Blessings, given and received.

Listen to the sermon.

One of our favorite cartoons is “One Big Happy.”  Ruthie, the young daughter, is always getting things mixed up.  One day she goes up to the “library lady” and says something to the effect of, “Library Lady, my grandma reads to me from that book where there are naked people who eat an apple, and this king kills his neighbor and marries his wife.”  And the library lady says, “Oh, you mean the Bible.” And Ruthie replies, “Yeah, that’s it.  It’s like a great big soap opera.”

She’s right.  The Bible, especially the Old Testament, reads like one big soap opera.  I read this story, and I think, “Oh what tangled webs we weave…”  Last week in our reading from Genesis had Sarah and Abraham being told that they would have a son and that from him would come a great nation.  Well, before that (back in chapter 16) we find that Sarah was frustrated because she had not had a son, so she tells Abraham to go in a sleep with her maid, so that he will have a son. Now I get the idea that Abraham was a little hen-pecked, because he seemed to do just anything that Sarah tells him, so he went in and slept with Hagar.  (Sam says it's a matter of "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.")

The problem is that once the maid, Hagar, had conceived and was pregnant with Abraham’s child, she started to “look with contempt on her mistress.”  This naturally makes Sarah mad and she complains to Abraham and he tells her, “she’s your servant, do what you want to her.”  So she begins to treat Hagar harshly and Hagar runs away.  It’s impossible to run away from God, so God finds her and tells her to go back.  When she goes back, she bears a son who is called ‘Ishmael.’  This all happened when Abraham was 86 years old.

And you remember last week when Abraham and Sarah are promised a son, it said that Abraham was 99 years old.  So in today’s lesson, four years have passed and Sarah bears a son and he is about 3 years old.  They name him ‘Isaac’ which means ‘he laughs.’  Sarah sees Hagar’s son Ishmael playing with her son Isaac and she gets jealous.  No other word for it, she’s jealous and greedy.  

Ishmael is older (14 years) and she’s afraid that Ishmael will inherit all or at least the first son’s portion of Abraham’s accumulated wealth.  So she goes to Abraham and complains again and asks him to cast out Hagar and her son, Ishmael.  This was against the “code of behavior” for desert people.  You don’t cast people out from the camp, because it is tantamount to a death sentence, but like I said, Abraham is henpecked.  

Abraham gives Hagar bread and a waterskin and casts them out.  Then they run out of water and Hagar leaves the boy and goes and sits at a distance because she can’t bear to see him die.  Our scripture says just when Hagar thinks that they are going to die, God hears the boy cry and is moved by compassion for him.  Just when things seem hopeless - totally devoid of any salvation - God opens Hagar’s eyes so that she sees a well. 

There is a song - it goes something like this:

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.

Open the eyes of my heart, 

I want to see you, I want to see you.     (Repeat)

  

To see you high and lifted up,

Shining with the light of your glory,

Pour out your power and love,

As we sing holy, holy, holy.

Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy.

Holy, holy, holy. I want to see you.

And suddenly hopelessness gives way to hope….   Hagar fills the waterskin and gives Ishmael a drink, and she knows that everything will be alright.    God makes a promise.  He tells Hagar, “Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.”  (Ishmael is 17 years old at this time.)

All through this passage, we get over and over that God is going to make a great nation from both of Abraham’s sons.  So even though Sarah had Ishmael cast out so that he would not receive any of the inheritance that she felt rightfully belonged to her son Isaac -  God blessed him anyway.  

Sarah is something like those people who want to put God in a box, all neatly wrapped up with a bow on top, that they can take out and brush off to show to visitors when they come by.  Sarah was under the impression that God takes sides and that in order to secure God’s blessing, she had to get rid of Hagar.  She was not willing to share her blessing or her son’s blessing with another. 

But we see over and over, that when we strive to force God into a corner – to do our bidding – he refuses to stay there.  God will always find a way to bless those he wants to bless - those who are abused - those who are mistreated - those who are forgotten or alone.  Just as Sarah tried to get rid of Ishmael, just as the religious authorities of the first century tried to get rid of Jesus, God finds a way to accomplish his purpose in spite of humanity.  

So the next time you find yourself at odds with that person who irritates the heck out of you, just remember that God wants to bless that person, too.  Scripture tells us that God blesses us so that we might be a blessing to others.  And when we bless others, that just might make the difference in their life that will change their whole perspective and therefore the direction that they are headed.  So I ask you, how can you live that out in your own life in the midst of this congregation and of this community?

Stepping out in faith

I used to subscribe to a website called “Simple Truths” and they would send out emails with short videos.  One of the emails I received was called “To a Child, Love is spelled T-I-M-E.”  Just briefly, the message was of an older gentleman who went up in the attic looking for a special picture of his wife.  And looking though a box, he found his grown son’s journal from when he was six.  

