Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor

I’ve preached a lot of sermons on the Gospel of Luke in 19 years of ministry, and I’ve found only two gaps in the texts I’ve covered.  I have sermons on every other chapter in this gospel except I’ve never preached on the 22^nd chapter, (that chapter tells the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday stories and at those services I don’t usually preach) and last Sunday was the first time I had ever preached on the 12^th chapter.

As we continue with chapter 12 of Luke, I can see why I’ve always somehow found ways to avoid this chapter.  A professor of preaching once said that preachers should approach biblical texts as if they are “looking for trouble.”  If that’s the case, in chapter 12, we don’t have to look very far!

Last week’s lesson on greed and distractions ended with Jesus telling the crowd that they should not worry about a thing because God has it all covered. Today, a few verses later, we’re suddenly being advised to keep alert and watchful (which sounds to me like something to worry about!), and then Jesus says that he’s stressed out himself and can’t wait to kindle a fire on earth!

Understanding a difficult text like today’s is all about understanding the language of the text. At least three complicated terms and concepts are part of this lesson:  the concept of “kingdom” (which is being referred to throughout the text), the concept of the “coming of Christ, and our response to both of these concepts which is described as being “alert.”

Last week’s lesson ended with, “It is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” but The Greek verb used in that phrase however, is in a tense which indicates that the action has already been completed.  A better translation would probably be, “It has already been God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Today’s lesson continues to talk about this already present “Kingdom of God.”

When we read biblical literature about the Kingdom of God we’re referring to so much more than the location of some sort of heavenly after-life.  If it has already been God’s good pleasure to give us this kingdom, then “kingdom” must refer to a present reality; it must refer to some present venue or community in which God’s peace prevails.  This community of peace may have been present since the beginning of creation or it may have began on earth with Jesus’ ministry of welcoming, reconciling, forgiving, and healing or perhaps it began at creation and was further revealed in Christ. What we know for sure is that it takes place in human relationships and Jesus said it is already present.

“Kingdom” is language and imagery that made sense for people in the Middle Easter and Greco/Roman world where Jesus lived and Christianity developed, but it carries too much hierarchical, masculine, and political connotations for us today. We are no longer ruled by kings. We no longer live in kingdoms.  We need new language for “kingdom;” language that combines the essential elements of living together and living in wholeness; language that incorporate both community and shalom.

I came across a word the other day that I think we could use in place of “kingdom;” a word out of South Africa; “Ubuntu.”  Ubuntu means, I’m told, one-another-ness, interconnectedness, joined-in-the-common-good-ness and profound commitment to the well-being of all.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes Ubuntu as: “the essence of being human.” He says, “Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”  The “kingdom” of God is all about Ubuntu.

Even as Jesus says that the Ubuntu of God is already present, Jesus talks about someone or something that is yet to come.  In his parables, the master represents the coming One.  The early church believed that Jesus would come again at the end of time to establish the Kingdom on earth. The Greek word used in scripture for this concept is, parousia, which is usually translated as “coming.”  Parousia is formed by adding the Greek prefix para, meaning alongside, to the root ousia, meaning substance.  Parousia means essentially presence.

Brian McLaren, in his most recent book, A New Kind of Christianity, which I’ve been reading with others via the wonders of the internet this summer, writes this about the original biblical idea of parousia, “If we aren’t restricted to think and work within the old Greco/Roman narrative, the term could mean the arrival or manifestation not of a Platonic eternal state of Greco-Roman perfection and damnation, but rather of a new age or era – a new season of growth.

Parousia, in this way, would signal the full arrival, the presence, and manifestation of a new age in human history; the appearance on earth of a new generation of humanity, Christ again present, embodied in a community of people who truly possess and express his Spirit, continuing his work.”  (pg. 198)

Once we have a better understanding of what this kingdom language is all about and what it is that we are waiting for in terms of Christ’s presence coming in more fullness, we can perhaps begin to understand why Jesus tells us to be alert and watchful.

Being “on alert,” 24/7 is humanly impossible if we understand such language to mean sharp and unremitting attention and concentration in the face of imminent threats. This understanding of being “alert” would also seem to contradict many other teachings from Jesus about trusting in God’s care and not worrying about our lives.  The language here of “watchful waiting” and being “dressed for action” must be read in light of Jesus’ previous instructions about distractions and faith.

If we consider being “alert” as the opposite of being “distracted” we think of the objects which receive our attention and the orientation of our lives.  Are we focused on accumulation of wealth and security and power, or are we oriented toward considering all of life as an abundant gift from a generous God?

To understand why Jesus tells us to be “alert” we can also look at how Jesus describes the end result of such watchfulness.  In a real countercultural move, Jesus says that when the master returns to his household late at night and finds his servants “alert” and therefore expectant, the master will don an apron and insist that the servants sit down at the table and that they let their master serve them. In other words, when we are alert we receive blessings from God.

The common lectionary leaves the second parable about a master and servants out of our 3 year cycle completely.  The language of the second parable seems harsh and violent, but it also is meant to be read only as a comparison to the first story.

The unfaithful servant in the second parable says to himself, “It doesn’t look like the master is going to be here anytime soon, so I might as well do as I please.”  That servant orients his life around fear of the master and self-interest. But notice, that servant is punished, not because he wasn’t watching for the master to arrive, but because he began to abuse and mistreat the other servants.

Being “alert” is not about being in a state of fear or caution, but about being in a state of disciplined, calm awareness and perception that can give you the “peripheral” vision needed for fresh insight and for seeing what is really there to be seen.

There are two important reminders at the end of this middle section of chapter 12.  The first reminder is that we have already been given many gifts.  That’s where we must always start.  That’s the place where our orientation in lives begins. We are created and blessed by a gracious God who takes pleasure in giving us all we need.

The second reminder is that with these gifts, “much will be required.”  Not because the gifts come with strings attached, but because the gifts in themselves move us toward divine mysteries and insights.

Much is required of us if we are to understand the “Ubuntu” of God, who God is and what God’s will and way is all about.  Much is required of us if we are to recognize the presence of Christ each time Christ comes again into our lives and communities.  Much is required of us, if we are to live our lives oriented and alert to seeing God’s Ubuntu and Christ’s presence when both are at our door.

Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor

I love it that in the middle of summer, in this time of vacations and leisurely recreation and relaxation, the lectionary gives us a gospel text that, as one commentator wrote, “sizzles and spits like a backyard grill.”      (Lull, Feast on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3, pg. 310)   We’re talking today about our money, our fear and greed, and our faith.

Around Jesus and his disciples, a crowd of thousands was gathering, trampling on one another, for a better view and position. Within the crowd, hostile scribes and Pharisees were lying in wait for Jesus, hoping to catch him doing something that would end his career.  In the middle of all of the craziness, Jesus turns to his followers and quietly assures them to have courage for God has carefully counted every hair on their heads.

Suddenly the focus narrows from the crowd of thousands to a single voice that shouts out above the crowd, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”  Rivalry between brothers was part of everyday life in the ancient Mediterranean.  Fueling this particular feud was the face that while traditional Israelite custom granted a division of an inheritance on the demand of one son, Roman law required that both parties desire the division.

Jesus, however, does not appreciate being used as judge or arbitrator for this family fight any more than he likes the self-centeredness of the pushy crowd or scheming Pharisees, so Jesus turns to the crowd and tells them all a parable about a self-centered man and purses that don’t wear out.

In our culture today, having more wealth than most folks, does not necessarily make one evil. (I would remind us all that by the simple fact that we have roofs over our heads at night and eat three meals a day, everyone in this room has more wealth than most people in the world.).  We know lots of rich but generous, philanthropic folks in our communities.

Being considered rich, in the context of the ancient Middle East, was a different matter.  Being wealthy in that time and place was almost always inherently a sign of insatiable greed and selfishness as people became rich, in those days, only by exploiting the poor.

The parable Jesus tells, like many of his parables, begins with some twists and turns . A greedy man who owns more than his share of land and resources, a man who obviously controls most of the agricultural production in an entire region, has received a generous blessing from God in the form of abundant, bumper crops.  The people had to wonder, immediately, “Why would God bless such a greedy man with such abundance?”  Either the man is not as greedy as we thought or God is not as just as we thought.

Now, anyone in this culture who gained more as a result of his own doing was considered a crook, because an honorable man would never want “more” than what he already had. But, bumper crops, were not of this man’s own doing, so you can imagine the growing dilemma of the listeners. “Is this man honorable or not?  Can’t blame the man for receiving a free gift from God, after all.”

When the rich man in the parables asks himself, “What should I do? For my barns are full; I have no place to store these bumper crops?” the crowd has already began to ask the same question.  “What should this man do? Does this surplus honestly belong to the man or should he be required to give it away because he has enough?”

Saving for the future by gathering in a bountiful harvest was exactly what their forefather Joseph had instructed Pharoah to do in an ancient story told by the rabbis, yet now their community claimed that anyone with such a surplus should feel shame unless he shared it generously.

