next to Alexander waited until everyone else got off the bus.  He picked up all the torn pieces of Pokemon cards and stuffed them in his pocket.  The rest of what he did we only learned later from his mother.  She said that, on arriving home that day, he said not a word but ran upstairs to his bedroom where he spent most of the rest of that evening doing something.  We found out later that he was sorting through the puzzle of torn card pieces, meticulously taping them together.  The next day on the same school bus, he presented the taped up cards to Alexander.  This time, several of the children around leaned in to see the cards themselves and admired his handiwork.  The older boy who had torn up the cards was now the odd one out – left to stew in his ugly mood and isolation.

Not the sort of incident that changes the world, perhaps.  But one that changes lives – somewhere down the road.  Ugly behavior just makes a person ugly, and caring just leads to caring relationships.

Well, I closed up the Bible and looked out the window again.  When Dadgie plants Early Girl tomatoes, I thought, she doesn’t get petunias.  In the end, you plant tomatoes, you get tomatoes – and that’s not a bad end.

July 6, 2025

Extraordinary, Ordinary Miracles

One of the classic old jokes is about the guy who went to his doctor and said, “Hey, Doc, it hurts when I do this (bending his elbow a few times).”  The doctor answers, “So, don’t do that.”  Something like that happened to me once.  I spoke to my doctor about a spot on my leg that frequently itched so badly that it drove me up a wall.  This had been going on for several years in the same spot.  The itching would come and go, but it was always in the same place.  After relating this tale to the doctor, he said, “Yeah, I’ve had something like that too.  It happens.  It’s a real annoyance, isn’t it?”  I just looked at him and didn’t say another word.  I thought, “That’s it?  For cryin’ out loud, isn’t he even going to examine me, or recommend some ointment, or take a biopsy, or give me a CAT scan?  ‘These things happen.’  That’s all he’s got?”

I guess I know how Naaman felt when he went to see Elisha to be cured of his leprosy.  The prophet didn’t even do him the courtesy of meeting with him face to face.  He sent a messenger telling him to go wash in the river.  Frankly, I don’t blame Naaman for being more than a little ticked.  The guy travels all this way to see the famous miracle worker of Israel, and all he gets is a messenger telling him to take bath.  He figured the guy ought to at least dance around a little and shake a magic stick at him, utter some long, mysterious incantation, smear sacred potions over his body, or have him walk through a blazing inferno to scare away the evil spirits – something, anything, that sounds like a cure.

His skepticism and frustration are very familiar.  The brokenness and afflictions of our lives have often taken many years to develop.  They come from multiple and complex sources, and we assume that they will require sophisticated, powerful, and, as yet incomprehensible, interventions to cope with.  At times, the sheer weight of pain from our maladies and incapacities seems so enormous that it appears unlikely we will ever be free of it.

Such is often the case with alcoholism.  The alcoholic frequently sees life as overwhelming, and the sources of his frustration so intransigent and beyond himself, that it seems virtually impossible to find any solutions.  If someone suggests to him that his central problem is drinking, he scoffs in much the same way that Naaman must have when he was told to go take a bath in the river.  “Alcohol is not my problem,” he’s likely to say, “It’s far more complex than that.  I could stop drinking any time I wanted to.  My problem is with my boss . . . my wife . . . my job . . . my friends (or any of a dozen other identifiable sources).”  To think that going to AA and giving up drinking is going to make any huge improvement in his life is laughable.

It’s the same with many of our “inner demons.”  We often become so used to our habits, hurts, and limitations that they become like old friends.  In time, it’s easy to convince ourselves that we couldn’t live without them.  Surely, we conclude, there’s no simple way to resolve such life-long patterns, so what’s the use in trying?  We scoff at the idea of therapy, or of self-discipline, or any of a host of other possible solutions because we figure our problems aren’t likely to be resolved by anything so straightforward.

And the same is true of spiritual impairments.  Those who feel unknowledgeable about the Bible or religious faith see themselves as hopelessly ignorant when it comes to theological or spiritual matters.  The simple suggestion of actually studying the Bible is readily dismissed, because when one’s lack of knowledge seems so vast, certainly it would take a herculean effort to overcome it.  The suggestion that a person is already an expert in the area of their own beliefs and perceptions about Divinity and humanity is scoffed at as though it were advice to take a bath in the river – “Of what value are my simple ideas when it comes to something so incomprehensible as Christian theology?”

And if a person feels hopelessly cut off from Divine grace because of an enormous weight of guilt – a feeling that they can never be good enough, or never forgiven – it’s virtually impossible to convince them that they are, indeed, loved and forgiven: “The answer to this overwhelming and unforgivable guilt is ‘you are forgiven?’  You’ve got to be kidding.  I can’t accept that.  It’s too simple.”

We want to be healed.  We want to be whole.  But when the path to wholeness is shown to us, we frequently turn away from it.  I think that’s partly because we are so convinced that our problems are too big.  They are simply too large to be dealt with by anything but a miracle.  Well, here’s a news flash: miracles happen every day.  They are virtually bursting out of the ground we walk on, and wafting through the air we breathe.  The extraordinary thing about life is that it is basically inclined toward things “working out” in the end – and generally through very ordinary means.  Miracles are not Divine intervention to overthrow the laws of nature, they are the power of the bias of grace that’s built into those very laws.  Extraordinary, ordinary miracles are the standard fare of our lives.

Do we seek healing from the human disease of war?  Peace will not prevail in our world through the impending peril of a stray asteroid threatening to blow us all to bits unless we cooperate to find a way to defend ourselves against it.  Peace will not come as the result of an invasion from outer space, or any number of other grand science fiction scenarios.  Peace will finally rule on our planet because overwhelming numbers of ordinary men and women around the globe will write letters, hold vigils and marches, keep their governments’ feet to the fire of justice, and demand that the architects of hatred and engineers of violence step aside.  Peace will dawn upon us as an ordinary miracle of hard work and dedication.