As he read the entries from the journal, he was stirred by the freshness of the memories.  But he couldn’t help feel that his son’s recollections must have differed from his own.  So he decided to go and get his own business journal from that same period of time.  As he compared entries from the same day, he read in his, “Wasted the whole day fishing with Jimmy.  Didn’t catch a thing.”  

He turned in his son’s journal to the same day and read.  “Went fishing with my dad.  Best day of my life.”  And so I wish all you dads out there a very happy Father’s day.   Always remember that time spent with your children or grandchildren is never wasted time!  In the eyes of a child, that time is precious indeed.

It’s June, and many of us have very recently been to graduations and commencement ceremonies.  School is out and the graduates all listened very carefully to the advice given them by the commencement speakers. Right?  

That is sort of what’s going on in today's Gospel lesson.  Jesus has been traveling around the region of Galilee and teaching.  Jesus and his disciples are on an extended field trip.  Just prior to this lesson, we get 10 miracle stories.  Healing, exorcisms, miracles of nature – all are given as classroom examples. 

Then Jesus picks out the cream of the crop – he names his special students (the top ten, or in this case 12) – probably those who have shown the most progress – and we get this little commissioning service.  They are being sent out on a field exercise - student preaching, as it was… - to test the waters and to try out their new gained skills. 

You know, this reminds me a little of seminary.  As a general practice, they give you one year of classes, some basic Bible – overview of the Old Testament and an overview of the New Testament.  They teach you a little philosophy and theology; give you a smattering of church history and a little liturgics and sacred music, and maybe a class in pastoral care.  

Now at the end of the first year, they send you out to do something called ‘clinical pastoral education.’   Generally, CPE is done at a hospital, a mental health facility or a prison.  By far, most students go to a hospital since that is the institution that we will eventually have the most need for understanding.  

In CPE you have classes in the morning.  Our classes were varied.  Nurses and doctors came and talked about the challenges faced by patients and their families. Social workers came and told us more about what families and patients face especially when they go home.  We observed open heart surgery and heart catheterizations . Seasoned hospital chaplains came and taught us about ministering to families and patients.

In the afternoon, we were out on the hospital floors, each in our own assigned areas.  We each had two areas – one general floor and one critical care area.  I did my CPE at St. Luke’s hospital and my special areas were the 17^th floor which was general surgery, and I was also assigned to the St. Luke’s emergency room.  And we were expected – with only one year of seminary – to go out and minister to people in the deepest pain imaginable.

Sometimes it’s really scary to walk into a hospital room, unbidden, to talk to someone who might not even want to talk to you.  You go into the room and introduce yourself (you are wearing a lab coat that says “CHAPLAIN” in bold letters), and ask how they are doing and if there is anything you can do for them.  You offer to pray with them, and you move on to the next room. 

Sometimes the encounters are total successes, and sometimes you come out feeling like a failure.  Each week we had to write up a “verbatim” on one visit from the week.  That’s exactly what it sounds like, we would write up the visit word for word, and then two mornings a week we shared our verbatims with the class.  They were discussed, sometimes cussed, and generally torn apart by your friendly Christian classmates.  

I have any number of stories from that time, and I’ll tell you right now that I didn’t heal anyone, and I didn’t drive out any demons, but I tried as far as I could to share the good news of God’s presence.  Being present and talking to and praying with people can make a real difference when their lives seem to have hit rock bottom. 

I have become totally convinced that the reason they send us to CPE is to convince us that we can’t “fix things.”  So many of us expressed – over and over – the desire to fix what was broken in the lives of the people we met.  And over and over we found that we were helpless to do more than mediate God’s presence in any given situation.

One story from that time – it was late and I was visiting on the 17^th floor and there was a new patient – I’ll call him Joe.  Joe had both arms and hands bandaged, so I asked him what happened.  Well, long story cut short, he had gone through the plate glass patio door at his apartment and cut his arms and hands up.  He sounded embarrassed, but there was an underlying sadness there that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  

As he was describing his injuries I kept looking at his bandages.  It just didn’t quite add up.  It sounded like his left arm injuries were minor compared to the right arm injuries, yet the bandages on the left far exceeded the ones on the right.  I finally asked, “What do you do for a living?”  His answer was, “Well, that’s the problem, I’m a concert violinist with the Houston Symphony.”  He had cut a tendon in his left hand and he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to play well enough again to continue.  He had just been offered a new position that he might not be able to accept.

We talked for a long time about what that might mean to him if he couldn’t and we prayed together.  I assured him that although he was not a practicing Christian, God would and could hear his prayer.  

That was on a Friday and when I came back on Monday, he was already gone.  A follow up on that - 6 months later I received a personal invitation to a concert and a copy of the program listing Joe as the soloist and a note of “thanks.”  It came right here to Grace – I still don’t know how he tracked me down.