Finally the parabolic rich man reminds himself that he has ample goods stored up for many years and reassures himself repeating the ancient words of the prophet Isaiah, “Relax, eat, drink and be merry!”   He just happens to leave off the end of Isaiah’s phrase: “for tomorrow we die.”

In the typical parables told by Jesus, this is perhaps where the story would end; with the first half of a well-known phrase hanging in the air and the unspoken final half ringing, silently in the ears of the listeners.

In this case, however, Jesus, or a later editor perhaps, added some personal commentary to the story, pointedly saying to the rich man, (and by association to the pushy crowd, scheming Pharisees and the complaining brother)  “You fool!”  Speaking aloud Isaiah’s final words, Jesus asked, “If you die tomorrow, who will have all these preparations you have made?”  Rather than storing up treasures for themselves, Jesus calls the crowd to be “rich toward God” and describes such richness as “making purses that do not wear out.”

What a wonderful image!  (Men, you can substitute “wallets” here for “purses” if you like.)  I am a self-professing and practicing purse fanatic! Fortunately, I shop mostly at Goodwill so it’s a habit that does not hurt my budget too much, but I can hardly resist buying a new purse when I walk in there even though I already have way too many purses at home.

I wondered this week if I am drawn to purses because they contain the things that I think are most valuable in my life: my money, my identification, my driver’s license, my 24-hour fitness membership card and ear buds, my keys, my cell phone, some medication, and fortunately, a few pictures of my grandchildren.

A purse, or wallet, that would not wear out, could not be any sort of physical object, obviously.  All physical objects wear out.  So, what would this thing be that contains all we value?  And what does it mean to be “rich toward God?”

The gospel of Luke is full of examples of what kind of a “purse” does not wear out. The story of a Samaritan helping a stranger who lay dying beside the road (10:25-37) , reminds us that using one’s resources for the benefit of anyone in need, is like carrying the riches of kindness and compassion.  Letting go of worries and distractions, like Mary instead of Martha, so that you can stop and listen to God’s word, (10:38-42) is being rich in devotion and faith. And, as this text goes on to remind us, trusting that God will provide for our needs, so that we can live with less and live more generously toward others, is a gift that lasts forever.

The gospels are packed with more stories about money than any other subject, and we know that discussions of money are always about much more than money.  When we discuss money we are talking about what it is that we value.  This is both a private issue and a community issue. We must think personally about what values we grew up with and what values we are teaching our children and we must understand what our use of resources says about our communal values.

Last Sunday I described the difference between being a “Maintenance-Driven Church” and being a “Mission-Driven Church.”  In our gospel lesson today, the crowd, the Pharisees, and the younger brother are all maintenance-driven.  They are worried about maintaining their own lives; maintaining their own security, well-being, and status.  Jesus is asking them to become mission-driven, to trust God and focus on the needs of others.

So what parts of your life do you wish were less maintenance-driven?

If we as individuals or St. Mark as a congregation were to make a purse for ourselves that could not wear out, we would need to find a way to become less maintenance-driven and more mission-driven.  Now, before you tackle me with all the ways in which we are involved in mission at St. Mark, including the 8% of our annual budget that we give to mission work each year (which is more than most churches), let’s remember that being mission-driven is defined as giving more than 50% of our money, energy, leadership, attention, program, and prayers to micro-cultures not equally represented or empowered in our church or community.

Individually or together, can we look beyond our own life, our own family, our own community or are we distracted by worrying about filling a purse or wallet that will wear out before we know it?

Does Jesus really expect us to stop worrying?  We’re only human and life comes to us in a package with worries included.  Even the Great Ends of the Church, as stated in our Constitution of the PCUSA, includes “The maintenance of Divine Worship.”

Jesus says it is God’s good pleasure to give us the gift of a new way of living. But Jesus also says that we must make a purse that will not wear out for ourselves.  What we decide to create and fill and carry with us in this life, is up to us.

Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor

Shortly before or after the Apostle Paul died in a Roman prison, a letter attributed to Paul and Timothy and addressed to the Christian community in Colossae was delivered somewhere along the main east-west trade route of what is now central Turkey.  We can only say “somewhere” because the tiny village of Colossae had been totally destroyed by an earthquake sometime between the year 60-64 CE which probably means Colossae lay in ruins at the time.

It is generally agreed that Timothy, or whoever actually wrote the letter in Paul’s name, addressed it to Colossae intending that it would end up in the hands of neighboring fellowships who would get therefore get the message without being able to react defensively for fear of identifying their own shortcomings.

It would be like the Presbytery writing a letter about some church offense, and addressing it to the little Presbyterian church down on Macadam that was closed a few years back knowing that the postman would deliver it to St. Mark or St. Andrews, the closest Presbyterian churches in the area, because we were equally guilty of the offense.

While Paul was in prison news had been brought to him by his close friend and co-worker, Epaphras that conflict and division had arisen in the area near Colossae where Epaphras had been ministering.  Later readers of this letter felt the conflict was so serious that it has been called by many, “The Colossian Heresy.”

The letter was written assuming that those who would read it would be fully aware of the heresy that it attacks, and so doesn’t waste any time describing the conflict itself.  We can only use the arguments presented throughout the entire letter against the undesirable theology and behaviors to get some idea of what was happening.  What the letter calls a dangerous “philosophy” is thought to have developed in this area out of some combination of Jewish apocalyptic traditions, Jewish mysticism and/or Hellenistic cultic traditions.  From what the letter argues we can assume that this philosophy:

1. denied that the fullness of God dwelt bodily in Christ.
2. denied that the Christian was complete in Christ.
3. and therefore, tried to supplement the freedom in Christ by introducing ways of heightening and adding to Christian spirituality.

Those who were teaching this philosophy did not deny the value of conversion to Christianity nor did they endorse departure from the Christian church in Colossae. But they did seem to deny the adequacy of Christ. They seem to have been claiming that Christians needed more for their salvation than what Jesus Christ had to offer and therefore to be campaigning for the reinstatement of circumcision, other ceremonial laws and certain “spiritual supplements.”

Some of these spiritual supplements, as recorded in the letter, included deferring to previously defunct principalities and powers, observing ritualized ways of eating and drinking, participating in certain activities during the new moons or during the Sabbath, taking on voluntary actions of self-abasement and humility, and even calling forth angels to intercede for them in their worship of God.

Some claim that this letter to Colossae presents the highest Christology of any biblical writing and that the language used here differs a bit from some of Paul’s other letters.  The divinity of Christ is so strong in this letter with statements such as “in Christ the whole fullness of Diety dwells bodily!” that I struggled initially with how to interpret such statements in light of interfaith understandings and respect.

Susan Grove Eastman, at Duke Divinity School, reminds us that in this letter the author declares that the gospel has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven (1:23). . . in a renewal that includes, ‘Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free.’ (3:11) This expansion of the baptismal formula. . . emphasizes that in the body of Christ we belong to a worldwide community that trumps all divisions based on ethnicity, gender, social class, or nationality.”

Though Eastman admits that this universal embrace in which ‘Christ is all and in all’ (3:11) is about Christ’s sovereign rule, she also reminds us that ‘(this) global acclamation of Christ is entirely God’s doing, and not dependent on any human confession of faith.”            (Susan Grove Eastman, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3, 2010)

Perhaps what this letter envisions is the entire universe and all its creatures as the body of Christ and the saving act of God in Christ as an act that reconciled the entire universe to God, regardless of whether everyone in that universe knows it or is willing to make any such confession.

How would the life and faith of the Christian Church change if our theology recognized that the entire universe was already reconciled to God?  It would certainly do away with any rational for questions like “Are you saved?” or “Is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior?”

Are we able to embrace the notion, as this letter claims, that in Christ God erased the record, with its legal demands, that stood against the entire universe?  That God set this damning indictment aside by nailing it to a cross? (If you hold to the atonement theory) or that God erased our felonies and misdemours somehow through the life and teachings and sacrifices we witnessed in Christ? (If you hold to a theory of redeeming revelation.)

In any case, is it possible that this saving act has had nothing to do with doctrine or theologies, past or present?  that human religious traditions and rejections have simply been our attempt to respond to a sense of divinity and mystery that lives within us and that has graced and saved all of us?

The issue that the faithful struggled with in the area of Colossae was an issue that has plagued humanity for all time.  Are we good enough?  Am I worthy of love and acceptance by God, by my family and community?  What must I do to be saved; to be acceptable; worthy?

The gospel, the good news that God declares us all worthy of love and forgiveness and acceptance, is literally too good to be true for most of us.  So, like the Colossians, we search for other assurances.  If someone claims that there are angels from heaven who will intercede with God on our behalf, as well as Jesus, then why not ask for their help as well?  If someone claims that eating certain foods, and wearing certain clothing, and loving certain people, will insure that we are worthy human beings, then why not do those things, just in case?

Church revitalization experts divide churches into two main catagories: “Maintenance-Driven Churches” and “Mission-Driven Churches.”   I believe that this letter to the early church is warning that they have become “maintenance driven” rather than “mission-driven.”

