The Family

John 17:20-26  New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)  

20 “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,[a] so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

25 “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

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I have a confession to make.  I swapped lectionary readings.  I know. It’s terrible.  I’m supposed to read them in the order the Lectionary Committee put them.  But it just seemed to me like they were in the wrong order this year  . . . today is the beginning of Christian Family week, and this passage seems to me to be about Christian Family, while next week’s reading from Acts seems like a very Mother’s Day kind of event.

I promise, when they come back around three years from now I won’t mess with the order. . . probably.  :-)

According to John, Jesus prayed to God that his disciples, his followers, might all be made one. He made that request three times in one short passage.  Let them be made one, so that the whole world will know that you love them as you love me and as I love them.  Three times he repeated that same phrase - Let them be made one.

Throughout scripture there are a few common themes that run from the very beginning of time up through the teachings of the Apostles after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension into heaven.   One of them is teach your children about God.   Another is treat everyone equally - treat your household well, but also treat everyone else well, especially those who have no one to take care of them.  It goes along with “love one another.”  God keeps trying to tell us that what we are supposed to do is love each other the way God loves us - without difference or distinction, without favorites.  So Jesus, whose message is simply a restatement and reiteration of what we find written in the Law and the Prophets, tries to pass along that teaching to his disciples, and thus down the line to us.  

Let these all be made one.  You may remember from your reading of Scripture that the disciples had been known to squabble a bit over rank and precedence.  Who will sit next to you, Lord?  Can it be me?  The Gospel according to John even goes so far as to speak of one disciple in particular whom Jesus loved more than the others.  Most scholars agree that he is talking about himself, although a few radicals seem to think he may have been talking about Mary Magdalene.   But I digress into scholarly discourse, which, while fun, doesn’t really have a lot to do with my point, which is  . . . . Jesus tried to instill in his disciples, in anyone who would listen to him, that all are equal in God’s eyes, that what they are truly required to do is love God and love one another.  He tried to teach them all that the fisherman is equal to the Pharisee is equal to the leper is equal to the Levite is equal to the prostitute is equal to the priest is equal to the robber is equal to the rabbi. . .  and so on through the alphabet.   This was such a radical idea for the time that no one really got it.  

Paul also tried to make this point, more than once.   In his letter to the Galatians, Paul says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  When he wrote to the Church in Colossi, he changed it up a bit, saying, “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all things and in all people.”  He spent a good portion of his time trying to convince the churches he founded that Jews and Gentiles were all the same in God’s eyes, and even more time trying to remind them that the rich and the poor were also the same.  Don’t give the rich the favored seats while leaving the poor to stand in the back.  Don’t let the rich stuff themselves when you gather while the poor go hungry.  Either share everything equally or no one eat.   but over and over Paul kept saying that in Christ we are all equal, all one, all the same.   All means All. . .   He even has to break up arguments over which of the spiritual gifts are more important. I mean, really.   He had to tell the folks in Corinth, “You are the body of Christ and parts of each other. . . All aren’t apostles, are they? All aren’t prophets, are they? All aren’t teachers, are they? All don’t perform miracles, do they? 30 All don’t have gifts of healing, do they? All don’t speak in different tongues, do they? All don’t interpret, do they?”

In the Acts of the Apostles we are told that everyone shared everything - all the food and all the property and everything they had.  Of course, we have a hard time believing that because a minute later Ananias and Sapphire are struck dead for withholding some of the proceeds of a land sale, and shortly after that there is a disagreement over whether the Hebrew widows and the Greek widows are receiving equal treatment in the distribution of food.  All of which just goes to prove that people are the same now as they were then . . .   We are really not good at being equal.   

And yet - we are family.   We are the human family.  We are the Christian family.  We don’t get to wonder whether someone is a better Christian than we are, or whether they even are Christian because some of their beliefs and practices differ from ours.  We may have difficulty understanding or even accepting each other, but Jesus told us that we need to all love each other. Jesus prayed to God to allow us to be made one, so that the world would know that his message is from God, that he came from God, that we are people of God.

We are not succeeding at proving that to the world.  I shared a meme on Facebook the other day that says, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.  That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”  

 Let them be made one, that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.   It’s not working.  We aren’t doing it right.   We are not behaving like family.  At least, not like the kind of family Jesus had in mind.

Look, I understand family dysfunction.   When those memes come around on Facebook asking everyone to “share this if you had the best Mother in the world,” I don’t share.  Or, “share this if your sister is your best friend.”  Not so much.   Same with cousins - I don’t even know where my cousins are!  I sometimes envy all of you with your whole families right here in Selma or in one of the nearby towns.  My closest family members are in Texas - my niece and her mother.  

But I do have family.  I have a church family.  Last night, after his recital, Christian was shedding tears of gratitude for his Church family, and I was right there with him.  Because even though I may not have a close blood family, I do have people in my life I have met through Church who have become closer than any sister, dearer to me than any cousin, more important to my spiritual welfare than my mother.  There are people in that family with whom I disagree, but we still love each other.  There are people in that family who have caused me pain, and to whom I have caused pain, and we forgive one another.  If push came to shove we would be there for one another.  My Christian family is the kind of family who will go to the very limits of their abilities and beyond to help one another.  

Now, there are some branches of that Christian family that I just don’t understand, I may never understand, and I have to wonder how on earth we are related.

And then I remember - we are related through Christ Jesus.  So even though we disagree, even though some of them preach and live in a way I find difficult to understand, we are still family.  Some of them seem to go out of their way to be as un-Christ-like as is possible, sowing hatred instead of love.  Some seem not to have heard the love commandment at all, or perhaps they simply interpret the word “love” much differently than I do.  I find myself saying things like, “Yeah, well, I’m not like them. I’m an entirely different kind of Christian . . .”   And the world judges us, me and you, and certainly Christ’s church, by the example they see in those.

But the thing is,  I don’t get to disown them, like I could blood family, because we are related through Christ Jesus.   Because All really does mean All - and we are supposed to be all one.  We can, and must, show the world that we are one, Christian family.  A family with differences and dysfunctions, certainly, but still, one family.  Just as we would seek to repair damages caused by members of our biological family to others, so we must do the same when others are damaged by parts of our Christian Family.  We must reach out with even more energy and even more love, to show the world the love that God showers upon us - and to our Christian brothers and sisters with whom we disagree, to remind them that we are, indeed, all family in Christ, all with the one, same goal to heal the world.  