There are broken bodies and broken spirits all over our world.  There are countless African men and women dying of AIDS, way too many children going to bed with empty bellies, famines, droughts, and diseases regularly ravaging populations.  We look at these realities and turn away because the problems are too large.  Surely, we imagine, there’s nothing we can do.  Surely the only hope lies in some miraculous new vaccine yet to be discovered, or in some amazing technological achievement that will give answers to questions we can’t begin to tackle now.

But bodies are healed, children are fed, and resources flow, when ordinary people like you and me and ordinary churches like ours give money to relief efforts like One Great Hour of Sharing or through Our Church’s Wider Mission, and other empowering ministries like Habitat for Humanity or Doctors Without Borders, when ordinary folks put pressure on governments and corporations to build the infrastructures of mercy, when ordinary citizens go to the polls and vote into office those who stand for something grander than protecting profits and narrowly defined national self-interest.  Those things happen and will happen because the hearts of human beings, though often dark and greedy, are, in the aggregate, inclined toward love and justice and wholeness.  And that’s a miracle!

It occurs to me that there is one great miracle at the base of everything: the universe is put together in such a way that, even though “bad things happen to good people” (as Rabbi Kushner was famous for saying), in the main, things are tilted in the direction of good things happening.  Every morning that we get out of bed and take a breath of air, we’re beating the odds – because creation is designed for us to beat the odds more often than not.  And even when the odds catch up with us, we human beings so frequently find a way to bring something of value and nobility out of disaster – that’s miraculous!

I was searching my mind for some way to illustrate this point.  I thought of my marriage and how miraculous that kind of everyday love is.  I thought of people I have known who have lived extraordinary lives even in the face of great adversity.  While I was ruminating on all this, I almost absent-mindedly entered into the Yahoo web site the word “miracles.”  In the screen that opened up, I saw some little advertising boxes off to the side.  One of them said, “Miracles online.  Shop Target.com.”  That really fascinated me, so I clicked on it.  What came up was a list of products, most of which were various versions of something called a “Boppy Bare Naked with Miracle Middle.”  Out of curiosity, I clicked on one to find out what a “Boppy Bare Naked with Miracle Middle” was.  I learned that it’s a special kind of horseshoe-shaped pillow that is used to put around a baby to help it sit up for feeding, playing, and so forth.  I let out a sigh, and started to continue racking my brain for illustrations.  Then it occurred to me: probably a lot of young mothers and their little ones have benefitted from that ingenious little pillow, a product of someone’s creative mind – someone who put to use the amazing powers that reside in these wondrous, infinitely complex brains of ours.  And, as a result, some number of children sat up rather than toppling over onto their heads.  Think about it.  Isn’t that one of the most miraculous things you ever imagined?

Folks, if you’re coming to church on Sunday mornings looking for Divine inspiration, and not taking the time to recognize the work of providence in the mailing of a letter, or the divine hand of guidance in the boy on the street corner, you just might be passing over miracles while you’re looking for something more grand.

We live in a miraculous world.  It has been made in such a way that answers to staggering questions are often right at our fingertips, opportunities for healing and growth frequently present themselves in the most unexpected ways, the prospect of justice, peace, and global community is not simply a distant dream, it’s a living possibility.  And it’s all part of the here and now – the you and me.

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy finds herself transported by a wondrous event to a mystical land where she and her companions find themselves on a quest against all odds for those things that might make them whole: compassion, intelligence, courage, home.  Their brokenness appears to be irreparable, though, when the forces against which they battle seem overwhelming, and finally the great wizard who could work wonders to give them what they lack turns out to be a charlatan.  In the end, Dorothy finds herself back in Kansas, and discovers that everything they had been looking for was right there all along.  All that was required was to open her eyes and see the world in a new light.

Do you need a miracle?  I’ve got extraordinary news for you.  They’re ordinary occurrences.  Do you need healing?  I’ve got a hopeful word to share.  You might find it in something as common as taking a bath.  Do you want to see the world made new?  I’ve got “tidings of great joy.”  The world is being remade, and you are helping to do it.

June 29, 2025

Are You In?

For quite a while the poker game, Texas hold ‘em, was all the rage.  I think it’s still popular on poker TV shows.  I’ve never played it (I’m more of a seven card stud and five card draw man), but as I understand it the idea is to run your opponents out of the game by betting everything on one big hand.  The play proceeds one hand at a time, with moderate stakes, and you win some hands and lose some.  But when the person across the table puts all their chips in the pot, you’ve got to decide whether to put yours in or get out.  Everything is on the line.  When it comes to that point in the game, there’s no middle choice; you’re either all in or you fold your hand.

I think the Almighty plays a version of “Texas hold ‘em” with us.  Each day of our lives involves a series of choices.  We bet on relationships, and job interviews, and traffic allowing us to get to a meeting on time, and a thousand other things.  Sometimes we win; sometimes we lose.  We play the markets, spend dollars and save them; our stash goes up and it goes down.  One day we’re dealt a hand full of missed opportunities, miserable circumstances, and misunderstandings.  The next day our cards are all aces and kings.  And so it goes, from week to week, year to year.

But sooner or later, early in life or late in life, it’s bound to happen.  You’re sitting across the table from truth itself, the vast unknown staring you in the face, all of life’s blessings and all of life’s curses are slid in one pile toward you, and the voice of eternity asks, “Are you in?”

That’s what I think Jesus was trying to tell the disciples in this passage from the Gospel of Luke.  Jesus had been at the table, and the divine hand of truth had pushed all the chips toward him: go to Jerusalem to fulfill your ministry, be killed, and make your message heard for all time, or turn back and save your hide.  Are you in or out?  Jesus had made his choice; he was all in.  He had, as scripture says, “set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  Meanwhile, the disciples were caught up in a dispute about a group of people who wouldn’t let him stay in their town.  Jesus would have none of it – no distractions now, the decision was made, the whole game was on the line.

He tried to make them understand: a man came up to him and wanted to join the disciples but he said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  In other words, this is no penny ante game here; my way is a hard choice; people who follow me are giving up home, comfort, everything.  Another potential disciple wanted to go bury his father before joining them, and yet another wanted to go say goodbye to his family.  Again, Jesus put all his chips on the table: follow me, or stay behind.  This is one of those moments in life; there are no half choices, there are no compromises. I’m on my way to Jerusalem to die.  Are you in, or are you out?