Thomas Bandy shares this example of the difference between the two.  “A church calls a new pastor. ‘Is this maintenance driven or mission driven? One simply asks, ‘Who is the new pastor for?’ If the goal is to educate the saints, preserve good worship, administer the church, support the denomination, and visit the members, it is maintenance driven. But if the goal is to spend time with the sinners and reprobates, adapt to seekers, reach out to the lost, grow the Kingdom, and equip the members to do likewise, it is mission driven.”

(Bandy, 95 Questions to Shape the Future of Your Church, 2009. Pg.9)

The letter to the Colossians speaks against all sorts of various traditions and rituals that folks were focusing on and asserts that Christ is sufficient.  You can almost hear folks in the congregation saying, “But I love it when we invoke the angels to join us in worship!  The self-abasement is my favorite part of our ritual.  It just wouldn’t be the same without that! We’ve always eaten like this.”

What if the life and redeeming work of Christ (however we might interpret such work) and Christ’s spirit that lives in the world today, was and is truly sufficient for the reconciliation of God with the entire universe?  What would be left for the church to do?  We certainly wouldn’t be needed to save people.  That would already be accomplished, everywhere, for everyone.

There are people of every tribe and nation, of every creed and faith tradition, that have found this truth for themselves. Reconciliation with God is not the private property of Christians. There are Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Native Americans, and even some Wickens and New Age Spiritualists, who know the love and grace and reconciliation of the Creator.

But there are some folks out there that haven’t gotten the message. What difference does it make in their lives if they don’t understand or feel that they are reconciled to God; that they are recipients of God’s love and forgiveness, worthy guests at the table of grace?

We are called to be a mission-driven church, a church which “dedicates more than 50 percent of its money, energy, leadership, attention, program and prayers to micro-cultures not currently represented, or underrepresented, in (our) church.”

(Bandy, 95 Questions to Shape the Future of Your Church, 2009. Pg.9)

This letter to Colossae, and to every believer, declares, “God was pleased to reconcile to God’s self all things, whether on earth or in heaven.”  That is the gospel.  Our mission is to tell that good news, through our love and justice seeking on their behalf, through our searching and sacrifice for the lost and least among us; and through our sharing the story of Jesus.

The Rev. John Salmon

Amos, I think, would probably rank high on my list of my favorite prophets.  If one were putting together a list of invitees to a nice, convivial dinner party, however, he’d be a doubtful addition to that list.  Amos was not a very convivial person; he was harsh, condemning, judgmental, at least to judge by most of his prophecies.

Listen to how he begins one of his oracles: “Hear this, you cows of Bashan!”  That’s not how a gentleman addresses the ladies, is it?.  But Amos was not called by God to be nice, to be a gentleman, to be Mr. Congenial; he was called by God to pronounce judgment and doom.

When we first encounter Amos in the first two chapters of his prophecy, he is engaged in a series of pronouncements of doom on the nations surrounding Israel.  Now, you have to realize that the nations around Israel were mostly hostile.  They were not at war with Israel all the time, but frequently enough; the neighbors were not neighborly.  There was Syria to the northeast, with its capital in Damascus; the Ammonites and Moabites across the Jordan to the east, Edom and the Philistine cities in the south, and Tyre, in what we now know as Lebanon, to the northeast.

Here is what Amos was saying when we meet him:

Thus says Yahweh:

For three transgressions of Damascus,

And for four, I will not revoke the punishment.

“Three and four” is not to be taken literally; it’s a literary device indicating repeat offenses; and actually, Amos cites only one indictment against each of the surrounding nations, and each of those indictments is an indictment for cruelty in war, for war atrocities.

Thus says Yahweh:

For three transgressions of Damascus,

And for four, I will not revoke the punishment;

Because they have thrashed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron.

So I will send a fire on the house of Hazael (the king of the Syrians)

And it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-Hadad (founder of the Syrian dynasty).

You can almost hear someone in the crowd saying, “Yes! They deserve it!”

Then Amos swings around to the southwest:

Thus says Yahweh:

For three transgressions of Gaza (a city of the Philistines),

And for four, I will not revoke the punishment;

Because they carried into exile whole communities,

To hand them over to Edom.

So I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza

Fire that shall devour its strongholds.

All right! Another enemy punished!

And then to the northwest

For three transgressions of Tyre,

And for four, I will not revoke the punishment.

And so it continues, as Amos draws a circle around Israel, a circle of judgment and doom:

For three transgressions of Edom (in the south), and for four….

For three transgressions of the Ammonites (across the Jordan to the East), and for four….

For three transgressions of the Moabites (another hostile neighbor across the Jordan in the east, and for four….

And you can sense Amos’ hearers getting more and more enthusiastic:

“Amen, brother!  Preach it, brother!”

But now, that circle that has been laid out all around the nations that surround Israel proves to be a noose around Israel’s own neck, and the trap is sprung.

Thus says Yahweh:

For three transgressions of Israel,

And for four, I will not revoke the punishment.

Because they sell the righteous for silver,

And the needy for a pair of sandals.

They…trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth,

And push the afflicted out of the way.

Father and son go in to the same girl,

So that my holy name is profaned.

They lay themselves down beside every altar

On garments taken in pledge,

And in the house of their God they drink

Wine bought from fines they have imposed.

Israel, too, is to be brought into punishment, but Israel’s sins are not cruel treatment of enemies in war, but cruel and unjust treatment of the poor in the midst of God’s people, the corruption infecting the rich and powerful, and insults to God’s own holiness

The passage that Molly read this morning from Amos 8 delivers the same judgment on God’s people Israel.  Here again is the beginning of that passage:

Hear this, you that trample on the needy,

And bring to ruin the poor of the land,

Saying, “When will the new moon be over

So that we may sell grain,

And the Sabbath,

So that we may offer wheat for sale?

We will make the ephah (a unit of measurement of grain) small,

And the shekel (the weight on the balances) great,

And practice deceit with false balances,

Buying the poor for silver,

And the needy for a pair of sandals

And selling the sweepings of the wheat (from the threshing floor).

Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob (sworn by himself):

Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

A somber pronouncement on an unjust and corrupt society.

When I was teaching at Louisville Seminary I taught an elective course on Amos and Hosea.  Some of you took a similar adult course I taught here, except you didn’t have to read the Hebrew, like my seminary students did.  And one of the things I asked my students to do was to choose a prophetic oracle and translate it into a modern setting, so that they could get a better feel for what the prophet was saying in his time, and might be saying to them in our time.  One of my students – Tom Luce (now deceased); he and his wife Ellen became close friends of ours – wrote this paraphrase on Amos 8:4-10, our scripture lesson for this morning:

Heed this warning well–

All of you who exploit your brother or sister in need and condemn them to live in a culture of poverty from which there is no escape;

All of you who pray “Forgive us our debts” on Sunday and secretly wish the day would end so business could continue as usual on Monday and the debts of the underprivileged increased;

All of you who overprice items that people need to survive, and who drive people from their homes at the end of the month because there is no rent money, and who charge unfair interest on loans because some cannot read the fine print;

All of you who value a dollar more highly than a person’s dignity, and sell him shoes you would not wear and bread you would not eat.

God will revenge with anger the exploitation and rape you bring on people who cannot fight back.  He will never forget anything that is done.  “The day will come,” God promises, “when this earth will rage and tremble like the waves in an ocean storm and every person will cry out for his life.”  All of this because of what is done to others.

“And on that same day,” God promises, “the sun will disappear from the sky at mid-day and the earth will be black.  [The universe itself joins in pronouncing God’s judgment] And all of your lavish dinners and social gatherings will turn into sad mourning and all of your singing into lamentation; and rough burlap will be worn in place of custom-tailored clothes, and every head will be bald and ugly; and it will be like the desolate sadness of an only son killed in war, and it will be a bitter and forlorn time.”

Somber pronouncements, somber judgments.

But is there no good news to be found here?  We are called as Christians, as the Church, to preach the good news of the gospel, and there seems to be little good news in Amos’ preaching.

But there is good news in those oracles, if the Spirit gives us ears to hear it and minds to understand it.  The key to understanding what that good news is that we hear in the oracles of Amos is given us by Jesus in his announcement of his own calling:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

It is the poor, the oppressed, those held in bondage to conditions over which they have little or no control – it is to them that the good news of Amos comes, and that good news is that this world, and this life, are not a chaotic conglomeration of random events without rhyme or reason, but that there is a line drawn through our world, our history, our lives – a plumb line, to use Amos’ image – and that line comes straight out of the heart of God, and it is called “Justice!”.  “Justice!”

And whether we can see it or not, whether it seems to be absent or not, even if it seems too often to be perverted by all the powerful forces in our world, that line is there, because God is there, and that line called “Justice!”, bisecting our world and our lives, comes straight out of the heart of God.

I have a bookmark that I got at a CROP Walk some years ago that quotes a verse from the 9^th Psalm:  “For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever.”  “The needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever.”  (Psalm 9:18)

Some of you will remember the motto President Bill Clinton had on his desk in the Oval Office: “It’s the economy, stupid!” The economy was, of course, not the only concern Clinton had on his plate as President, but it was his most pressing problem, and the motto was a constant reminder to him of where his focus needed to be. “It’s the economy, stupid!” For Amos, the motto would definitely be, “It’s justice, stupid!”. “It’s justice, stupid!”  And for him that focus was even more all-consuming: Justice! Justice! Justice!  And so should it be for us as Christians.