When we leave this place, today, let us go out with determination to mend the rift within our family, within Christ’s family.  Let us go out with love and conviction, to share his love with the world, but especially with those members of the Christian family with whom we may not disagree, so that we may, indeed, be made one.  In Christ’s name.  Amen.

All Means All

11:1-18 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

11 Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers[b] criticized him, 3 saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” 

4 Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. 6 As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7 I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8 But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ 10 This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. 

11 At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. 12 The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; 14 he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ 15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” 18 When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

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Sometimes we hear stories about ministers being called up before some council or other and asked to explain their actions. Maybe they married a gay couple, or gave undocumented persons sanctuary in their church building or gained a reputation as someone who didn’t respect the systems that were in place.  Or maybe something in their personal life came under question.  That used to happen to gay and lesbian ministers a lot.  Sometimes those stories are very public.  Sometimes they are kept quiet.  But they are always worrying.  The decision of the council in question might change the entire direction of the church - and that worries a lot of people.

Peter was in Jerusalem because the council wanted an explanation for his baptism of Cornelius and every person in Cornelius’s household.  Here was an uncircumcised Gentile.  A believer, yes.  He was one of those Gentiles who went to Temple and believed in Yahweh, respected the prophets and followed the law.  But he hadn’t yet been circumcised, so he wasn’t yet fully Jewish.  And yet . . . .Peter baptized him.  Not just him, but everyone in his household - his wife or wives, his children, all the servants and workers in the household, even the children down to the tiniest infant.  Everyone in the household.  None of them circumcised.  None of them fully Jewish.  The council just had one question, really.  “What were you thinking?”   So he told them the story, just as it had happened. How he had a vision from God, and that vision led him to understand that God is not just the God of the Jews, but of the Gentiles also.  And since Gentile was understood to mean “Everyone who isn’t a Jew” that pretty much meant everyone.  All of them.  Wow.  What a concept.  Jesus came for All of us.  Even them.   For God so loved the world that he sent his only son to heal it.    The world.  All of it.  All. Of. It. 

You may have noticed the slide show going on behind me.  You may, in fact, have not heard a single word I said because of the slide show going on behind me.  That was a risk I decided to take this week, because this slide show is quite frankly, amazing.  Time lapse photography taken in Yosemite Park.  I forget who sent it to me - maybe Alan.  But I was blown away by the beauty it shows and decided to save it for Earth Day.  Yes.  For those who missed it, Earth Day was Friday.  According to my Disciples planning calendar, Earth Stewardship Sunday was last week, but you know, sometimes I ignore the calendar and celebrate things on a day that works better.  This year the scripture reading for this week was much more appropriate, I thought, to Earth Day.   “What God has made clean, don’t you make unclean.”  And ok, that might be a bit simplistic, given the fact that we live in an area with even worse air quality than LA.  Who knew that I would have to use my asthma inhaler so much more often here than in Los Angeles?  It’s a farming community, for Pete’s sake.  It’s supposed to have clean air and lots of water.  And yeah, I get that we’re in a drought, which makes having enough water a problem.  But the air?  …  a subject for another time, perhaps.  Because Earth Day is about much more than air quality. It is about all the earth - the earth animals, sea creatures, plants, and minerals.  It is about the way every single thing on the earth somehow interacts with every other thing on the earth so that it all works properly.  When a bug becomes extinct, it will soon be followed by a larger bug, a bird, a certain kind of plant that bird helps to propagate by eating its seeds . . . when bees go away we won’t just stop having honey, we’ll stop having food.  And we will die. 

All means All.  All means everything, everyone.  It means we have to lavish love not just on other humans but on all the creatures of the earth, all the insects, all the minerals that enrich the soil in which we grow our food . . . In this place, in Selma, California, that really should be a no brainer.  But I grew up on a farm, too.  And I know that we really didn’t care about the groundhog’s place in the ecosystem.  We just knew he dug holes that sheep and cows stepped in and broke their legs.  So we shot him.  We didn’t care about the fact that some bird only ate the bug that ate big holes in the corn kernels.  We only cared about the corn.  So we killed the bug with poison.  And maybe the bird died for lack of food.   We didn’t care about the poison that was getting into the food that way either - I don’t think anyone was thinking about those things then . . .

Frankly, it’s really hard to care about All.  All is a huge word.  It’s easy to care about this issue or that group of people.  But it’s really hard to even wrap our minds around the concept of “All.”  I could list environmental concerns until we’ve all missed lunch, and not get close to the end of the things we need to think about.  I could name a long list of different categories of people we need to concern ourselves with, and I would miss some.  All is a really, really big word.

When we say “All Means All” in the church, though we tend to think rather narrowly.  I have to tell you, one of my pet peeves is the narrowness of focus with which we use this phrase.   I know that when the resolution to be a Welcoming Church was passed at General Assembly it caused quite a ruckus, especially in the Hispanic Churches.  A number of Hispanic congregations dis-associated themselves from the denomination, because they believed that they were being told they had to include LGBTQIA folks.  (And for those who asked, I looked it up.  The QIA part means Queer, Intersex and Asexual.  We can have a conversation about gender and orientation fluidity some other time.)  Well, they kind of were, but they also really weren’t.  It’s not like we’re hierarchal - we have no bishops.  We don’t have to do what the General Assembly resolves to do.  Our General Assembly can pass resolutions until the cows come home, but no congregation will be required to implement those resolutions.   So they could have stayed, lodged a protest, as the ObraHispania did, and continued doing as they have always done.  It’s sad that they don’t want to welcome everyone, but they could have.  Lots of congregations chose that path.

The thing is, though, they were wrong on another count.  All means All is not just about being accepting of LGBTQIA folks.  It means exactly what it says.  It means that every person is welcome here.  

And by welcome we do not mean "you may come, sit over there and whatever you do, don’t change anything!!!”  

By welcome we mean, or we should mean, “come in, sit where ever you like, join us in everything we do, and bring your ideas!  We LOVE new ideas!  We want to find new ways to reach out to our neighbors lovingly.  We want to carry the Good News of Jesus Christ to everyone we possibly can.”

Now I’d like to invite everyone in this room who is 30 years old or younger to come forward, please. .  . . . 

At the Regional Gathering the other week they announced that the Region finally called a Regional Youth minister.  Yay!  And that new youth minister stood up in front of us, bragged about how great the youth of the region are - they even led a workshop!  Just like grownups! - and she said “They are the future of the church.”  Our children, youth, and young adults are the future of the church.  Right?