Jesus’ words echo the voice of Elijah who had in ancient times presented his protege, Elisha, with the same kind of ultimate choice: to take up the prophet’s mantle and lead the people.  Elisha wanted to go home and say farewell to his parents before following the prophet, but Elijah offered a bit of scorn to impress on the young man the weight of his decision.

There are such moments.  There are times when the usual loyalties and normal routines are dwarfed by an issue so profound, a decision so momentous that all of your spirit, all of your character, all of your strength of will are called upon, and the rest of your life holds its breath while you decide to act or not.

I have a hard story to share with you.  It’s a story about that kind of decision – the painful, difficult decision to follow the way of Jesus, even when it hurts.  The story comes from Rev. Susan Thomas who was, at the time, on the staff of the City Mission Society in Boston that was a ministry of our United Church of Christ, and who once served as interim sabbatical pastor at our church.  Some of you may remember her.  She tells of the murder of a young man, Jaewon Martin, who was in the City Mission Society Afterschool Program.  You may remember reading about his death in the newspaper.  He was killed just about fifteen years ago on the Saturday before Mother’s Day.  An honor roll student in the eighth grade, Jaewon was playing basketball with his friends when some gang members mistook him for a rival and gunned him down.

Rev. Thomas said, “Jaewon was a wonderful young man, outgoing, engaging, really popular with everyone at our afterschool; he loved math, he loved basketball and football.  You could always find him in the kitchen with us wanting to help out with cooking supper or baking.  He talked about how he wanted to go to college and, as a lot of young people do, he wanted to be his own boss someday.  He also loved his family and was often called on to babysit his younger cousins.”

The day after Jaewon was killed, his mother and grandmother, with their hearts freshly broken, nonetheless walked with some local pastors in the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace.  They walked in a march to end the violence.

Rev. Thomas writes, “The staff of City Mission Society was counted among the hundreds and hundreds of people who jammed the overflowing church on the day of Jaewon’s funeral.  His mother was not able to speak during the church service but she did write these very telling words that were printed in the bulletin for the funeral service:

I know I do not want revenge.  I know my son is not the first teenager to be killed in a public place and I know my son was ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time.’  We have to come together as a community because in the end we are all losing at both ends of the gun.  We have to value and invest in all children and families equally.

We are in no way wishing this upon anyone else.  Anyone who does anything different from what we are asking, let it be known this is not our wish.  Please, stop this senseless killing.

I hope whoever did this will have the courage to come forward and seek forgiveness.  Even though the pain will always be there I have a heart that can forgive.  I hope that we do not lose more children.  Have faith.  Have trust in our Lord and Savior.

To my son’s friends – the best way to honor my son is to fulfill your dreams, get good grades, work hard, get along with each other, love each other.  Unite in love together, and that’s what I want you to do until it’s over.”¹

This message from the heart of a grieving mother was crystal clear.  It could not be mistaken by a neighborhood full of angry young men bent on revenge.  Jaewon’s mother was confronted by a greater moment of trial than any of us would care to face.  And the choice she made, the choice to live for love, and for forgiveness, and for hope, a choice that shined forth from her words in that funeral bulletin like a beacon light, was most certainly a critical juncture in her life and in the lives of many in her community.  But I suspect if you asked her, she might tell you that this decision was simply the culmination of choices that had come much earlier in life.  You don’t get to such a point of grace in the face of unspeakable trauma without having already come to terms with the power of love and truth and beauty and goodness.  You can bank on it: Jaewon’s mother had been living for these things for many years.  But a bullet changed things; now it was clear that pleasant smiles and Sunday school platitudes were no longer at stake; the greatest loss, the deepest hurt, the most profound issue at the heart of life were all on the table, and the challenge to live for love and forgiveness in league with the brutal realities of cruel fate had stared her in the face and put it to her directly: “Are you in, or are you out?”

I pray that none of you will be faced with such a public and traumatic crisis.  But sooner or later, the world being what it is, the exigencies and fortunes of life will conspire to present you with a powerful and possibly painful decision.  The eddies and tides of emotional stress will pull you one way and then another, fears and desires will clash, and a momentous choice for good or for ill will stare you in the face.

When that moment comes, what kind of hand will you be holding?  What will you have accumulated in your storehouse of resources?  What will you have been nurturing in your heart?  What will you have been studying, or sharing and hearing about with your fellow travelers?  Let me assure you, in that instant of truth, half-hearted commitments and hedged bets are insufficient.  When the chips are down, half a heart is not enough; the bet is all or nothing.

It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture when so many things are going on in your life.  It’s easy to fall into routines, and see church as just another such routine.  It’s not.  This is part of a high stakes game we’re playing here.  On Sunday mornings we read scripture verses, we sing hymns and say prayers, we hear a few hopefully coherent words from the pulpit; in this fellowship there are opportunities for group sharing, there are times of conversation and times of working together to accomplish tasks.  These are not casual exercises in social niceties.  All of this contributes to your own personal growth, to your spiritual development, to “strengthening your hand,” if you will.  You participate in this community of faith, this laboratory of the Spirit, for this: so that when the moment arrives, good and evil, hope and despair, grace and greed are in the balance, and time and all eternity are pushing a huge pile of chips your way, staring you eyeball to eyeball, and asking the fateful question, asking if you will take the gospel seriously when the stakes are sky high, you will have the spiritual maturity, the nerve, and strength of character to calmly reply, “I’m in.”

¹ From a sermon by Rev. Susan Thomas, June 13, 2010.