Jesus sends his disciples out – cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons . . . . . . bring hope to the hopeless, do whatever you can – no matter how small it may seem – to bring a little light into the darkness that permeates some people’s lives.  That is what Jesus is sending the disciples out to do.

What we seminary students found out, and what the disciples found out, is that you can make a difference in someone’s life by being yourself and by being present.  You don’t have to know a lot, you don’t have to be smart – you simply listen to God and let him be your guide.  

I’d like to spend a few minutes now listening and asking God to speak to each of us.  Where is God calling you to be? Where is he sending you out to minister?  I invite you to close your eyes and listen for God.

Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus.  Speak to us as you did to those disciples 2000 years ago.  Help us to enter into the silence that belongs to you so that we can hear when you call.         

Silence . . . . Amen.

The Ultimate Relationship

Listen to the sermon.   

Today is Trinity Sunday and our lessons all talk about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Yes, even the first lesson from Genesis.  The Hebrew word, “Ruach,” translated here as “wind” also means “Spirit,” so that in other translations the phrase is read, “The Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters.”  

And in the second sentence we read, “Then God said…”  God spoke the Word, and we know from John’s gospel that Jesus is the Word of God.  There have been many      debates over exactly what the Trinity is and how it operates.  And a lot of time has been spent explaining the individual parts and how they relate to one another.  

At one time the Catholics used to say, “It’s a mystery.”  Some say it’s like a three leaf clover.  Others will tell you it is like the three states of water – steam, liquid, and ice.  Time after time people look for new ways to describe it.   Ways that will be more accurate more understandable than what has gone before.  

The problem is that when we try to explain the Trinity, we get all balled up in technicalities and legalities, none of which is true or right by itself.  It’s easier to say that in the Trinity, we have the three necessary ingredients for human kind – Creator (the one who creates all things); Redeemer (the one who redeems the world from sin); and Sustainer (the one who is with us to the end).  

One of the explanations I like best is that the Trinity is about relationship.  What is important is the relationship that flows between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  

I've heard our Bishop say that God (the part we sometimes call “Father”) had a perfect image of himself and that image is what we know as the Son.  And when God looks at the Son, he has perfect love for the Son.  And that perfect love surrounds them and flows between them and through them and it is the Holy Spirit.  Then out of that perfect love shared by the Father and the Son flows creation, and creation reflects back to God his own glory.

In the Holy Trinity, there is a community of mutual love that is not only an example for us, but it reaches out into our lives to empower us to be able to love others more perfectly.  It’s easy for us to understand a father and son, but the Holy Spirit is more difficult.

One Baptist minister preached that Christianity is an unfinished religion – that our faith is every bit as much a religion of hope as it is of love.  He said that the Holy Spirit continually introduces new forces into the stale world – and those who are open and obedient to the direction of the Spirit pioneer the progress of God’s Kingdom on earth.

That will trouble some people, but the Gospel of John (Chapter 16) tells us: Jesus said to his disciples, “I still have many things to say, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.”  (John 16:12-13a)   Our faith and our understanding has to grow and mature as the world grows and changes – otherwise we worship a dead faith.  

Our Bible is called the living Word of God, because it continues to inform and instruct us.  The parables of Jesus live on because they continue to say new things to us.  As the world around us changes and our understanding of the universe changes, the living Word of God continues to speak into the new circumstances, if we have the understanding given by the Holy Spirit.

Our God is call a Trinity, because the God of the universe, who will always remain as the ‘divine mystery’ is revealed to us through the flesh of the Son, who is God’s tie to created humanity, and continues to be revealed through the Holy Spirit, who works in us and through us.  That Holy Spirit always points the way to Jesus, and Jesus always points the way to God.  

What this means for us is that as a community of faith, we must keep up with what the Spirit is doing in today’s world, for the Spirit of God which comes from the Divine Mystery bears the Word of God into our midst in order to empower us for ministry.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit – alive and working together to the glory of God the eternal Trinity. 

By the Father’s own will he brought us into being, caused us to be born.  By the Son’s blood shed on the cross, he redeemed us and paid the price for our sin.  By the Spirit’s presence in our life, he guides us and remains with us.  The Trinity – three persons, one purpose – to create, redeem and sustain us – to bring us at last into his very presence.  We are created in the image of God and we are his forever.

Amen

Living in the power of God's Spirit

Listen to the Gospel Reading   

Pentecost – when the spirit moved and blew the church into existence.  The Spirit moves where he wants to move.  We can’t make the spirit move.  He moves in different places at different times.  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you can make the spirit move if you just do the right things or say the right things or feel the right things or sing the right music.  Those things can help put us into a receptive frame to receive the Spirit, but they are no magic formula guarantying the coming of the Spirit.  