Wrong!  These are the church now.  These are where the energy and ideas and crazy geekiness come from that are leading us into the future - and the future is now.  Paul had a great fund raising idea - which has been a little slow getting off the ground, but is going to be great fun and should bring in some much needed money for ministries of this church.  Jordan keeps designing cards and brochures that help us tell everyone how great this congregation is.  This week a Disciples app was released - which means if I want to know what’s going to happen at General Assembly next summer all I have to do is click on my phone and all the info pops up - and I am fairly certain that the person who designed it is under 30.  Jason and Leah, while perhaps a bit older than these, have been adding bits of Tech that take us out into the internet through our website and Facebook and YouTube.  Christian is getting us on Instagram with his awesome photos.  Alisia regularly volunteers to read.  Jorge does pretty much anything he’s asked to do, as does Jimmy.  These are the church - now.  Not sometime later, when we are ready to relinquish the reins.  But now, sharing the responsibilities and burdens of leadership, including committee work. They are already doing it!   I can’t tell you how happy I was to see a college student on the Search Committee.  It told me you take them seriously.   These are part of ALL . . .  OK, you can all go sit again.

Now, for us older folks. I’m not saying we’re done.  Or that we aren’t tech savvy.  Not by a long shot.  It’s just that we are all part of All, and that everyone who shows up here is not just welcome to sit and watch, but to stand and deliver - to be present and part of everything we do, every decision we make.  There can be no Us and Them in the church . . . only Us.  All.    

Although we tend to think of Paul as the Apostle to the Gentiles, because he is the one who went out establishing churches in Gentile lands, it was Peter who first convinced the Council of Elders in Jerusalem that All means All.  Whomever God has made clean - even Gentiles, even Samaritans, even lepers, even whomever we might think is unclean, unwelcome, or unacceptable today.

Homeless people 

Developmentally challenged people 

Wheelchair people

Multi-lingual people

Non-English speaking people

Citizens and undocumented aliens

People with a criminal record

Addicts and Alcoholics

People who understand the Bible differently than we do 

People whose life style is different from ours

Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Green Partiers, Tea partiers, and Coffee Partiers 

And no doubt others I can’t think of right now . . . 

God said to Peter, What God has made clean, you must not call profane.  And the Council in Jerusalem proclaimed, “God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”   And remember, Gentiles is everyone who isn’t Us.  The Good News, my brothers and sisters, is that God has opened the gates of life to every person on the earth.  That Jesus came to call every one to be healed of the burden of sin we all have carried.  That repentance and forgiveness are there for anyone who desires.   The Council in Jerusalem agreed to welcome all, everyone, into the church, into their family, into their lives.  Let us do likewise.  

Overflowing

Acts 9:36-43 Common English Bible (CEB)

36 In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas). Her life overflowed with good works and compassionate acts on behalf of those in need. 37 About that time, though, she became so ill that she died. After they washed her body, they laid her in an upstairs room. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, when the disciples heard that Peter was there, they sent two people to Peter. They urged, “Please come right away!” 39 Peter went with them. Upon his arrival, he was taken to the upstairs room. All the widows stood beside him, crying as they showed the tunics and other clothing Dorcas made when she was alive.

40 Peter sent everyone out of the room, then knelt and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up!” She opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up. 41 He gave her his hand and raised her up. Then he called God’s holy people, including the widows, and presented her alive to them. 42 The news spread throughout Joppa, and many put their faith in the Lord.

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Dorcas, aka Tabitha, was one of the disciples living in Joppa.  According to the Acts of the Apostles, her life overflowed with good works and compassionate acts on behalf of those in need.  She spent her life caring for the widows of the town, making and giving away clothing.  It can be said with some assurance that she was well off.  She had a house.  She had the means to provide clothing - new clothing - for those who had no one to care for them.  

A word about some words:

Disciples:  At Ask the Pastor this week, one of the questions was “What does disciple mean?”  It means follower, or student.  So the first twelve Jesus called were disciples, as were all the others who followed Jesus during the years of his ministry. After Jesus ascended, those early disciples became known as apostles - people who went around teaching the newer disciples the Good News.  The apostles were still followers of Jesus, but they were now the teachers.  When we say we are Disciples of Christ, we mean we are followers of Christ.  Dorcas was a follower of Jesus.  As such she made it her business to care for those who had less than she did.  The disciples named in the passage, the ones who sent for Peter, were the other Christians living in that place.  

Widows:  Widows, when we talk about them in Scripture, weren’t merely women whose husband had died.  They were women who no longer had anyone to provide for them.  If they had no son, and if the husbands of their daughters didn’t want the responsibility of an extra woman, they were left to fend for themselves - homeless and hungry, with no one to turn to. The Temple was supposed to feed them, but the 10% tithe only goes so far, especially if the collection is being taken up in a poor community.  The same was the case with orphans - children with no fathers.  Aliens - which is sometimes translated as strangers or foreigners - were in the same boat.  They were often refugees from other countries, who had no family in this new place to rely upon.   So when we hear the words “Widows and orphans and aliens” in Scripture, what we are really hearing is “powerless people with no rights and no one to stand up for them.”

Back to the story:  Dorcas may have had a living husband, or she may very well have been one of those fortunate widows whose husband was able to provide for her.  This often happened when husband and wife had been merchants together and she continued running the business after his death.  Or he may have left specific instructions on his death that gave her sufficient to live on.  This was not unheard of.  (A Public Service Announcement - Wills are important. Even if you are young.  Just saying . . .)  Whatever the case, Dorcas was well known for her compassion - her overflowing heart.   The powerless in her community knew that they could come to her for help.  She took Jesus’ commission to feed the hungry and clothe the naked very seriously indeed.  

Dwight Praylow has been a UPS driver in Irmo, Texas for 15 years.  He met Nancy McCummings when he delivered packages for her disabled son who lived with her.   After that son, the last of her children, died in 2013, Mrs. McCummings was left alone.  On his delivery runs in the neighborhood Dwight noticed her home was in poor repair and learned from neighbors that it had become infested with roaches.  He decided he needed to do something. He said that he figured if it takes a village to raise a child, that same village needs to take care of the elderly.    So he gathered up his brothers and his friends, collected donations of money and materials - bleach, paint, a refrigerator, flooring, even some furniture  - and as soon as they could they put Mrs. McCummings in a hotel, cleaned up the house, exterminated the roaches and did some of the most necessary repairs.  The house still needs work - and they have set up a Facebook page for anyone who wants to help - but it’s livable now, and that’s more than could be said for the condition of the home when Dwight first decided to help. 