June 22, 2025

“No Longer Slave or Free . . .Male and Female” Reflections on Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion

This is a sermon that has evolved. I had originally intended today to focus on same gender and transgender issues. But when I realized that Juneteenth was being celebrated this past Thursday I decided to expand this message and reflect on the issues behind what has been referred to as DEI (diversity, equality, and inclusion). I was urged to do so by the Apostle Paul, when he wrote, only about two thousand years ahead of his time, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
First, let’s talk about the “no longer slave or free” part. The Emancipation Proclamation, the presidential proclamation and executive order declaring that all slaves were now free issued by President Abraham Lincoln, was issued on January 1, 1863. But it wasn’t until June 19th of that year that U.S. Major General Gordon Granger arrived to take charge of the soldiers stationed in Texas and issued General Order Number 3, defeating the last bastion of slavery. That’s the occasion that we celebrate as “Juneteenth.”
But you and I know that the end of slavery was not the end of discrimination and lack of opportunity for many African-Americans, not to mention Native Americans, Latinos, and others. The equal and compassionate treatment of others echoes the teachings of Christ, and is therefore our marching orders as his followers. And equality of opportunity must be a primary value in this “land of the free.” It is that equality that makes our nation more diverse and inclusive, and enriches our culture.
And, Paul says, “There is no longer male and female.” Ten years ago, on June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Obergefell vs. Hodges that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same gender. But now, current members of the Supreme Court are calling for revisiting that decision. And on Wednesday that same Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors.
These are not simply political issues. Gay marriage obviously deals with an institution that has been, for a very long time, an important concern for the church. It is also for many people a question of morality, of biblical interpretation, or of justice.
Ours is an Open and Affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ. That means that we have put ourselves on record as being open to and affirming of all people regardless of their sexual orientation. On the 4th of July in 2005, the General Synod of the UCC passed a resolution affirming “equal marriage rights for couples regardless of gender.” So, our denomination is on record in support of same sex marriage. I know that there is not a unanimity of opinion, however, about gay marriage, perhaps even in this congregation. I know that some will disagree with my interpretation of scripture, my definition of justice and equality, and my position on this issue. That is everyone’s prerogative in a “free church” such as ours.
I feel it is important, however, to offer my own reflections on the biblical, moral, and social questions involved, and to explain to you why I wholeheartedly support same sex marriage, as well as the recognition and equality of transgender people and the whole alphabet of LGBTQ+, just as I support racial equality.
Let me begin by saying that I believe movement in the direction of marriage equality in our society is not a fluke or passing fad. I believe it is the wave of the future. For the emerging generation of young people, it is simply a non-issue; by and large they see no reason that gay people should not be allowed to marry. In time this will, I am convinced, be regarded in the same way we now regard bi-racial marriages, which were once also illegal across America. In 1967, in the case of Loving v. Virginia, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that inter-racial marriage could not be outlawed.
We tend to think of marriage as a bedrock institution, established by Divine decree and unchangeable over the course of human history. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Marriage, like other social institutions, has undergone constant change and revision across many years and many cultures. All one need do is read the Bible to know that polygamy was once the norm. It took centuries for that to change, and in some cultures it never has. The early Christians disagreed about even the value of marriage. Many in the early church taught that celibacy was the only option for followers of Christ. After a long fight, the issue was resolved by allowing marriage, but declaring that celibacy was the superior choice. But the argument persisted for centuries. Catholic priests weren’t actually forbidden to marry until the 12th century. Romantic love, in fact, had little to do with marriage for centuries. Arranged marriages were the norm up until the 18th century, and still are the norm in many cultures.
All of which is simply to say that if there is an objection to same sex marriage, let it not be that there is something sacred about the form of the institution, or that it is fixed and unchangeable.
Some folks argue that scripture makes it clear that marriage is between and man and a woman, or support their sense of racial superiority by saying that in the Bible slavery was common and accepted. They often quote Paul in his letter to the Ephesians. He writes, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.” And in the book of Romans we find these words, “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.” But scriptural interpretation is never, in my mind, solely an issue of finding specific texts to support a position. The larger issue has to do with what principles and methodologies one uses to understand biblical truth. I think the safest ground for undertaking such tricky business is to examine the broad sweep of biblical themes and weigh specific perhaps time and culture-bound texts against those themes. In an interview about this issue one of the great biblical scholars and theologians of our time, Walter Brueggemann, put it this way: “Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said that the arc of history is bent toward justice. And the parallel statement that I want to make is that the arc of the Gospel is bent toward inclusiveness. And I think that’s a kind of elemental conviction through which I then read the text.”
I’m on board with Brueggemann. I believe it is necessary at times to allow the Bible to critique itself. In other words, I think it is biblical to weigh time-bound and culture-bound practices and institutions that are reflected in scripture against the broad moral imperatives of the gospel. James Nelson relates a valuable instance of this dynamic from the Bible itself. He says, “scripture tells us that after Pentecost there was an important first test case for this new faith community of Jesus people. The question was whether a person, regarded by tradition as sexually abnormal could be part of the body of Christ. It was the highly controversial baptism of the
Ethiopian eunuch by Philip. And while his critics screamed that this baptism was in clear violation of the holy scriptures, Philip set aside even the prejudices of the Bible in favor of the Gospel of Christ.”
I would suggest for your consideration that the broad biblical principle of inclusiveness, of acceptance of those who are different – a principle that Jesus spoke of persistently – helps us to look at the cultural practices of the time in which the scriptures were written in a different light – including the place of foreigners, or people who seem different, or the practice of marriage.
So, anyone may legitimately argue that they interpret scripture differently, that they use a different biblical hermeneutic. But I would suggest to them simply this: do not try to claim that it is the only way to read scripture.
This leaves us with one final objection to same sex marriage and gender and transgender equality: “it just doesn’t seem right. It makes me uncomfortable.” At the bottom of it all, I think this is probably the real issue for many (if not most) folks who oppose gay marriage or recognition of transgender students, athletes, etc. It’s just too different from what we’ve known all our lives, and somehow that makes it seem threatening. And so, claims are made that it’s not good for children, or that it somehow erodes or weakens traditional marriages and norms. I would suggest that many traditional marriages do an adequate job themselves of damaging children and contributing to their own erosion of norms without the assistance of a same sex couple down the street.
It is understandable that people find this difficult, that they feel a strong inner resistance to accepting something that goes against what they have learned from childhood. No one can argue that such feelings are unnatural or inexplicable. They are reflected in our instinctive response to other races as well. I entirely understand them; I have known those feelings myself.
But gender, same-gender, transgender acceptance and racial equality are, in the final analysis, all a matter of justice. It’s about people – people we know, people in our families, our friends. Regardless of peoples’ discomfort about being in close contact with those who don’t look like them, or act like them, separate is not equal. Separate schools are not equal schools, separate institutions are not equal institutions, and separate opportunities are not equal opportunity. That makes this simply a matter of equal rights under the law. And here is my thesis: justice trumps feelings of discomfort.
So, the ongoing efforts to integrate diversity, equality and inclusion, or DEI, into our workplaces, schools, and other institutions has been recently under fire. And it’s true that in some instances, policies put in place under these initiatives have been less than effective. But the impetus behind them is simply this: to make America live out its high ideals of freedom and equality for all its people. And I think the Apostle Paul gave us a pretty good starting point for that.
Well, I may not have changed any minds, but I hope I have at least caused all of you to think, and perhaps raised a few questions. It is for the sake of those thoughts and questions that I invite all of you to come and join in further discussion of all this, if you choose, over coffee at the tables. After all, we are, as Paul says, all “one in Christ Jesus.”