Not everyone agrees with that focus, of course.  A certain commentator on Fox News recently said, and with a great deal of urgency: “I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, the idea – hang on, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!…. If you have a priest [or, one would suppose, a pastor] that is pushing social justice, go find another parish.”

Now, I don’t know whether any of you are fans or followers of Glenn Beck, but I would suggest that Mr. Beck has not done a whole lot of reading of the prophet Amos recently, and apparently not the Gospels, either.  Because the cause of the poor and oppressed of this world, our treatment of the poor and oppressed – that is, social and economic justice, Mr. Beck’s code words – is so dominant in the preaching of Amos and the other prophets, and so dominant in the teaching of Jesus, that it would require a peculiar blindness to miss it.

Mr. Beck is probably not a big fan of the writings of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, either, and so may well have not encountered this statement of Roosevelt’s: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have enough; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”  Amos, I suspect, would largely agree with FDR, but would probably substitute something else for Roosevelt’s word “progress”: “The test of our society, the test of our moral compass, the test of our faithfulness to the will of God, is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have enough; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”

I realize that I am basically “preaching to the choir” here.  This congregation has never been reticent in affirming the importance of social justice in the good news of Jesus Christ and in his teaching.  But the challenge remains, not only to continue to affirm that truth, but to act on it in every way we can.  Because there are people out there eager to hear that truth, and to find ways to act on it themselves.

Let me close with a brief account of something Jim Wallis wrote in Sojomail this week.  He had been invited, along with others, to speak at Lifest, a Christian festival for young people in Wisconsin.  But when a local Christian radio station heard of his coming, they and a local pastor started circulating attacks on Wallis, suggesting, as he wrote, “that I was a communist, a deceiver, and, worst of all, an adviser to Barack Obama. My favorite,” Wallis said, “was that I was an ‘avowed Marxist’ and that any young person that heard me would be in ‘spiritual peril.’ They were especially concerned that ‘the social justice message and agenda [Sojourners] promote[s] is a seed of secular humanism, seeking an unholy alliance between the Church and Government.’”

Wallis called the owner of the station, offered to have a dialogue on the air – which was refused – and pointed out the many views which he shared with evangelicals – which made no dent in the station’s opposition.

After discussing the matter with the man who sponsored the festival, Wallis went ahead with his agreement to speak at the festival.  When he got to Wisconsin, he found that “Green Bay and Milwaukee television stations were there, with the story already in their local media and newspapers. I arrived to a series of press interviews and meetings with local pastors who were very sorry about all this and expressed hope that I would still come back to Wisconsin.”

“Finally”, he wrote, “I got to speak to the young people, which was the reason that I came in the first place. I told them that I came because of them and the hope their generation provides to me. And that I liked the title of the talk I was to give: “The Call to Jesus and his Kingdom of Justice.” So that’s what I talked about to a very enthusiastic response from the thousands of young people who were there — the crowd made even larger because of the controversy, of course.”

“When I quoted Jesus’ opening sermon at Nazareth and concluded that ‘any gospel that isn’t good news to the poor is not the gospel of Jesus Christ,’ they all cheered.”

“The front page of the local paper in Appleton, Wisconsin, where I boarded my flight for home the next day, led with the story of the night before in nearby Oshkosh by saying, ‘Jim Wallis shared his Bible-based message of serving the poor Friday night to a large, welcoming crowd at Lifest despite a small number of boos at his introduction.’  The newspaper article ended with my saying it was time to ‘replace the gospel of Glenn, Rush, Sean, and Bill with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.’”

“When I got to the TSA agent at airport security,” he concluded his account,  “she looked at my ID, smiled, and said, ‘So, you’re Jim Wallis! I hope you felt very welcome here; many of us are very glad you came.’ I did feel very welcome and am very glad that I came.”

The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, with its ringing call to Christians to serve the poor and oppressed of the world, is still urgently needed – and also still welcome.

Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor

In 1989, twenty one years ago, or in the preacher’s mind, seven, 3-year lectionary cycles ago, I was a much younger seminary student who had been sent to the tiny Central Oregon community of Moro, to relieve the community’s only pastor who moved into my seminary apartment for the summer to finish his Master’s Program.

I preached one of my very first sermons ever that summer on this text from Galatians.  I had just finished my first year in seminary.  I hadn’t even made it to those second and third year preaching courses.  I thought it was a cruel trick God was playing to send me out to preach without any instruction!

According to my sermon files, I preached on this same Galatians text again every three years, in 1992, 95, and 98.  I haven’t gone back to this text once in the last 12 years.

Our reading today is part of the final words in Paul’s letter to the community of Christian Jews in Galatia.  They summarize everything Paul has written earlier in the letter, but also introduce surprisingly new contradictions to each point he has made.  The whole letter must have challenged that early Christian community, making them feel very uncomfortable.  And I find it equally challenging.

It is hard enough when Jesus asks us to “love another” and to even “love our enemies.”  But even Jesus didn’t tell us that we needed to bear one another’s burdens.  “Loving” is hard enough, especially when we know that we can’t always change the way we feel, but at least we can try to love people from a safe distance.  Bearing the burdens that others carry is why too “up close and personal!”

Preparing that first novice sermon, took me back to years that I lived with the struggles of alcoholism.  For eight years I thought I was bearing the burden of my husband’s addiction, yet I had failed and opted for divorce instead. I was confused and angry when I came across this scripture lesson telling me to “bear one another’s burdens.”

That first sermon experience helped me to focus on balance. I realized that “bearing burdens” does not mean enabling unhealthy and codependent behaviors.  Sometimes the most restorative behavior is very hard and often may seem even “cruel” to those being loved.  Sometimes bearing another’s burden involves a very tough kind of love.

A quick read through the three later sermons I preached on this text, shows that I had had enough of the problem of bearing burdens and moved on to the later and much easier issue in the text, at least for me, of justification by grace alone.  When I decided it was probably time to look this summer at some Epistle lessons for a change, there was that darn  “bearing burdens” text again and I just couldn’t ignore it.

First, let’s put this Epistle; this letter, into its context.  Paul and Barnabus left on the first of their missionary journeys into Asia Minor in or around the year 49 CE.  The area of Galatia was somewhere near what is now Turkey. Paul’s strategy, at first, was to go into the Jewish synagogues to read from the Torah and teach, but as they found more and more resistance to teachings about Christ in the synagogues, they turned instead to the non-Jewish members of the communities and began to form small Christian groups made up of some Jewish and some non-Jewish converts.

Paul and Barnabus were not the only Jewish-Christian missionaries who traveled to these areas, though.  After Paul and Barnabus moved on others came who had different ideas about how to follow Christ, including the need to conform to Jewish law first, such as circumcision, and then to adhere to the teaching of Christ.  Some leaned toward such compromises in order to stay on good terms with Jewish authorities and avoid persecution and prejudice.  They often preached that having faith in Christ was only the first step, the Gentiles must then also become part of the chosen people of God through adherence to the written rules in the Torah. These opponents even attacked Paul’s credentials at times and insisted that he was trying to please his new converts with promises of cheap admission to the Kingdom.

On the other hand, Paul was also receiving criticism from those who had taken Paul’s message of freedom from the law as license to do anything they pleased.  When Paul later started to send them advice on ethical behavior they took exception to these “new laws” Paul was creating.

Controversies about what it means to be Christian and how the Christian community should order its life and worship have continued ever since, but for the early church such arguments threatened to destroy their unity before it was even formed.  Infighting and division based on differences of “style” distracted the people from their more important work as disciples.

This letter to the Christian community in Galatia is the oldest writing in the Younger Testament. It is the earliest of Paul’s letters that we have and predates all of the gospels. It is an emotional letter full of words which reveal Paul’s anger, frustration and discouragement as he pleads with these new Christians to remember and trust in the message Jesus revealed; a message of freedom and the unconditional love of God, which seemed too good to be true.

As the letter draws to a close, Paul summarizes all he written about the Christian life.  Though Paul argues his own opinions in the body the letters, when it comes right down to it, Paul admits that it really doesn’t matter if you’re for or against circumcision or for or against free grace. As angry as he is at his adversaries, in the end Paul writes about restoring all transgressors back into the community in a spirit of gentleness. “Bear one another’s burdens,” Paul writes, “and thus fulfill the law of Christ.”

To bear one another’s burdens goes against everything we hold dear in US culture today; our individualism, autonomy, self-determination, parochialism, self-righteous suspicion and sacred personal freedoms.

An online book study that I’m part of asked recently, “Ever get caught in the “tender trap” of self-righteousness?  Care to do a little confessing?”  I loved the answer of one of my new friends who wrote back, “The main thing that bothers me about me is that I’m such a poor Christian and such a good American.”