Most people would have just shook their heads and driven by.  They might have wondered what her family was doing to help, never realizing that she had no one.  Dwight and his friends had hearts overflowing with compassion - and those hearts drove them to help one of the least of God’s children, just as Dorcas did.  

The story of Dorcas being brought back to life is more than simply another “raised from the dead” story.  In most of those are stories the one grieving being rewarded for their faithfulness - like Elijah raising the widow’s son and Jesus raising the daughter of the Temple official.  This one, however, doesn’t reward the widows who grieve the loss of their benefactor as much as it rewards the church in Joppa, enabling it to continue doing the work of caring for the helpless.   This story tells us that death really isn’t the end. 

Congregations often freak out a little when a generous benefactor dies.  They also tend to freak out when a generous benefactor gets angry at something the pastor said or an action the congregation has taken and threatens to leave the congregation or withhold their tithe.  I understand that panic.  The idea that all of a sudden we might not be able to pay the electric bill, or worse, the office administrator (!), can bring panic into the heart of any board.  These days it almost never happens that one of the apostles will come around and raise that benefactor from the dead.  But somehow the church manages to survive the loss when a member passes.  There is often a flurry of whispers saying, “How are we going to replace her?  Who is going to make all those tunics and other clothes?  Does anybody else even know how to sew?” but still, the church manages.  

In the other case, when a member threatens to withhold their tithe or leave the congregation, what too often happens is that the board backs down or the pastor apologizes for whatever she said for fear of losing that person’s money.  In those cases it often seems as if the church sees members more as checkbooks than as disciples.  And that church continues to slowly die of fear.  But sometimes the congregation realizes that the loss of that person, or that checkbook, isn’t the end of the world.  Sometimes the congregation decides that going forward without that person will be ok.  Scary, maybe, but ok.  The Dwight Praylows of that congregation step forward and make up the difference with an extra $1, a can of paint, an hour of their time . . .  And that church, having walked forward in faith and love for one another through the fear and grief of losing something - someone - they have greatly valued over the years - grows.    

Sometimes a few members realize that they could give a little more, or help out a little more.  For example, since coming to First Christian I decided to stop listening to conventional wisdom, which says I need to first pay all my bills and expenses and then give to “charity”.  Since coming here I decided to tithe, really tithe.  A full 10% of my income.  I’ve never done that before.  I’ve always just given what was left.   And this week, having received some financial gifts, I was able to give over and above my usual tithe. I was able to donate a little for the new building, and a little for the sound system - both things that are dear to my heart.   I’m not going to tell you that tithing has made my financial situation better - but I am going to tell you that tithing has made my heart feel better.   I don't know how much my little bit helps, but I do know that every little bit helps.

Sometimes that benefactor, that angry member, realizes that not everyone in the congregation, or the denomination, is always going to agree on everything, but as long as we always agree that we are disciples, followers of Jesus, and that we try to follow Jesus’ teachings the best way we can, individually and in community, it’s going to be ok.  Sometimes that person remembers that we are Disciples of Christ, a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world, and that unity doesn’t mean uniformity, but simply coming together for one united purpose - to carry the Good News of God’s love for the world, as manifested in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, to everyone.  

The church is a place where love lives.  It is a place where like minded people come together to worship God in community.  It is a place from which we go forth, fed and strengthened by the overflowing compassion and love that we find at the Lord’s Table, to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, comfort the comfortless . . .  

“As love grows within you so beauty grows, for love is the beauty of the soul.”   

(St. Thomas Aquinas).  The beauty of Dorcas’ soul was so great that all the disciples in that place, all the Christians in the city of Joppa grieved her loss.  Her importance to the church in Joppa was so great that Peter raised her from death so that she might continue giving, from the overflow of compassion and love that lived in her.  When the beauty of a congregation’s soul is as great as Dorcas’, it too, will find new life.  Even if it looks as though death is imminent, It too, will raise back up to do even more good work, to reach even more people, to share the Good News of God’s love even farther afield.   

My brothers and sisters, the Good News is that God’s overflowing, unconditional, steadfast and faithful love beautifies our souls, our hearts, our lives, indeed, the entire world around us.  The Good News this Easter Season is that He is Risen!  And so are we - lifted into new life through the beauty of God’s overflowing love.

Why are we here?

Psalm 150 

1 Praise the Lord!

Praise God in his sanctuary;

    praise him in his mighty firmament!

2 Praise him for his mighty deeds;

    praise him according to his surpassing greatness!

3 Praise him with trumpet sound;

    praise him with lute and harp!

4 Praise him with tambourine and dance;

    praise him with strings and pipe!

5 Praise him with clanging cymbals;

    praise him with loud clashing cymbals!

6 Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord!

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My typical Scripture passages of choice during the month of April revolve around creation care.  I usually do a sermon series on Creation Care in April because - well, Earth Day is in April, so it just seems an appropriate thing to do.  But this year . . . I don’t know.  That just wasn’t speaking to my heart this year.  Instead, I found myself drawn to passages that made me want to ask questions of the sort that we usually take for granted.  Sort of like that old Bill Cosby routine, “Why is there air?”  When he was a Phys Ed major at Temple University, he said, the philosophy majors would wander around campus asking, “Why is there air?”  Well, he said, any fool knows the answer to that.  There’s air so we can blow up basketballs and footballs and volleyballs . . .   But the questions I have in mind are more like, “Why are we here?”   Not “Why are we living on earth at this particular time in history?”, but “Why are we in this particular church building on this particular Sunday?”  Especially this particular Sunday, the Sunday after Easter, when historically people stay home in droves.   So, this morning I want to pose the question why are we here?  I know why I am here.  But why are you here?

One of the pieces of literature that is read at the beginning of some 12 Step meetings is titled, “Why are we here?”  It’s not unusual for some wise aleck in the back of the room to respond with “Because it’s Tuesday” or whatever day it happens to be.   So, are you all here because it’s Sunday?

I certainly hope not.   I mean, yes.  We are here in this place because it is Sunday, but we are here on a Sunday because . . . . anybody?  Kids?  . . . 