June 15, 2025

“Sin Boldly!”

If you found this morning’s sermon title a little shocking, don’t worry, you’re not alone.  People have been scandalized by the phrase “sin boldly” for the better part of five hundred years.  It was advice first contained in a letter, written by none other than the father of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther.  The letter was written to fellow reformer, Philip Melanchthon, on August 1, 1521.  In it, Luther writes:

“If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.”¹

For generations, people have been trying to come to terms with this language.  Luther has been cursed by many for seeming to give free license to “evil-doers” and “fornicators.”  But he’s been largely misunderstood.  The words in his famous letter are really only a restatement (albeit in rather extreme language) of the words of the Apostle Paul in letters he wrote to the churches in Rome, Galatia, and Ephesus – words like those we encountered this morning in the fifth chapter of Romans.  Paul writes, “since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand.”

Luther was struck by this notion of “justification by faith.”  It wasn’t what he was being told by the preachers and theologians and church potentates around him.  And it’s not what many of us hear from some of our brothers and sisters in the faith today.  What Luther heard the church saying, and what you and I glean from those well-intentioned Sunday School teachers of our youth, is: “if you’re good, and behave yourself, God will love you; and if you’re truly sorry for the bad things you’ve done, God will forgive you, but only if you stop doing bad things and be good from then on.”  When Luther read Paul’s letters, he was struck by this notion: being set right with the Lord has nothing to do with being good; it was a free gift of Divine grace, dependent on nothing but the faith to receive it.  Martin Luther was scandalized himself.  The implications of what he encountered are staggering.  Going to confession and being told to fast for a year, or to say three Hail Mary’s, or to make an offering of indulgence were no longer, in Luther’s mind, a requirement for getting back on good terms with the Lord.

Even more than that, Luther caught the scandalous flavor of Paul’s words later in verse six, “Christ died for the ungodly.”  It occurred to Luther that Jesus didn’t die on the cross, as I once heard it said, “so that nice people could be nicer.”  Christ died for sinners, not for righteous people.  In fact, there isn’t any such thing as a righteous person.  That was Luther’s point.  He writes to Melanchthon:

“As long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness . . .”  Luther saw that those who convince themselves that they are righteous, those who look down on others because they don’t measure up to their high standards, those who always point the finger at others instead of themselves, are the truly dangerous ones.  It is they who are living in a delusional state, and wrecking their own lives by trying to be something they cannot truly be.

So, he wrote to Melanchthon, “Sin boldly!”  He wasn’t advising riotous and licentious behavior; he was using a rather extreme and attention-getting phrase to make a point.  The point is that because you are human, you are flawed, inclined to error and capable of all manner of evil.  You will do the greatest harm by trying to claim your goodness and rightness; so be bold enough to embrace the truth about yourself; any other starting point is living a lie.

This I love about Luther.  He gives the lie to the Puritan myth – the notion that people can live by such a strict moral code that it will make their lives or their society nearly perfect.  That myth inevitably leads to the demonization of others.  It was just such a mythology that ended in the burning and hanging of many young women in our land who were branded as “witches.”  That danger is not only a memory, it is ever present for those who see themselves as righteous enough to be divinely charged to bring God’s truth to the unenlightened world.  We’ve seen the results of such a passion in virtually countless acts of terror in past years.  God save us from such a zeal to set the world straight.

The psalm we read this morning presents a different view.  The Psalmist is in awe of creation, and especially of the crowning achievement, humanity.  He writes, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?  Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.  You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet.”  “A little lower than God?”  Is that how we see ourselves?

What is a self, anyway?  Perhaps what distinguishes us from other animals is the ability of our minds to transform images and represent them symbolically.  This gives us the capacity for storytelling.  Accordingly, a self is simply a story.  It is the story we tell ourselves, and it defines us.

Maybe it’s the capacity to create images and tell stories that makes us “a little lower than God.”  We can create amazing things in our minds.  I personally have traveled to Jupiter and Neptune, and on to strange planets in the solar systems of unimaginably distant galaxies.  I have defied the laws of physics and sat on the edge of a black hole, poked my head inside and seen the remarkable results of a quantum singularity.  And now, because I have shared these things with you in words, you too have visited those places.  Every one of us is capable of creating things that simply don’t exist in nature, like a three-headed, purple toad with wings.  All it takes is a moment of idle reflection.

We also have the capacity to see into the future, and to envision things that might be.  It was Leucippus, and then his student Democratus who came up with the fantastical idea that all of nature, all material existence is made up of tiny particles separated by empty space.  These were called atoms.  What a strange flight of fancy to engage in four hundred years before the birth of Christ.