To bear one another’s burdens is to recognize and behave as if we are all in this thing called “life” – - together.  That’s not only anti-American, it’s practically anti-human, but perhaps there’s no better way to sum up the call to follow Jesus.

I suppose we could contend that since Paul wrote this to a relatively small group of people in one location, he might not have meant that we should bear the burdens of everyone on the planet, but, as they say, the world has gotten a lot smaller today.  I can’t read this as Paul telling St. Markers only to bear the burdens of other St. Markers, but if that were the case, I suppose we could at least say that we share our prayer requests so that we can help bear the burdens.  But is prayer the only burden bearing that Paul advised.

It’s important to notice the reciprocity of the phrase.  Paul does not say, “You there! Take care of everybody else.”  He says, “Everybody help everybody else!”  If others are willing to help with my burdens and if I’m willing to let others help with my burdens, then I might have some strength and energy to help carry the burdens of another. And have you ever noticed how someone else’s burden seems so much lighter than your own, anyway?

There are an endless number of situations to which this text could be applied.  It could be applied to a very personal relationship we’re dealing with, as it was with me when I was still dealing with guilt about my divorce. But when does bearing burdens become enabling?  And how do I balance taking care of myself with taking care of others?  And what if they don’t want my help?

We could attempt to apply these words to charitable behavior toward strangers.  Am I responsible for helping every homeless person I see?  What if I’m not qualified to help or don’t know the best way to help?  Every day on the way home from work I pass the same man standing on the side of the road, holding his “Anything Helps. God bless!” cardboard sign.  Am I being called to help bear his burdens, too?  If so, How?

Does this direction from Paul trouble you, as it does me?  Does anyone have any words of wisdom as to how we might begin to live into this bearing of one another’s burdens more fully and more gracefully?

We could apply this challenge politically or economically.  We could ask if we, as a nation, are responsible for bearing the burdens of other nations and peoples, and if so, to what degree?  The US has the resources to put an end to poverty worldwide, they say, but not without some sacrifice on our part.  What sacrifices can we be expected to make?

These words could also be applied to the ministry of this congregation as we struggle against change but recognize that there are people in our community that need to hear a message of hope and reconciliation that we might be able to share.  What is our responsibility to those who are not a part of our fellowship?

Whether we like it or not, all of humanity must bear the burdens of alienation and hopelessness, of poverty, oppression and violence.  We are all in this together.  The airplane that brought me home from Tennessee had painted on its side, “One World.”  I read a magazine ad while on that plane that said simply, “Let’s look out for each other.”   Paul put it another way when he wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female.”  We must bear one another’s burdens because only when we are all working together and all carrying an equal weight, will we find the way to God’s promised world of justice and peace.

Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor

Fifty years after the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel addressed Germany”s Parlament saying, “We remember Auschwitz and all that it symbolizes because we believe that in spite of the past and its horrors, the world is worthy of salvation; and salvation, like redemption, can be found only in memory.”    (Weisel, From the Kingdom of Memory, 1990)

Part Four of our reflection on prayer focuses on Psalm 77 and the “antidote of memory.”  When we feel only the harsh, absence of God; when there seems to be no hope, no future, no release from grief or pain or worry, when we sink into despair, depression, and sorrow, remembering often is the one thing that will pull us back together; pull us back into wholeness; pull us back from the edge of the abyss into the faint light of hope.  Remembering is the prayer that brings us back to God and God back into our story. This is the story told in Psalm 77.

Psalm 77 is almost literally the centerpiece of this book of sung prayers called The Psalms.  Psalm 77 begins with ten lines of inconsolable hopelessness so great that the writer cannot imagine any help being available anywhere, even from God.  The despair is so complete in this psalm that the writer no longer talks about the problem or asks God for anything. We are beyond the cause or the solution.  The stakes are at their highest point. The psalmist is ready to admit that it may be too late because God may no longer care.

Psalm 77 asks, “Has the steadfast love of the LORD ceased forever?  Are the promises of the LORD at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious?  Has God in anger shut away all God’s compassion?”

Despair and worry often brings us to this point of doubting everything we’ve ever thought we knew about God.  We understand what it is like to lie awake at night suffering like this writer who cries out, “My soul refuses to be comforted!  You keep my eyelids from closing; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.  I think of God and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints.”

Finally, ten lines of lament are summed up this way,  “It is my grief, that the right hand of the Most High has changed.”  The “right hand of the LORD” had reached out in power and mercy to save the people from their Egyptian taskmasters.  The “right hand of the LORD” had continued to protect and preserve them, but now this hand of God seemed to be have changed.  The awful possibility that God’s right hand was either withdrawn or perhaps reached out now to strike down instead of lift up was literally making the psalmist mourn in despair.

Even so, there is a subtle flicker of hope found in this long, sleepless night.  Questions are still being asked. The search for an answer is not given up completely. “Remembering” (zkr in Hebrew) keeps hope alive.  Our English translation uses three different translations of zkr.  First, the psalmist “thinks of God” in verse 3. This is the initial way we remember; to consciously choose to use the mind.  Remembering doesn’t happen without effort at times.

In verse 6 the same word is translated saying that the Psalmist “commune with his heart.” In cryptic Hebrew texts this line actually reads, “I shall remember my music.”  In other words, besides simply thinking about God, the psalmist begins to hear the music of the temple; music that has imprinted itself upon his soul and heart; music which speaks of God and enables the heart to remember as well as the mind.

Benjamin Weir, and his wife Carol served as missionaries in Lebanon with the Presbyterian Church (USA) for nearly 30 years.  Ben was kidnapped off the streets of Beirut in 1984 by an Islamic fundamentalist group that later evolved into Hezbollah. Ben was freed 16 months later in exchange for US anti-tank weapons, as part of the Iran-Contra Affair.  When Ben was released and returned to ministry, he and Carol became professors at San Francisco Theological Seminary, where I was then a student.

I remember Ben telling us the story of how he was handcuffed to an iron radiator many days and nights; much of the time blindfolded.  (He was 62 at the time.)  Ben told us that he survived the ordeal by working to remember as many verses from scripture as he could, especially verses from the Psalms, and that sometimes the words came to him in the form of hymns he had sung all his life.

The third translation of zkr comes in verse 11 when the psalmist writes, “I will ‘call to mind’ the deeds of the LORD.”  Again the psalmist uses his brain, and this time the psalmist thinks specifically about what God has done in the past and everything begins to change.  The writer suddenly addresses God directly as if God has stepped back into the room, “I will remember your wonders of old.”

The writer of Psalm 77 literally “thinks the past into the present.”  Professor James Mays writes, “It is as if there is a reality of God in the past that, if re-presented in the present, will cope with the awful question” with which (the psalmist) has been wrestling. Suddenly, the music changes and the psalmist sings with joy, “What god is so great as our God?”

It is not a personal history with God, however, that redeems his hope, but the communal memory of his people.  The Psalmist does not try to remember all the great things that happened in his own lifetime, but he remembers the story of how his people, his grandparents and great grandparents were redeemed from their slavery in Egypt by God’s strong arm. The Psalm concludes with wonderful imagery of the Exodus story.

Memory can be both a blessed and a curse.  Memory can sometimes elicit the wrong response. It can create revenge, retaliation, resentment.  We can only remember our side of the story, we’re just wired that way, so no individual memory can ever be completely true.  “In order for memory to become redemptive we must work to remember truthfully and then to interpret the meaning of the memory in a wider context.” Healing comes when one remembers as truthfully as possible and therapeutically and then learns from the past.  (P. C. Enniss)

One of the most powerful things we can do for one another as we live in community is to provide the wider context; the therapeutic memory; to bring the saving grace of the past into the present by sharing our stories of rebirth, redemption, renewal.

So let’s see if we can do just that for a few minutes here today.  Think for a minute about what communal stories you have in your memory that remind you of God’s right hand reaching out to save.  What stories do we have in our communal memory of God’s redemptive power?

We need stories that go beyond our biblical narratives.  The biblical stories, like the story of the Exodus that meant so much to the Psalmist, are not part of a communal memory for many of us.  While some of us may have heard the story so many times and in such a way that it became part of our past, many who come to find spiritual blessing in our midst today, cannot take part in that communal memory.

God did not stop redeeming families, communities, tribes and nations 2,000 years ago! But as enlightened cultures, whose language for explaining why and how events happened changed, we stopped talking about our stories of redemption in terms of how God had saved us, so those stories no longer seemed to fit in our churches and we missed the power of those memories.

We have our own stories of survival as families, networks, and communities.  We don’t have time to tell the long version of these stories today, but perhaps some folks could share a few brief highlights of some of their communal memories.

(Comments)

My family holds a communal memory of how my mother survived the Flu of 1918-1919. This Pandemic of Influenza killed more people worldwide than World War I; some estimate as many as 50 million.  In the fall of 1918, as the war in Europe was winding down, Americans joined in the fight, bringing the Allies closer to victory against the Germans. Deep within the trenches these men lived through some of the most brutal conditions.