Hint - the reason we do this on Sundays is named in the Psalm we read.  There is a reason we call our Sunday morning church activity “Worship.”  We are here to worship God, to praise God, to learn more about God and about God’s relationship with humanity - indeed, to learn about God’s relationship with all of creation.  And just in case you feel a bit embarrassed about why you are here - there aren’t any wrong answers.  Whatever draws you to worship, whatever makes you want to show up here on Sunday mornings, whatever brings you to share this space with all these other people, whatever it might be is a perfectly good reason.  Maybe your kids pestered you to bring them.  Maybe there’s a cute boy.  Maybe you love watching Tony play the organ with his feet.  Maybe it’s the only place you can get any peace and quiet in your week.  Maybe you want to sing someplace other than the shower where no one will criticize you.  Maybe you’re just in the habit of showing up here. Maybe you desperately need to hear something that will help you get through one more week.  It doesn’t matter why you come.  The fact is, you are here to praise and worship and learn and pray.

Not everyone knows why we do this Sunday morning thing.  I certainly didn’t.  For the longest time I thought I had to show up on Sundays to avoid Hell.  Not that just showing up was enough, of course.  But that was my biggest reason.  And then for years and years after I turned 18 and moved out of my family home, I didn’t show up because I didn’t believe the things I had been taught in that church.  Well, actually, I didn’t show up because I did believe those things and I refused to have anything to do with the God that judged and hated and rejected.  Eventually, as you know, I did come to believe in God as we know God - that loving, caring, merciful, compassionate and forgiving God, who so loved the world that Jesus was sent to heal it.  But I still did’t do church.  Mind you, I didn’t dare go to a church other than the one I was raised in, because going to some heretical church would have me burning in Hell again.  There was a lot of fire and brimstone teaching going on in that church . . .  And why I held on to that particular belief for so long after I rejected all the others is anybody’s guess. . .

But then a really good friend of mine was going to be married, in a church, and I had to go.   And for me, having been raised in the church in the 50s and 60s, that meant I had to find a hat, because Heaven knows a woman didn’t dare go into a church without a hat!  So I found a milliner’s shop and went in to find a hat.  When I told the owner why I needed a hat, she said she was making the veil and bridesmaid hats for that wedding, and asked if I wanted to see them.  Then we proceeded to try on every hat that would go with my navy blue and white polka dotted dress . . . and we found the perfect hat.  This hat.  Is this not the perfect church hat?  Of course, it looked a lot better 23 years ago.   And then she asked me where I went to worship.  I told her something like “I prefer finding God in nature”, and she agreed that was a good thing, but that worship in community was also good and necessary.  She said “Church is just a gathering of like minded people gathered to worship God.”  I’d never heard that before.  And I didn’t know it at that moment, but it became clear pretty quickly that that was exactly what I was looking for . . . a group of like minded people, who believed in God the way I believed in God, who gathered to praise God and worship God and lift up concerns and celebrations to God and sing!  I wanted to sing songs of praise to my creator, and songs of sorrow, and songs of longing and pain - not by myself, but with other people who also loved God.  

And that is what I found at Treasure Coast Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).   I found a place where people came to worship - warts and all.  People came to sing and study scripture and teach their children and sing, and share God’s love around the Lord’s Table.  Within a couple of weeks I felt comfortable enough that I came forward during the Hymn of Commitment to place my membership with that congregation.  It was a wonderful feeling, to know that I was accepted as a member of that community just as I was.  

Well, except for the hat.  Apparently, no one wore hats to church anymore.  But you know, this hat, this was my excuse to go to church.  I told myself, “now that I have a hat that is very clearly a church hat, I need to find a church.”  You know the rest of the story of how I ended up on this side of the pulpit . . . and if you don’t, I’m always happy to share it.  

There was so much to learn as a new member of a Disciples congregation.  Pastor Betsy answered many of my questions about the Disciples, and I already knew a good bit of church history because I really like history.  Her sermons helped quite a bit.  But there were so many other questions I wanted to ask that don’t go in sermons.  Why do we do things the way we do?  Why do we use very old terms to name the parts of the church?  For example - why is this called the chancel and not the stage?  Why do we use different colors for different seasons?  What does it mean to be a member of a congregation?  What do we have to do as Christians besides showing up to worship on Sunday?  I kind of didn’t want to ask those questions, because I really didn’t want everyone to know how much I didn’t know. You know?   But I often found myself feeling a bit lost and wishing someone would explain some of those things to me.  

We could do that, you know.  I meet with the youth once a month for something called “Ask the Pastor” where they are encouraged to ask whatever they like.  We could do that with adults. I would like that.  We could meet once a month or once a week for as long as the questions keep coming.  Even if there are just two or three . . . “For where two or three are gathered together unto My name, there am I in their midst.”  (Matthew 18:20)   

We are here today, on this Sunday after Easter, this 2nd Sunday in the season of Easter, to worship our God.  We are here to celebrate Easter again . . . just like we do every Sunday.  Every Lord’s Day we come together to re-enact the Last Supper, to remember the Lord’s death, and to commemorate the empty tomb.  We come to celebrate the risen Christ, every single Sunday.  And in that celebration, we remember why Jesus was here. We remember that God sent Jesus to live among humanity, a human among humans, sharing our pains and joys, our sorrows and celebrations.  Jesus lived as we live, our brother in the flesh, a human among humans, to know in his own body what illness and suffering and death are, to feel and understand both despair and exultation.  And we come together to remember, from his example, that nothing . .  nothing . . . can separate from the love of God.  Not even sin, not even death.  Because in the resurrection we see that sin and death are defeated for all time - Jesus is with us, our living Lord, even now.  God is with us, every moment.  

Every Sunday we come together to remember those things, to learn more about God’s intentions and hopes for the world, to hear Scripture read and explained, to pray with our mouths and with our hearts. Every Sunday we come together to do all of those things . . . and to sing.  Every Sunday we come together to lift up our voices in praise and celebration to the God who created us, and all of the universe, who placed us here to care for all of the earth and all of its creatures, who gave us hands and thumbs and intellect and creative talents so that we could serve God with all of our hearts and minds and strength.  

Why are we here?  My brothers and sisters, we are here to learn, so that we may understand better what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  We are here to be equipped to go out into the world, carrying God’s love and God’s light with us, so that we can be a light in the darkness.   We are here, a gathering of like minded people, to worship our God and to sing God’s praises, lifting our voices in joy and adoration.  When we go out from this place, let us go carrying God’s light into darkness, praising God’s name with great joy and celebration, as members of God’s family, the Church Universal, sisters and brothers to Jesus, the Christ.  

Going. Telling.

Mark 16:1-8 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)  

16 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

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He is risen!  He is risen indeed!