This capacity for imagination is an amazingly powerful ability, and it allows us to craft a story that defines the self in pretty much any way we wish.  And that power can transform lives for the good.  That happens when a person sees (more or less) the truth about himself and envisions a path to betterment.  It’s also a power that is frequently abused for evil, when the story that one tells creates a corrupted self-image that confers the power to discount or abuse others.  Those I’ve been most disappointed in over the years are those who stand in judgment of others based on a sense of their own righteous superiority.  So, we are “a little less than God,” and we are most certainly flawed, capable of evil, and in need of grace.

Every one of us is tied to every other human being by an unbreakable bond.  We all fail, we all do wrong, and we are all embraced by unflinching grace and incomprehensible Divine love.  That was Luther’s point, and it was Paul’s point.  Luther wrote to Melanchthon, “No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small?”   Paul put it this way, “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.  But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

I’ve often said there should be a sign over the front door of a church building; “Sinners only.  The righteous need not apply.”  We are not set right by our goodness, or our rightness, or our purity.  We are redeemed and transformed by the pure grace of the Lord of Life who loves us even though we fail each other, and fail the world, and fail that Lord.  That’s the only message we’ve got to deliver.  And if someone is looking instead to be justified in their holiness and superiority, they might as well go somewhere else.  The church is for sinners.  “Christ died for the ungodly.”

“Sin boldly,” Luther said, “and yet more boldly, still believe.”  Luther was not giving us license to live in debauchery, nor was Paul.  They were grabbing us by the shirt collar and saying, “See yourself as you are.  Know that you are flawed and weak and insufficient.  And know that you are joined to every other person by Divine love and mercy.”  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it this way: “If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.  But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.  And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”²

I’m reminded of all this at this time of huge demonstrations, national guard troops putting them down, and great divisions over immigration and government policies. But the story that America, at its best, tells itself is one of a flawed nation, and of sometimes mistaken policies and decisions, but a nation that is, nonetheless, always trying to grow and live up to its ideals.  A clear and honest sense of who we are dissuades us from high-fives and fingers poked in the air proclaiming, “USA, number one!”  We have too much respect for those who have paid the ultimate price to turn their sacrifice into a jingoistic distortion.

What we are left with is a great joy.  It is the knowledge that the capacity to be honest about ourselves is perhaps our mostly Godly trait, and that our shortcomings and failures cannot, in the end, succeed in cutting us off either from that Lord of Life or from one another, because those very weaknesses reveal to us the boundless love, grace and forgiveness of the Lord – something we all share.  Luther summed up his advice to Melanchthon in these words: “Pray boldly – you too are a mighty sinner.”

In the year 1529 Luther wrote a hymn that has become one of the most cherished in all Christendom: “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”  Let’s sing it together.

¹ Luther’s Works, Letters I, Volume 48, Fortress Press, 1963, pp. 281-282.

² Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Fred E. Katz’s Ordinary People and Extraordinary Evil: A Report on the Beginnings of Evil, New York State University Press, 1993, p.vii.

June 8, 2025

Drunk with Fire?