Then, in small areas around the globe, something quietly began that was no more remarkable than the common cold, but in the two years that followed, a fifth of the world’s population was infected with this influenza. Of the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them fell to the deadly virus.

The Pacific Northwest was the last part of the US to be hit by the pandemic in the fall of 1918. My mom was born to a young couple farming in Albany in December of 1918. She contracted the flu virus as a newborn.  How she survived no one really knows, but she did, although she remained “sickly” and weak, all of her childhood.

Memories such as this, and of the Great Depression and of World War II when my Dad went off to war leaving her alone with a young son to raise, are the memories of God’s redeeming work in the world around her that enabled my mother to hold onto hope and to live with an optimistic spirit to this day.  Memories such as these, are part of the communal memory of my family that strengthens our faith.

As we live through suffering, loss, depression; as we take our cries of pain and sorrow and fear to God in the most human and unconscious forms of prayer, it is our communal memories that sustain us.  By remembering, we pray the saving grace of God out of the past and into the present, so that God can sit down beside us and give us the strength we need to go on.

Words from Sue Graf

When Barbara asked me to talk about my father today, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.  I thought it would be really easy to talk about him.  I love him very much and we have a very good relationship.  But, it turns out not to be as easy as all that to know what to say, so it’s been a great opportunity to really think about him and our relationship.  And I do have to say, that much of what I say today could equally well be said about my mom.

My dad, Frank Walmsley, was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts.  His father emigrated from England as a boy and worked in the mills in New England.  The family moved to Maine when my dad was about 6.  When my sister and I complained about waiting for the school bus or walking to school in the cold and snowy winters, he could tell us about riding his bike to school when it was snowing (not that it made us feel any better, of course!).  He went to the University of New Hampshire, getting a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, and then went to UNC Chapel Hill for a Ph.D. in chemistry.

My dad is a teacher.  He has been teaching chemistry for over 50 years.  He started out in the Chemistry Department at the University of Toledo.  Although he had a research lab, and I remember some of his graduate students, his true calling is and was teaching.  In 1987, my mom took a faculty position at UT San Antonio and my dad took “early retirement” after almost 25 years in Toledo.  Ever since, he has been teaching part-time at UTSA and Trinity University.  Mostly, he has been teaching chemistry classes, but recently he has been teaching in the First Year Seminar program at Trinity, drawing on his love of mystery novels, rather than chemistry.  His offering for this coming fall is “Eccentrics and Misfits in the Mystery Novel” addressing “how mystery authors, through their characters, show us our own short-comings and those of society.”  In the last few years, he has also taught a seminar on science and the mystery novel and on religion and the mystery novel.

This just goes to show how widely my dad thinks.  A few years ago he was talking about his idea for teaching the science and mystery novel course, but he told me he was concerned about his qualifications, because he did not have a liberal education.  As an example, he told me he had never read Jane Eyre.  My initial response was that I did have a liberal education, but I hadn’t read Jane Eyre either (something that I have since remedied!).  But my next response was that he had many years of thinking and reading about many subjects in addition to chemistry.  He is always reading, not just mystery novels (which he loves), but also religious thinkers and many other types of books (anytime Simon Winchester has a new book, I know what to get him).  For his birthday this week, he asked for a copy of Marcus Borg’s newly published first novel.  He also enjoys cookbooks and cooking magazines, and is often perusing our collection for new recipes when he visits us.

Having this example of reading and thinking about things outside of your specific discipline has been wonderful.  Although I don’t do nearly as much of it as he does, I comfort myself that he has a lot more time for it these days than he probably did when he was my age!  It’s always been particularly significant to me that he (and my mom) has never appeared to have any difficulty integrating his scientific pursuits with his religious beliefs.  This lack of tension between science and religion meant that it was easy for me to coexist in the scientific realm as well as church without struggle.

In thinking about my dad, the other thing that kept coming up in my mind was that he is not a person of a lot of words.  This is probably partly his personality, and partly due to having a wife and two daughters who always have a lot to say!  However, he exerts influence gently and quietly without a lot of words.  I didn’t recognize this growing up, but when I finished my graduate degree, he came for my graduation and we were visiting with my Ph.D. advisor.  They were talking, and my dad said “we knew that she would be a biologist since she was in 4^th grade”  The reason for this was that I went to a Saturday science class in 4^th grade and my favorite thing out of all the different things we did, my favorite part was the frog dissection.  But even having this in mind, neither of my parents pushed me in that direction.  They encouraged me to take the science classes I would need, but they also made sure I took music lessons, and urged me to go to a college where I could pursue both a good science education and music as well.

My dad has had the same quiet influence in my life in the area of religion.  He grew up in an evangelical church.  My parents met in Chapel Hill, NC when they were in graduate school.  My mom grew up Methodist, and balked at attending church with my dad, so they compromised on the University Presbyterian church, which was just across the street from the campus, and my dad has been a Presbyterian for over 50 years.  My grandmother now lives about 15 miles from Chapel Hill, and we often attend University Presbyterian when we visit her.

I grew up in the Presbyterian church, attending Sunday school, singing in the choir, in the youth group, going to Vacation Bible School and church camps.  I don’t remember a lot of religious discussions while I was growing up, although I do remember a conversation in the car after church when I was fairly young.  I was apparently just learning the words to the Gloria Patri, which our congregation sang every week.  I recall asking for clarification on the words, because I was sure that I had it wrong that we were saying the “Holy Ghost.”  That led to a discussion of the holy spirit and the trinity that I still recall.

My dad has been actively involved in the church in many ways.  He has served on many sessions, he has been clerk of session, and he has been the stated clerk for Mission Presbytery.  In his teacher role, he has written a series of handbooks for Mission Presbytery, including for Clerks of Session, elders, nominating committees, and more.  These are available on the Mission Presbytery website.  He is also involved in the lay leadership institute of Mission Presbytery.  Instead of a lot of words, my dad has simply lived the example of giving his gifts of time, talent, and energy, as well as financial support of the church community.

In addition to being actively involved, my dad thinks seriously about religion and the church.  He has written a draft of a book about religion (although I admit I have only read parts of it!).  He is a firm believer in the reformed church.  My recent conversations with him about the church have often revolved around reformed theology and his conviction that individual decision-making (for example about ordination decisions) should reside within a presbytery or a congregation.  Unlike me (who can get a bit carried away sometimes), my dad listens closely, thinks carefully, and responds thoughtfully.

Sometimes I see my dad in me.  Sometimes when I’m sitting and listening and thinking, I sit in the same way he does with my chin on my hand.  I occasionally I catch myself making a face that he does when he is considering something.  I can’t reproduce it on demand, but I notice when I do it.  I hope that some of his other qualities have passed to me too.  Although I’ll never be the teacher he is, I hope I can be a serious thinker and listener and can provide that quiet support to others that he has given to me.

Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor

Author Richard Foster says that “asking is the staple diet of prayer”.           The Hebrew and Greek words that are used for “prayer” in scripture mean, “to request” or “to make a petition.”  When we ask God for help for something outside of our own lives we call it a prayer of intercession; we ask God to “intercede” in that situation.  When we pray for something in our own lives, we call it a prayer of petition.

Psalm 5 is classified as an individual Psalm, or prayer, of lament.  In small print, just before the words of the Psalm begin, we have what is called a superscription; instructions for the choir director concerning how the psalm is to be presented in worship. This superscription informs us that this is a psalm of David that is to be sung to a tune played on the flutes.

There are five elements to typical psalms of lament.  There are words which call upon God to “Listen up!”  There is the stating of a complaint; “Here’s what’s wrong!”  There’s telling God what the complainer wants God to do; “Smite those bad guys, O God!”  There’s a list of reasons why God will surely do what the complainant asks; “’Cause you’re a God who smites all  bad guys!” and finally, usually at the end, but also throughout the prayer, there is presumptuous praising of God’s goodness for fixing the situation and thanking God in advance, before it has even been fixed.

I’m not so sure this is a very mature or honorable example of petitionary prayer, but it is reassuring to find that even the most egocentric of prayers was used in the temple and recorded for posterity.  This prayer sort of frees us to “ask” as boldly and freely as we like.

Psalm 5 sounds like an appeal to one’s King about a wrong that the policies of the King are known to cover or a court case which includes the speech of a well trained lawyer for the prosecution. This particular sung prayer was written for those who have been falsely accused or slandered in some way.  As a last appeal to God for justice, such a person could go to the temple and sing this prayer. Maybe even within the hearing of other worshippers.

The opening stanzas of the psalm claim that the plaintiff is simply going to state his or her case and then watch for God’s response, but human nature quickly takes over and instead of “watching” for an answer the prayer continues.  “You hate all evildoers!  You destroy those who speak lies!” While it may sound as if the psalmist is telling God what God thinks and does, this may also represent a sort of Confession of Faith.  This is what the psalmist passionately believes about God and God’s justice.

The singer of Psalm 5 has already passed judgment on his enemies long before approaching and asking God to pass judgment.  And the psalmist takes no responsibility for his or her own part in what happened. This is certainly an honest, human prayer which reminds us again that our prayers don’t have to follow any rules.