I woke up with that in my mind this morning . . . well, right after the first thoughts I have every morning, which mostly consist of some variety of “OK, Cat. I”m up.”  But the very next thing I thought this morning was, “It’s Easter!  He is risen!”

We are so blessed to be able to wake up on Easter morning, indeed, on any morning, and exclaim to ourselves, “He is risen!”  For the disciples on that first Easter, not so much.  The Bible is completely silent on the topic of what they were doing from Friday sundown until Sunday morning, but we can surely imagine what it might have been like.  They are together, somewhere they consider safe.  They may or may not have gone to the Temple on the Sabbath, but probably not.  They were fearful  . . . afraid they, too, would be taken and executed.  They are his followers, after all.  They’re confused . . . how did they get to this place? Wasn’t Jesus the Messiah?  How then, could he have died so soon, so ignobly?  What will they do now?  Go back to wherever he found them?   Regardless, the women knew they had to do what was right for him, so a few of them gathered the things they would need to wash and anoint him properly and set off for the place where he lay entombed.  And when they got there, what they found was not what they expected.  No stone to roll away, no guards at the entrance but most unexpectedly of all, no Jesus.  Instead they found a stranger who told them things they could not understand.

Mark tells us that first they were alarmed.  Then they were seized by terror and amazement.  And  then they ran.  And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Well - they got the “go” part right, anyway.  They were afraid, and I don’t blame them.  After all, they went to the perfectly ordinary tomb on a perfectly ordinary morning to perform the perfectly ordinary service of cleaning and anointing the body of their rabbi . . . and when they got there, all the ordinariness went out of the day, indeed, out of their lives.

Because not only was the stone already moved away from the front of the tomb, but the body they expected to find was gone.  Instead they find a young man, dressed in white - not mere undyed wool, but a white robe - and he told them that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised.   He told them “Go, and tell the others. . . “

They got the “go” part right.  It was the telling they had trouble with.

On Tuesday there were bombings in Brussels, at the Zaventem airport and in a subway station.  The early reports were of over 30 killed and more than 150 injured.  An international terrorist group claimed responsibility.  Some politicians called on the police to keep a close eye all the Muslims in the United States.

A friend called after hearing the news.  It is incomprehensible to us that anyone could hate others so much that strapping on explosives and going someplace where hundreds of unsuspecting men, women and children are going about their daily business in order to kill as many of them as possible.  It is equally incomprehensible to us that anyone would think that just because people share a religion, they also share the political views and aims of a few crazies.  

On Tuesday there was a shooting in Selma.  It may have been gang related.  No one was killed, but four young people were injured.  Some people immediately called for a police crack down on “that side of the freeway.”   Those of us who are part of Bringing Broken Neighborhoods Back to Life understand that this is not the best way to solve the problem.  That this would, in fact, exacerbate the situation. We know that it is this very sort of situation that our work is meant to end.  If we can show the young people who don’t see any hope for getting out of the dire poverty that is their life today that there is, in fact, a way out, this kind of terrible event can become a thing of the past.  

It is incomprehensible that anyone would think that just because people live in a particular neighborhood, or speak a certain language, or share a skin color, they must be bad people.   And yet, there are many who do think that way, who hate - fear - others for no good reason but only because they look different, or dress differently, or worship differently, or speak differently.  That kind of belief has nothing to do with love. It’s not the way Jesus told us to live.  

Yes, there is evil in the world.  But it is not particular to a certain skin pigmentation, or language group, or religious tradition.  It is present in all of us.  We cannot prevent people from acting on evil.  We can however, encourage them away from the darkness and toward the light, and give them hope.  It is because evil is part of the human condition that Jesus came to teach us a better way, a way in which the good is celebrated, love is shared, hope is transmitted from one person to the next.  We are called, as Christ’s disciples, to go and tell the world the Good News of God’s love for all persons, of God’s forgiveness, of God’s great desire that the whole world be reconciled with him, and that the Word was made flesh in order that we might learn these things, in order that we might bring the light of Christ into the darkness.   

Like the women at the tomb, however, most of us are only good at the “going” part.  We’re pretty good at turning our back on that kind of belief and talk and action.  We might talk among ourselves about how terrible it is that people are like that - bigoted, fearful, hateful and angry.  We’re good at going away from the things that frighten us, huddling together, wishing there was a way to change the world so that everyone would act on the good within them.  We don’t understand why people would choose the darkness in the first place.

Sadly, I do understand how that choice can be made.  All that has to happen is for a person to be raised up believing that she isn’t good enough, that she will never be good enough, that even God rejects her.  All that has to happen is for people to reject him, to teach him that he is unworthy and unteachable and unredeemable just because he was born in a particular body or faith or neighborhood.  And that he is stuck, hopeless, with no way out that he can see.   I grew up believing those things about myself. I saw no point in sticking to the good path I was told about because I was going to Hell anyway.  I could never be perfect.  I could never earn my way into Heaven.  So why not just do whatever I wanted to do?  It was a long time, a lifetime, before I was brought to my knees, before I reached a point where I knew I had to find a different way to live.  And after I gave up the way I was living, it took even longer before I was willing to hear anything about a God who loved me. That was so not what I grew up believing  . . .  But I heard about that God from people who showed me that they loved me, even when I was behaving unlovably.  I learned about God’s love from people who loved me until I could love myself. I learned love from people who brought light into my life, who told me about that loving, caring, forgiving God, the one I’d never heard about in all my years in church.   I learned about love and gained hope from people who made a practice of going and telling . . . 

Go and tell the others.   We know that eventually the women did tell the others.  They must have, right?  But Mark leaves it to us to imagine how that must have happened.  Maybe the women returned, obviously shaken, way too soon to have completed the task they set out to do.  Picture it if you can, imagine how they must have been embraced in their fear and encouraged to share whatever had them so upset.  Imagine how, as they were being comforted in their fear and trembling, they must have started telling the others, haltingly, what they had seen and experienced.  And maybe the disciples, all of them gathered in that one place, began to remember some of the things he had said and some of the prophecies and wondered . . . could it be?  Is he really resurrected?  Is there still hope after all, for that new Kingdom he talked about?  Is there still a chance for the world to be changed? . . .