In 1785, Friedrich van Schiller wrote a poem titled Ode to Joy. Thirty-nine years later, Ludwig van Beethoven used the poem as the basis for the final movement of his last, and perhaps greatest symphony, the ninth. The music is familiar to almost everyone. The lyrics? Not so much. For one thing, it’s all in German. A number of years ago I set out to translate Schiller’s words into English maintaining the same rhyme scheme and meter, to fit the music. One of the things that made the task daunting is Schiller’s creative use of language. One line in particular I found fascinating. It is “Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum.” It translates, “We trespass, drunk with fire, on heaven your sanctuary.” That word, feuertrunken, is, as far as I can tell, one among many that Schiller invented. Literally, it is “fire-drunk.” Schiller was addressing Joy personified, and in essence apologizing for the way we tend to barge into its holy realms, trampling on its sacred territory, because we get confused; we become intoxicated by that which we think is joyful, but which is not really joy at all. He says that joy is the “daughter of Elysium.” That’s a rather esoteric reference that, for most of us requires some unpacking. Elysium was the mythological paradise of the ancient Greeks, the place where demigods, heroes, and virtuous souls went after death and experienced the joy of beautiful open fields and athletic competitions – sort of like Fenway Park. So joy, according to Schiller, is that offspring, that product of virtue’s reward. He also says that joy holds a great magical power that binds people together and makes us all brothers and sisters, while the patterns and habits of our lives tend to keep tearing us apart from each other. There is, in this amazing poem, profound truth to be mined. Joy is a powerful, even magical, sacred thing – something that rewards us and binds us together; something to be sought, nurtured, and touched with care and respect. And yet, we so frequently miss it, even trample on it like a bunch of hooligans at the ballpark who’ve had too many beers, throwing trash onto the field – drunk with fire.
I can’t reflect on all this without being put in mind of the story of Pentecost. When the early followers of Christ were gathered with a huge crowd of folks from all nations and backgrounds something magical happened to them: a kind of fire that filled them with an amazing spirit and allowed everyone to be connected by a clear understanding of each other’s languages. Bystanders saw all of this and decided they were drunk – drunk with fire, if you will. They leapt to that conclusion because they didn’t have any experience to relate it to. They didn’t have any concept of what real joy was about. They thought joy had to do with the kind of blind recklessness that is characteristic of drunks.
So Peter tried to straighten them out. “Indeed,” he said, “these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit . . . .” Peter was trying to tell them that this Spirit they were observing was not that which trespasses, drunk with fire, onto heaven, the sanctuary of joy; it is a spirit of clarity and unity; it is clear communication (even across the barriers of language); it is the ability to increase one’s vision, and to craft bold dreams; it is a uniting force that binds together people of many cultures, and even slaves, and men, and women.
One of the chief ways, in our post-modern, American world, that we mistake carelessness for joy is by following too literally the advice of the song: “Don’t Worry; Be Happy.” Sometimes we’re scared away from abiding joy by thinking of it as an escape. But the kind of joy that ignited the atmosphere when the apostles gathered in Jerusalem was not a mindless, happy feeling. There was none of that tendency we’ve seen in days gone by to say that God will take care of everything so we can just relax and let go of any responsibility. Peter made it clear that what they were about was just the opposite of turning a blind eye to the realities of the world, it was about vision, and about having the courage to dream big. Issues like global warming seem overwhelming, and it’s easy to stop trying to make a difference however slight, or to write letters, or organize for change. It’s easy to let it all go and just give up. But Pentecostal joy isn’t about yielding to despair, and it isn’t about “Don’t Worry; Be Happy,” it’s about finding hope in vision, and clarity, and common purpose. Joy is the “daughter of Elysium,” that ancient place of heroes who fought the good fight.
Which leads us directly to another way we get blinded about joy: by making our religious experience into an obsessively personal, inward, spiritual thing. We so psychologize the gospel that we see every lesson of scripture in terms of a sort of self-help program. Before you know it, we’ve put ourselves in a kind of spiritual cocoon and turned Jesus’ message of reaching out and sacrificing one’s self for the sake of others into something that’s all about me. I’m as guilty of that as anyone, and, sadly, a number of my sermons might even lead you down that perilous path. But, trust me, that road is indeed full of peril. Yes, each of us needs to spend some time in reflection, prayer, and self-discovery; the journey of spiritual growth is deeply important, but that journey is far more than an inward thing. Intense and consistent absorption with self soon leads to blindness, a special kind of blindness that no longer sees the reality of other people, their needs, hopes, and hurts, a blindness to the true joy of relationship – that bonding with others that is not predicated on self-interest. And when we become so blinded, that’s when we can begin to stumble around carelessly in the dark of our own tiny worlds and wind up trespassing on the sacred sanctuary of joy, smashing its tender beauties. That’s when we get easily confused and think that joy has to do with momentary self-gratification. That’s when we fail to recognize the mystical power of true joy – that spirit of clarity, and vision, and openness to others that binds us together as brothers and sisters.
C. S. Lewis, in the ironic humor of his Screwtape Letters, has Screwtape advising the novice devil about how to keep his subject focused on himself so that he misses that vision and uniting spirit:
“Keep his mind on the inner life,” advises Screwtape. “He thinks his conversion is something inside him and his attention is therefore chiefly turned at present to the states of his own mind – or rather to that very expurgated version of them which is all you should allow him to see. Encourage this. Keep his mind off the most elementary duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones. Aggravate that most useful human characteristic, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You must bring him to a condition in which he can practice self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office.
“It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very ‘spiritual’, that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism. Two advantages will follow. In the first place, his attention will be kept on what he regards as her sins, by which, with a little guidance from you, he can be induced to mean any of her actions which are inconvenient or irritating to himself. Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees; the operation is not at all difficult and you will find it very entertaining.”
My message today is for all of us – including, of course, me. Life is full of joy. It is joy to be had for the taking. But our world and our culture are full of false gods, if you will, the things that can be so easily mistaken for paths to joy. They are put in front of you like a smorgasbord: self-absorption, chemical escape, materialism, apathetic withdrawal into the hyped world of media and entertainment. This morning I implore each of us to reject such blinding diversions, to not trespass, drunk with fire, on heaven, the sanctuary of the true joy we seek. That joy is found in community – not the superficial, social exchanges about the weather with polite, artificial niceties shared by people hiding behind masks that so often passes for community, but a real place of encounter, where clear communication happens and our truest selves are known, a place where sins are forgiven and growth and maturity is allowed to flourish, a place where barriers are broken down and cultures and histories are shared and respected, where people of different classes and genders find common ground. When that kind of community emerges from whatever mystical power it is that allows it to happen, the result is a kind of sacred terrain, a holy ground, that calls for us to nurture, honor, and respect it’s inestimable worth. That’s what we’re trying to be here: a place of joy.
Over two hundred years ago, Friedrich Schiller figured a lot of that out. I think he had to have been inspired, and I think Beethoven recognized that.
Let’s sing it together.

June 1, 2025

The Power of Being

So, the Apostle Paul gets arrested for, well, essentially being a Jew in public.  The real reason, I suppose, is that he ruined some guy’s livelihood and everybody’s fun by disabusing a slave girl of the idea that she had the power to tell fortunes.  Anyway, he and his buddy Silas get beaten within an inch of their lives and thrown in the poky (only one among many times, by the way, that Paul spends time in the slammer).  So, let me paint this picture for you (and hear it all as if it were happening to you).  You’re arrested on trumped up charges (what we police officers used to call “aggravated existence”).  You’re beaten with rods until your back is running with blood from the open wounds.  You’re thrown in prison.  Then, in the middle of the night, there’s an earthquake and the whole place practically comes down on your head.  This is not a very good day you’re having.  And how does Paul respond to all this?  What’s he doing?  Nothing.  That’s right.  He’s perfectly fine sitting in what’s left of his prison cell, with the doors flung open, and the blood caking on his back.  The prison guard, who was apparently cold-cocked by a piece of falling debris, finally woke up and saw the place in a shambles and the doors open.  He figures he’s going to be blamed for the prisoners escaping and decides to off himself.  That’s when Paul speaks up: “Don’t harm yourself; we’re all here.”  Can you get your head around that?  The humiliation, the torture, the pain, the blood, the confinement, the earthquake, and Paul is sitting amidst the rubble of the day’s disaster, comforting his jailer with the assurance that it’s all good; they’re all just hanging out.  And I want to know, where does someone like that come from?