But perhaps there are some things we should learn from our prayers about our relationship with the divine spirit.  For instance, ancient texts reveal that persons facing any sort of difficulty would often spend the entire night in a sanctuary praying.  The following morning, a priest would then pray with and for them, reminding them of God’s justice and faithfulness.

When the psalmist declares, “in the morning I plead my case to you, and watch” we are reminded that praying has its own sense of timing.  Sometimes we must pray through the darkness of endless nights before we are able to say what we need to say to God, or listen for an answer.

There are petitions in this prayer that the guilty may bear their guilt, fall by their own counsel, and be cast out of the community, but a very important personal request comes first, that the “way of the LORD be made straight.”   In other words the psalmist musters enough humility to ask “show me the right path to take out of this mess!”

We run into lots of issues when we consider knock on the door asking for something of God.  First, there’s the question of why we should have to ask God for anything when God already knows what we need.  Some would say that our asking is more for our own awareness of our need.  Foster says that “God likes to be asked!”  which, I think, is another way of saying that asking is an important part of the personal relationship we have with God.

Then there’s the problem of feeling like we shouldn’t bother God with our little problems.  So, what is that really saying? “My life is not as significant as that life over there.”  “The divine energy is limited; God only has so much time for this stuff.”

I wonder how many of us find it easier to ask for prayers during worship because asking others to pray the prayer that we would like to pray is easier than asking God directly for what we want and need.  I can think of lots of prayer requests when I’m in worship that don’t come to mind any other time.

In worship we tend to ask for things for other people, which is also easier than asking for ourselves.  Andrew Wheeler, in his book about praying in small groups called, Together in Prayer, writes that “Community prayer at its best can be defined simply as ‘praying to God with people.’ . . We address God, not the group – in prayer . . . and we pray in concert with others . . . limiting our prayers so as to invite participation of the whole community, and agreeing with one another as we pray. Praying in small prayer support groups is a different dynamic than praying Prayers of the People in worship, but in small congregations the two things often get blended.

The most difficult part of prayers of petition is not the asking, at all, but what happens after we ask. One of the “heroic tales” of St. Mark is the story of how our women’s prayer group prayed former Pastor Joanne Sizoo into pregnancy. In faith, we believe that God hears and answers prayers, even though sometimes we experience that happening and sometimes we don’t.

We often don’t pray for what we want or need because we don’t know how to deal with the answer or what seems to be the lack of an answer. Jesus told his followers that whatever they asked for in his name, God would give to them, but we don’t see how that works in real life.

There are lots of explanations of how God answers prayers. “God answers, we just don’t hear the answer or we don’t like the answer, or we don’t understand the answer. God’s answer is always in our best interest, whether we like it or not. It’s all a mystery that we just have to hold in faith.” To some extent, all those explanations are probably true.

Think about how we asked for things when we were very little.  Children are experts at asking!  We walked into a toy store with our parents and immediately saw something really cool and didn’t even hesitate, many of us, to cry out, “I want that!  Will you buy me that?”

As children we don’t worry about the answer. We only care about the asking!  We only think about what we want.  And, if we don’t get the answer we like, we might even ask again and again,…and again!  We’re persistent, like the stories Jesus told about a friend banging on his neighbor’s door in the middle of the night for a favor, or a widow pleading her case with a judge.

As a child, we might even fly into a rage when we don’t like the answer we get back. “I hate you!  You’re the worse Mommy in the world!”  It hurts to not get what we want, so we cry or we scream hoping to change the answer.

You know, in the end, I don’t think it matters much, when we’re children, whether we get what we want or not. In either case, we usually find want something else we want very quickly, anyway. It was the having someone to ask, someone to beg; someone who cared enough to listen, and the being heard, that really mattered.

Can you imagine what it would have been like to be in that store alone with no one to ask?  To have been alone with our feelings, our passionate desires; alone needing something so bad it almost hurt;  and not to have had anyone to listen to us?

Even if our parents were able to resist our extravagant demands, they were learning about us every time we asked.  Pretend you’re the parent now.  You walk through the toy store and ask your child, “What do you like?” and all the child says, is “Oh, I don’t know.  That’s kinda nice.  That’s OK, but it’s really expensive.  I like everything but I really don’t want anything today.”  We want to know what our children need and want.  It helps us build a relationship with each individual child.

When we talk about being in relationship with God, it’s obviously hugely different.  We mustn’t let this personification of God go too far, so let’s just say that as human beings life is about relating to things; to other people, to the earth, to circumstances and events around us.  We relate to life itself and we live in relationship to the world and the spirit of life that is around and within us. Relating requires input from both parties, both aspects.  By not asking the world, the spirit of life, for what we want, we make our relationship with God much less.

As we grow up, asking becomes harder and harder because we decide it is the answer that is most important. We fear the answer, or the response of the one being asked, so much, that we decide it was safer just not to ask for too much.  And we begin to forget what we really want and need.

Psalm 5 is about asking, boldly, freely, presumptuously,  and remembering within all the asking to stop and ask, once in a while, along the way, “God, set me on the right path out of this mess!”   It is like the moment that we, as children, first ask our parents, “What do you think I should ask for?  What do you think I should do?”  It is in asking that we receive.  It is in knocking that the door is opened.

Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor

“God invites us into the living room of (God’s) heart, where we can put on old slippers and share freely.  (God) invites us into the kitchen of (God’s) friendship, where chatter and batter mix in good fun. (God) invites us into the dining room of (God’s) strength, where we can feast to our heart’s delight. (God) invites us into the study of (God’s) wisdom, where we can learn and grow and stretch . . . and ask all the questions we want. (God) invites us into the workshop of (God’s) creativity, where we can be co-laborers with (God), working together to determine the outcomes of events. (God) invites us into the bedroom of (God’s) rest, where new peace is found and where we can be naked and vulnerable and free. The key to this home, this heart of God, is prayer.”  (Foster, Prayer, 1)

Those are the words of Richard J. Foster, a Quaker, as he begins his best-seller caller,  Prayer. During the month of June, on Sunday mornings, we are going to reflect on lessons from the Psalms and what they have to teach us about this phenomenon called “prayer.”  As far as I’m concerned, when I came to St. Mark I thought it had a better understanding of corporate prayer than most congregations, certainly most Presbyterian congregations. St. Mark was actually doing the Prayers of the People as prayers of the people, not as a mini-sermon given by the pastor.

St. Mark, as an intimate faith community, really knew how to lift one another up in prayer and how to support one another in the prayers each one brought to the community. It was great!  It was also, I soon found out, a long-standing issue of debate and discussion, this wonderful prayer life I had witnessed and it has remained so.

If there’s one thing we can say about prayer, from the very start, it is the prayer means something different to each person; everyone has their own perspective on prayer. To complicate the matter even further at St. Mark, we worship as both a small, intimate, family, on the one hand, and, at the same time, as a neighborhood church with visiting strangers in our midst.

Using our psalms from the prescribed lectionary list for this month, we’re actually going to start at the end. Psalm 146 is the first of five psalms of praise that conclude the book of Psalms.  The book of Psalms is not just a random collection of old hymns, but a purposefully lined out story of ancient Israel told in short poetic, musical selections; a story that takes us from the time of prosperity during the reign of King David’s to a time of despair as the Israelites live in captivity in Babylon, and finally to the time of restoration as the Israelite nation returns from exile and rebuilds their temple in Jerusalem.

The book of Psalms begins with songs of remembrance of the good ole days, then moves into the lament of exile and progresses slowly into songs of praise for God’s continual goodness. The Book of Psalms is the story of a people attempting to find meaning and regain faith during a time when all identity and stability in their lives and culture had been destroyed.

What we find at the end of the story is a people who realize, through it all, that only God had remained trustworthy when all other help abandoned them.  Psalm 146 begins the “Hallelujah” chorus, quite literally, of the last five Psalms in this story.

In Hebrew, Psalm 146 begins and ends with, “Hallelu – yah!”  “Praise Yahweh!”

Foster writes that “all true prayer is saturated with (adoration.) It is the air in which prayer breathes, the sea in which prayer swims. . . Adoration is the spontaneous yearning of the heart to worship, honor, magnify, and bless God.” (ibid, 81)

The first stanza of Psalm 146 calls us to personal adoration.  The songwriter calls to his very soul, his nephesh, in Hebrew, to praise Yahweh. The singer desires that her “inner-most being”  praise Yahweh for the rest of her life. The nephesh in Hebrew is described as that inner part of our being that cannot quite ever be known by anyone but ourselves.  It’s that part deep within that only we can see when we look in a mirror; the inner voices of anguish, laughter, and perspective.  It is with this hidden, deep, unrevealed part within, that Psalm 146 calls us to adore and honor God.

So, we begin with the most personal form of prayer. That prayer that we speak internally, even unconsciously, at times.  It can be the “Thank, God!” that we render in moments of deepest thanksgiving or the “Dear God!” that we cry during moments of our greatest fear. It can also be our most conscious prayer.  The prayer that we fall asleep to at night, when only God’s ears seem big enough to hear our failures, our pain, our anguish.