Yes, and yes and yes!  He is risen!  There is still hope for God’s kingdom on earth. There is still hope for the world to be changed.  All that it will take is for us, each and every one of us, to Go.  Tell.  Tell with words, of course.  But also tell with the way we live.  Tell with the choices we make about how to behave.  While driving, only use those hand signals that are intended to indicate a turn.   If you are in a conversation and someone starts talking about people of another religion or race or ethnic background or immigration status as if they are all evil . . stop them.  If someone uses the “R” word, tell them that is not acceptable.  Silence is not enough - even disapproving silence is not enough.   All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to say nothing.  And we are not in the business of allowing evil to triumph.  And ladies, hard as it may be, please try to keep the Men jokes to a minimum.  It is in all of these small ways that we bring light where there is darkness.  It is in all these small ways that we show the world that He is risen, indeed.  

What if I were to tell you that Jesus didn’t die for our sins, but rather, that he rose for our sins.  

He rose for us, defeating death and sin for all time.

He rose for us, giving us hope for a different world, a different life.  

He rose for us, giving us proof positive that things don’t have to always be the same as they have always been, that change is possible, that new things are being done among us and with us and to us.  

He rose for us, giving us exactly what we need to know to make the changes that will lead to living in God’s kingdom on earth.  

He rose for us, showing us once and for all that God will make a way where there is no way, that with God all things are possible.

Go.  Tell the others.  Tell the world!

Christ is risen!   Shout Hosannah!

Watching

Mark 13:1-8, 24-37 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

13 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” 2 Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” 5 Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. 6 Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

24 “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 25 and the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

26 Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. 27 Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

28 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 30 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”     **************************************************************

“Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”   This statement really caused a problem.   Never mind that Jesus said over and over again, in many different ways, “No one knows when the last day will arrive.”  Even in the very next paragraph!  But because he also said, “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” and they all believed that part - there were problems.  They believed that by “this generation” he meant the folks who were standing there in his presence - the people who were alive and walking the earth at the same time Jesus was.  After Jesus’ ascension into heaven, Paul and the other apostles and disciples went around preaching the kingdom was coming - now!  In their lifetimes!  

In case you hadn’t noticed - that didn’t happen.  It’s been roughly 50 generations since then (according to the Bible a generation is 40 years, give or take) and although we’ve seen some of those signs more than a few times, the end has not yet come.  Jesus has not yet returned.   

The problem with prophetic signs is that they are so easy to misinterpret.  For example, “Wars and rumors of wars” happen all the time.  I went wandering around the internet to see if I could find a period of time when there were not any wars or rumors of wars, and the best I could come up with was an article in the NY Times in July, 2003 that stated, “Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.”  We know that in Jesus’ time Rome was constantly fighting “peace keeping actions” against various silly people who objected to being Roman subjects, and subjugating new territories, so war was pretty much a constant then, too.  “The sun will be darkened.”  Well, you have to know that for many centuries every time there was a solar eclipse the Western world went crazy, thinking the end had come.  The Eastern world and Pre-Columbian Americas had better astronomers than Europe, so they weren’t nearly as worried about little things like eclipses.  “There will be earthquakes and famines.”  I live in California, so I have an earthquake app on my phone. If I didn’t have it set to be quiet it would be going off constantly, because there are earthquakes someplace daily, hourly even.  And famine has been pretty much a constant in some parts of Africa for a number of decades now.    And yet, the end has not come.  Of course, there are those who claim that this prophecy can’t take place until the Temple is rebuilt so it can be knocked down again . . .

Even if we look at some more apparently specific prophecies in the book of Revelation - like the rising of the Anti-Christ - we run into disagreements over who that might be.    It seems as though a new AntiChrist pops up every few decades.  The internet tells me that the Anti-Christ has been proclaimed a number of times, including such notables as Nero, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Barak Obama, the Ayatollah Khomeini, almost every Pope throughout history, and Bill Gates.  When John of Patmos, who was, in fact, of the generation already living when Jesus died, had his revelation, he was talking about the Emperor of Rome, most likely Tiberius.  But as we know, none of these has ushered in the final days.

It is pretty well known that signs and portents are best fully understood after the prophesied event has already taken place.  We even have a proverb about that - hindsight is 20/20.  I think we can safely relegate prophetic signs and portents to the realm of things that we can’t really figure out ahead of time and pay more attention to what Jesus told us to do about all this . . . Wait.  and Watch.

About today’s artwork . . . I think Leah and I have been very very good about not using cats more often to illustrate a sermon title.  I could have used the RCA dog in that famous, “His master speaks” pose with the Victrola, but you know  . . . . cat.  I almost selected a meerkat, standing and keeping a lookout for danger, but this kitten waiting at the mail slot . . . I don’t know whether he is waiting for the mail to come in the slot or for his Human to come home, but unlike the meerkat the kitten is waiting and watching for something good to happen. I think the return of the Messiah will be a good thing.  And the reason I think that is because the rabbis say the Messiah will come - or return, in our belief - when one of two things happens:  when the world becomes so evil that he must come to end the evil, or when the world has become so good that he is inexorably drawn to join us here.  I want to believe that the second is what will happen - that we will, by loving and working to end oppression and injustice, bring the kingdom of God to earth, and that the Christ will return to claim the world as his own.

You see, I believe there are more good people than evil.  We see mostly evil on the news, but that is because good news doesn’t sell.  There is an old journalism saying, “If it bleeds, it leads.”  The horrendously brutal murder is on the front page, while the story of a little girl starting lemonade stands to fund cancer research is buried somewhere behind the editorial section.  There’s really nothing we can do about that.  Well, we can share more good stories that bad ones on Facebook and Twitter and so on.  But beside that . . .  What we can do is make sure to do the good even we think if no one notices.   Legendary UCLA Basketball coach, John Wooden once said, “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching".    It’s nice to get recognition for doing good, but the important thing is to do good, whether or not anyone is watching.  The important thing is to stand against evil and oppression, even in what looks like small things.  

18th century Irish politician and philosopher Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”  He was right.  Silence in the face of evil simply allows the evil to continue.

Let’s say you see one person mistreating another.  It could be a kid or even a teacher picking on someone at school. It could be a customer mistreating a server in a restaurant.  It could be someone in a hurry pushing an older woman out of his way.  The thing to do, as difficult as that might be for those of us who dislike confrontation, is exactly that - confront the bully.  Let them know that what they are doing is not acceptable.  Protect the person being oppressed.  This may seem a small thing, but small things grow and build into bigger things.  A young person who gets away with pushing an older lady out of his way or bullying a classmate will have no trouble repeating that behavior over again, and escalating that behavior.  Stopping their violence is up to anyone and everyone who witnesses it.  It is our business.  