There is an old movie called “Leap of faith.”  The story is about a charlatan, Jonas Nightingale (played by Steve Martin), who goes around the country putting on “healing revivals.”  It’s interesting to see the shams they pull to make people think healings are happening – and the miracles that are not quite miracles.  

So when a local young crippled boy comes up to be healed, Jonas begins to hedge his bets – he sees the local sheriff – and he tells the ‘congregation’ that if even one person doubts, there can be no healing – and he points to the sheriff and claims he is the reason there is no healing – but then the boy begins to walk – and Jonas – after initial shock – comes through, as the showman he is, praising God.  

But the personal effect on Jonas is that it undoes him.  As long as he is in control making the false miracles happen, Jonas can do anything, but when the true Spirit breaks into his life – he can’t handle it.

Our first lesson from Numbers – is an interesting study.  Moses is overwhelmed by the responsibility of being the sole judge to the thousands of people he is leading through the desert.  So he calls together 70 of the elders of the tribes to receive the spirit to help him in his duties.  Apparent only 68 show up and God comes down and takes some of the spirit that rests on Moses, and divides it between the 70 identified elders.  And they begin to prophesy.  They prophesied one time, and then it didn’t happen again. A gift of the Spirit can be given for a one time use.  Here the gift is the manifestation of the giving – it wasn’t the end result.  These 70 people were empowered to help Moses to administer justice to the people.  

Now I said that only 68 showed up.  Eldad and Medad missed the bus – so to speak – they forgot to come. 

  But the interesting thing is that they didn’t miss out on the blessing.  God still placed some of the spirit on them also and they started prophesying right where they were.

Joshua doesn’t have a good reaction to Eldad and Medad.  Because they were not with the rest, because they were not in that space where the show of power was – Joshua wants to inhibit them from using that power.  (There are some people who would love to dictate when and where God's power is made manifest.)   Moses tells him, “Don’t be jealous for my sake.  I wish everyone were prophets and had God’s spirit.”  

I heard one story, a Hasidic tale – these are stories, tales, and myths told by the Hasidic Jews to teach or to make a point – not unlike Jesus’ parables.  In this one, the rabbi asks his student, “Where is the Spirit of God?”  The student answers with the biblical phrase, “…the whole universe resounds with his glory.”  The rabbi says, “No.”  The student, puzzled, asks, “What do you mean, no?”  The teacher replied, “God is where you let God come in.”  The Holy Spirit is the power that ushers God into our lives - when and where we allow that to happen.   

Last week, we read about Jesus telling the disciples to go back into the city and wait for the Holy Spirit.  In today’s lesson from Acts, we find them waiting in the upper room – about 120 of them.  Matthias had already been chosen to replace Judas and they don’t know what is going to happen, but they are faithfully waiting.  And the Holy Spirit comes and fills the whole house – and tongues of fire kiss each person there. 

A friend of mine, who made this stole I’m wearing, was so inspired by this passage, she made a quilt of Pentecost called "9 O'Clock in the Morning."  In it you see all the people with flames dancing over their heads, and they are falling out the windows, and rushing out the door and tumbling off of the roof - all in a hurry to get out of the building to spread the word of God’s presence and his power.

When filled with the Holy Spirit, they can’t stay hidden away in that upper room.  They rush out – drunk in the power of the Spirit – and Peter preaches his first sermon to those who have stopped to witness this phenomena.  

There were many people in Jerusalem because it was the Pentecost – the celebration of the giving of the law to Moses in the desert.  And once again God gives on Pentecost – first the law to Moses – now the Spirit to all believers. 

This world we live in is in desperate need of the Spirit of God – many people are searching for a spiritual base – through new age revelation – through the ancient eastern religions – through earth worship.  We visited Sedona Arizona on one vacation – this is a city where they say there are 7 vortexes of spiritual energy.  We went up to watch the sunset and there was a great crowd gathered – a man played a didgeridoo to impart spiritual aura to anyone wanting to experience this spiritual power.  People are hungry.

The world is hungry for spirituality – the world is hungry for God – whether it knows it or not.  It is our commission to go out in the name of God.  Broken and wounded we may be, but we are also touched by God.  And as a people touched by God, we go out – even in our woundedness - and share that which has given us life - and hope - and power.  

In our Gospel reading this morning, we tried to give you a little taste, a little flavor, of what happened on that Pentecost Sunday.  There was some confusion, and it may have seemed a little chaotic, but there was great joy as the disciples were given the power of that Holy Spirit.

I invite you to open up your hearts and minds to receive the power of the Lord at this time and make a renewed commitment to God’s presence in your life.  Invite Him in and allow him to fill you to overflowing.  Share the stories of his place in your life and let others know that they, too, can experience God's grace; his forgiveness and healing power.  

Amen.