This prayer is “No-Holds-Barred” prayer.  There’s no rules here.  There’s no right or wrong way to pray these prayers.  Even if we go into this prayer hiding from ourselves, deceiving ourselves from the truth, saying the wrong words, talking about the wrong problems, blaming the wrong persons, the spirit will direct us, eventually, to the prayer that really needs to be prayed and God will hear what we need to be saying and speak to our hearts and minds.

As we read through Psalm 149, we are reminded that human strength and power and authority, even at its best; at its most honorable; is temporary and frail.  People will and do disappoint us.  People have and will let us down.  People turn out not to be perfect, again and again.  As we come to the end of the musical called Psalms, the people realize that the plans of mortals perish, just as in Psalm 1 and 2, the song writers predicted that the ways of the wicked would perish.

As the first Psalm sings, “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,” the concluding psalms sing, “Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in Yahweh!”  The Hebrew word translated as “Happy” or sometimes as “Blessed” in English is ashre and comes from a verbal root which means “to go straight, to advance, to follow the track.”  It’s difficult to find an English word to convey that meaning, but we get the sense of one stepping out, moving forward on the right path, with assurance and in peace.  It’s not just about feeling good, but about feeling so good that one moves confidently forward in life.

The body of Psalm 146 includes a wonderful alliteration of three phrases praising God and beginning with the word “who. ”  “Who” does wondrous deeds in creation; “who” keeps the faith and “who” executes justice.  This pattern is followed by three phrases which begin with the name of the divine and remind us of God’s works of justice and compassion.

When we think of “keeping the faith” we almost always think of something that human beings are called to do.  It is God’s faithfulness, however, that is the whole reason for our adoration in this song; God faithfulness to God’s promises; God’s faithfulness in caring for creation.  If such is God’s faithfulness, then, as faithful people we are not just people who are full of faith, but people who can be trusted to live out our promises to God.

We often begin worship by sharing our personal reasons for celebration, we begin with sharing our praise and adoration for God.  It is a gift of grace, indeed, that there always seems to be something to give thanks for, even if it is only sunshine or rain or the fact that we are together.

Let us pray.  Ever-trustworthy, ever-loving, ever-good God, send your spirit to lead us to your house.  Give us courage to knock on your door and enter in honesty and joy. May we learn to see your gifts of grace and mercy every day and may we respond each day of our lives, with prayers of adoration from our inner-most being. Help us to know deeply and surely that you are faithfully present and faithfully loving every day, even those days when we cannot see or hear you.  Hallelu –jah! Praise be to you, O God, for the gifts of life this day!. Hallelu-jah for life, and love, and beauty and grace.  Hallelu-jah!

Romans 5:1-11

Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor

Today is the traditional Sunday in the Christian Church set aside for celebrating the Doctrine of the Trinity. Next Sunday we settle back down and start 33 Sundays of what the church calendar calls “Ordinary Time.”  It always strikes me as a bit odd, this phrase, “Ordinary Time” but I have to admit that I look forward to these “ordinary” days. Special Holy Days may be exciting and all, but they are also more complicated.  Ordinary Sundays give us a chance to breathe and settle in to simply being part of the Holy again..

The Church has argued more about The Doctrine of the Trinity more than anything else in its history.  In recent decades, this complicated doctrine has taken a real beating.  Many faithful Christians say that they no longer believe in this ancient church formula while others simply ignore it.

Though it seems like it would be easier sometimes to throw it all out and begin from scratch, it is probably wiser to understand where we came from and where we are now, so that we can follow the right path into the future.

We know the story of a “mountain top experience” in Galilee, shortly after Jesus’ resurrection, when the disciples “saw” Jesus and heard Jesus saying to them, “All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”  This triune formula is used only a few times in scripture, in this story from the very end of Matthew’s gospel and in a few of Paul’s letters to followers of Jesus.

The Doctrine of the Trinity, for Western Christians, is spelled out in the Westminster Confession as “In the unity of the Godhead there are three persons of one substance, power and eternity.”  (2.3)  In other words, God is one substance and three persons. The problem with the Doctrine of a Trinitarian is that the words that are used mean something quite different to us now than they did to the ancient theologians who first used those words.  The ancient church used language that was available and meaningful to their communities, language taken from classical Greek philosophy.

The word “substance” makes us think of God being composed of some kind of divine “stuff” as if God has some material and concrete form somewhere.  A more understandable definition of substance, that is not used as often, unfortunately, in English, is essence from which we get our word, essentially, meaning that which is most important. The essential word in the phrase is actually the word one.

The word substance, however, may be helpful in giving enough concrete reality to the divine nature that God can be experienced and know in a personal way; in much the same way that physical beings are known to one another.

“Three persons,” makes us think today of three individuals or at least three self-conscious personalities. The early Christians actually borrowed this word persona from Greek theater where actors wore different masks or personas to identify the different roles they were playing.  The three personas of God referred to three different roles or functions or work that God does.  The early church made clear, as it continued to argue against various heresies, that God does, however, differ from Greek theater in that God is not play-acting and God’s different roles are all going on at the same time.

Professor Shirley Guthrie translates the ancient doctrine of the Trinity into new language saying, “God in Three Persons” means one personal God who lives and works in three different ways at the same time.

Misunderstandings of the Trinitarian concept have been legion!  We have gotten around the often painfully exclusive male language by using words and images such as “God, Christ, and Holy Spirit,”   but we must keep in mind that it was not the gender of God that was the point of  “Father, Son, Holy Ghost” language, but the intimate relationship that existed between the three roles.

Using language which separates the trinity by their function or work, such as “Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer,” may be helpful, but only if we remember that the dividing line come and goes, moves and flows.  We know that not only God, but Christ and the Holy Spirit, were involved in the act of creation. John writes, “In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.”  We read in Proverbs that “Wisdom”  “Sophia” who becomes “Spirit” for us in Greek, was “beside God, like a master worker, when God marked out the foundations of the earth.”   We know that it is not only Jesus who redeems, remembering how God redeemed the slaves in Egypt and we know that it is not only the Holy Spirit who sustains, remembering the prayers Jesus prayed for his followers.

The first followers of Rabbi Jesus found that they could not talk about the God of Israel without talking about Jesus.  But they didn’t talk about Jesus’ nature, whether he was human or divine. They didn’t try to dissect him to figure out how much God he had inside.  They simply talked about what Jesus did and said.

In Jesus they saw a man who acted like God would act, who did what they expected only God could do, who spoke with the kind of authority that belonged only to God.  These followers were led to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, that is, to give to Jesus the same name, the same authority, the same saving power that was normally reserved for God.  But their faith believed there could only be one God, not one God in heaven and one who appeared on earth, so their theology, their “God-words” became more and more complicated.

Most of the writers of Christian scripture, especially Paul who worried only about the imminent apocalyptic end of time, refused to concern themselves with semantics, it seems, but they did write about both the unity and the distinction between God, Jesus, and the Spirit.         Whereas the western church has continued to emphasize the one-ness of God, the Eastern church continues to emphasize the three-ness of God.  John of Damascus, a Greek theologian from the 7^th century, developed  an understanding of the three-ness of God in a concept called perichoresis. Peri (from the same root as perimeter) means “around.” Choresis means, literally, “dancing.” For this ancient theologian the three personas of God were like three dancers holding hands, dancing around together in harmonious, joyful freedom.

We see this perfect dance in Paul’s letter to the Christian Jews in Rome.  The only difference is that we are also in the dance. First we dance with God and Jesus, twirling around “in peace with God through Jesus.”  Then we hold hands with God and the Spirit as the Spirit  “pours God’s love into our hearts.”  We continue to dance as Jesus’ death proves God’s love for us.  We dance on and on, reconciled to God, on and on, saved by Jesus, on and on, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

In a culture of seeking honor and avoiding shame, Paul describes a dance full of proud celebration and boasting.  In a culture where any sort of suffering or oppression, such as that being leveled at the followers of Christ by both traditional Jews and Greeks, was seen as a shameful sign of God’s displeasure, it was grace indeed that moved the feet of the dancers. As with those early followers, for many who follow the way of Jesus today, Jesus is the  persona of God that grants access to that grace; that grants access to the dance.

Many followers of Jesus today would also allow for other access to this grace. Many have room in their understanding of God for other dances of life with the divine.  Thanks to our reformed tradition and freedom, our understanding has continued to widen, opening our minds to other revelations; other manifestations of the divine.

For instance, humanity has long felt a spiritual connection with the earth; has long been touched by earth’s beauty and majesty and fragility. God has always spoken through the earth; to the peoples of the earth, as God is perhaps crying out today in the Gulf of Mexico. When we use the phrase, Mother Earth, are we speaking of a separate diety or of another face of God? Perhaps creation itself is a persona of God.

There will perhaps always be; perhaps always should be, a tension between calling everything God and calling too few things God, but the access to grace is deep and wide; wider than we can probably ever imagine, as wide and deep as the love of God.  May we never limit or abuse the doorways that open to us, and come to join in the dance.