It’s not me.  All it takes to send me into a tizzy is for one minor plan to get disrupted, one thing to go wrong, one disappointment to come my way.  A case in point: a few years ago, I left home without my sermon.  Now, in the days of living in a parsonage next door to the church building, that sort of thing was never a problem.  I might just walk across the driveway and retrieve the sermon before worship.  But when you’re living forty-five minutes away, it’s a bit more of a problem.  I didn’t realize what had happened until I got into the office and reached into my briefcase for the sermon.  I panicked.  I told everyone to leave me the heck alone, and I went into overdrive sitting at my computer trying to piece back together whatever I could of what I had written.  I was still trying to do this when the ten o’clock hour arrived.  People sat in the sanctuary waiting.  It was like a very bad dream.  When I finally decided I had to stop writing and go with what I had, I printed it out, grabbed it and ran for the stairs.  I got to the back of the sanctuary breathless and an emotional wreck, beating myself up for being so stupid.  And before I started charging down the aisle, a dear, beloved woman of that congregation said to me, “Relax, Mike; It’s OK.”  God bless her.  I’m not sure she will ever know how important those few words were in that moment.  So, my point in telling all this?  It’s simply that the hooley I blew happened because of one silly sermon manuscript left at home.  Can you imagine how I would cope with being beaten, arrested, thrown in jail, and then surviving an earthquake?  I’d be apoplectic!

“Don’t harm yourself.  We’re all here.”  Do those words hit you as hard as they do me?  Do you find them extraordinary under the circumstances?  I’d like to take a few minutes with you to nose around in this story and try to figure out what a guy like Paul had going on, and how you and I might come by an ounce of whatever it is.

First of all, it’s worth noting that the Apostle Paul was radically and dramatically transformed.  He was the reinvention of Saul, the passionate and unrelenting persecutor of Christians.  Suddenly, he finds himself in Philippi with the shoe on the other foot.  Now, he is the persecuted Christian.  He is the one being abused and beaten by “the man.”  He knows how this drama plays out because he’s so often been the one handing out the lashes.  And it makes me wonder if it takes a transgressor to be the one to come to terms with transgression, if it takes someone who is “acquainted with grief” to be the one who gains perspective on that grief.  Maybe Paul had to recognize how he himself was wounded, damaged, by his own hostility and rage before he could accept with the proper perspective the wounds inflicted on him by the rage of others.

It makes me think of guys I have known who were gang members or who spent time in prison for assault, and then later in life, after getting kicked around by the system, beaten up by other thugs, enduring the kinds of hard knocks that only guys in that world know, they have emerged as gentle, even sensitive men, who have an amazing degree of patience and a kind of mellow humor that puts people at ease.  Obviously, it doesn’t happen to everyone, but I’ve seen it more than once.  There’s something about real hardship and trial that can make one come to terms with oneself and find a degree of wisdom.

You and I could learn from that.  What if we took the real struggles of our lives not simply as obstacles to our dreams or disasters to be endured, but as opportunities to see ourselves more clearly, to knock off some of the rough edges, and to gain some valuable perspective?

The second thing that jumps out at me from this story is the prison guard, who has a kind of stunning turnaround himself.  He is at his post, dutifully guarding his prisoners.  And he’s more than a functionary earning his daily wage; he is so dedicated to his duty that when it appears his prisoners have escaped, he is ready to take his own life.  In the very next moment, he pleads with Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”  How do we account for this amazing about-face?  We know that before the earthquake Paul and Silas were spending their night in prison praying and singing hymns, and that other prisoners were moved by this.  Maybe the jailer was as well.  But that doesn’t account for his flip-flop.  He was still a loyal soldier right up until the moment he discovered that the prisoners were still in their cells.  Here’s what I think: I think he was blown out of his socks by the spirit and presence of Paul, this man who could endure all he had and with the blood crusted on his back, sitting in the rubble of his cell, calmly telling him to take it easy; they were all still there.  I think he simply had the same response I have in reading the story: I want a piece of that, whatever it is.  The prison guard is me, and he is you.

We find ourselves devoted to our routines and obligations, pulling on the oars of whatever vessel is driving us through the rough waters of our days, dedicated to the values and norms that define us.  But there is a secret part of our hearts that yearns to be more, to see more deeply into the essence of life, and to be motivated and sustained by higher principles that give us the grace of a certain peace and power.  I think that’s what this jailer saw when he looked into the eyes of Paul, and I think he was prepared to do anything to gain some of that for himself.

Which brings us to the question of just what it was that kept Paul in that prison cell and inspired that guard.  I think Paul was one of those rare individuals who not only had visions, but who had a vision.  He had a clear sense of what the gospel was calling him to do and be, and he had a dogged determination to live into that awareness.  Such vision gives one a sense of what matters and what does not, and it affords an assurance in one’s soul that can’t be swayed by the tides of trauma and trial.  It is a special sort of power.  For want of a better term, I choose to call it the power of being.  For Paul, the stripes of running blood on his back, the prison bars, the earthquake, all were incidental to his central mission, and to the bedrock foundation of his faith.  It didn’t really matter to him whether the prison doors were open or locked shut.  He was where he was, and he was there for a reason.  More than anything, perhaps, he was gifted with the ability to see himself and his world clearly, and to see the divine wonder that lived in every opportunity, even an opportunity born of adversity.

I read some time ago the old classic by Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop.  In the very last scene, the Bishop Jean Marie Latour, is speaking to his friend, Father Joseph Vaillant about miracles.  “One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love,” he says.  “I do not see you as you really are, Joseph; I see you through my affection for you.  The Miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from far off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eye can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.”¹

The good Bishop says what I believe is at the heart of Paul’s power, a power that led him to convert other prisoners, a power that allowed him to endure suffering with grace, a power that his jailer wanted for himself, a power that ultimately cowed the magistrate who had jailed him.  It was the power of seeing, with perception heightened by the love and grace of the Lord, “what is there about us always.”  It is the power of being fully in the place and time that one finds oneself, but with the perspective of a motivating vision.

So, if I leave my sermon at home next week, will I blow a hooley again?  Probably.  But I think, like you, I’m trying to find a better way through life.  I’d like to use the struggles and misfortunes I’ve endured, and those to come, as opportunities for self-discovery.  I’d like to wake up to a deeper reality than the routines, tasks, and worries that fill most of my days.  I’d like to have my life touched by Divine grace and love in a way that allows me to see what’s there around us all the time.  I’d like to expand my vision and embody some of the power that takes whatever circumstance I find myself in and affords me the peace and presence to see it as part of a larger and more profound truth.  I’d like to harness the power of being.

     ¹      Willa Cather, Death Comes to the Archbishop, Vintage, 1990, p. 49.