One of my favorite commercials, which I’ve only ever seen on Facebook because it is apparently from India, shows a young woman walking along a road. Two young men see her and begin to follow her, obviously meaning her harm.  They pass her and block her path.   Another man comes along and takes a stand between her and the other two.  Then a second man joins him, then another, until there is a circle of men, hands joined, protecting that one young woman.  That’s how we love - that’s how we bring the kingdom of God on earth to reality.  We stop evil in its tracks and protect the oppressed . . . one victim at a time.  We must do good with love, changing the world into a place so filled with goodness that the Christ will be drawn to return to us.  

Back to the kitten . . . and watching . . . I don’t know about this cute little kitten, but if it was Doofenschmirtz watching for the mail to come it would be so he could chew up all the paper that comes through the slot.  I don’t know what it is with me and pets. They have all seemed to love chewing paper.  The Reverend Samuel T. Rabbit would eat any piece of paper he could find.  And Dinah, the psychotic lovebird, used to turn any paper she could get her beak on into confetti - a real problem if I’d thoughtlessly left cash sitting out on a table.   But Doofenschmirtz waiting for me, that’s an entirely different thing.  He knows the sound of my footsteps so even if he has been sound asleep when I come home - which is entirely likely as cats nap about 20 hours a day - by the time I have the key in the door he is on the window sill.  When I go to the mailbox or the laundry room, he sits and watches until I get back.  He  has no idea when I will be back, but he waits for the sound of my footsteps,  watching for the sight of me putting the key in the door.  

Jesus tells us, “about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”  Regardless of signs and portents, regardless of how this person or that tries to persuade us that the time is now, or that they are the one we must follow, we must remain steadfast.  We have no idea when Jesus will be back, but we must wait and watch carefully so we are ready when he comes.  We must prepare our hearts and the world, so that it is ready for him when he comes.  We must do good, even in the smallest ways, even when no one else is watching what we do, so that we can make the world the kind of place our Lord will want to come to.  We must be faithful, acting as if the Christ is coming back soon although we know not when, not putting off the things we know we should do but doing the good, stopping the evil, protecting the bulled and oppressed.   

Keep awake.  Be alert.   Do good.  Live in peace.  Watch.  So that the day of God might draw near.   

Loving

Mark 1:28-44 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31 He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

32 That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34 And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37 When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” 38 He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” 39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 44 saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

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You may have noticed a few things about the messages so far during Lent. 

First:  They all have one word titles.  That is because I am using the coloring pages that go with the narrative readings for Lent as the source of the titles.  Each page has a word, beautifully embellished, to be colored as a meditation on that word.  Or just cause you like to color.

Second:  None of them seem to have anything at all to do with our theme of “Walking to Easter.”  We haven’t even sung Siyahamba!   But we are walking with Jesus.  We are following his ministry, his journey through Galilee, Samaria and Judea that led him inevitably and inexorably to the cross in Jerusalem.  We are walking alongside his disciples - the Twelve and all the others, the women and others who followed and listened and learned from him.   We are hearing what he said and witnessing what he did in those days as he tried desperately to teach them everything they needed to know about what the Kingdom of God really is before the end of his road.   We have learned about Changing, Giving, Serving and Listening.  Today - Loving.

Granted, all of the messages are about love.  To have any sort of relationship with God and with each other we have to learn to love.  Jesus told us that the first and greatest commandment is to love God, and the next is to love everyone else including ourselves.  Love is the most important aspect of being a Christ follower - a Christian.  Today, we heard about Jesus healing two people - Simon Peter’s mother-in-law and a leper along the road.   

“He came and took her by the hand … then the fever left her.”

“Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him…Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean”

Now, I have been known to make some snarky comment about Simon Peter needing his mother-in-law healed so she could fix dinner for them all . . . but that’s really not what this is about.  This story is about loving and healing through love.   It’s about healing through touching.

Today’s medical doctors don’t touch us much.  I was in my doctor’s office on Friday as a follow-up after having bronchitis.  Except for a handshake when he first walked into the examination room he spent the entire visit sitting at the computer. He never looked in my throat or ears or listened to my chest.  I kind of miss the hands on approach to medicine . . . but I’m afraid my experience has become the norm.  M.D.s are beginning to be more accepting of treatments like chiropractic and acupuncture, and certainly send people regularly to physical therapists.  But they still often look down on the kinds of healing touch therapies that have become so popular lately - massage, reiki, .  Healing Touch is a big thing right now.  If you go online and search for Healing Touch you can find over 8 million listings.  Some are companies with Healing Touch in the name, some are Wikipedia entries about what healing touch is, some are blog posts, news articles, advertisements for schools teaching healing touch . . . and so on forever.   But healing touch has been around forever.  Healers have known from the beginning of human relationships that touch can ease pain of both the physical and spiritual kind. 

Jesus touched her, and the fever left her.  Jesus touched him, and immediately he was made clean.  Jesus took the girl by the hand, and she rose from her bed.  The woman came up and touched the hem of his garment, and her hemorrhage stopped.  Jesus reached out his hand, and the evil spirits left.   His touch, his loving touch, never failed.

Jesus wasn’t the only one to heal through touch, of course.  Faith healers were just as common then as now.   Some were quite famous, like today’s Benny Hinn.  We hear of people coming to faith healers in the hundreds and thousands, abandoning their canes and crutches and wheelchairs, crying out suddenly “I can hear!” “I can see!”   Some of those healers and healing are genuine. I personally do know people who have been healed by the laying on of hands by an individual or a congregation praying together. I know that nothing is impossible with God.  

Sadly, some of them are frauds.  Stories about fake faith healers are always good for the plot of any number of cop and lawyer shows on TV.  We hear how they hire people from all over to pretend to be wheelchair bound or otherwise disabled and pretending to be healed.  Often, people who truly suffer may get carried away in the moment and believe they have been healed, only to discover later that they still can’t walk more than a few steps, they still have seizures, they still have cancer.   Another thing you can find on Google is a long list of people who have been exposed as fraudulent “faith” healers, and even - much to my surprise - instructions on how to be a fake faith healer!  

Then there are people who spend their lives healing people with their hands quietly and with no fanfare - like Janice, who eases the bodies and hearts of her clients as a massage therapist.  When I was serving as a student chaplain at the State Mental Hospital, one of my classmates would come around to each of us at the end of the week and perform reiki, a sort of energy healing where she held her hands just above our shoulders and somehow eased our stress. I don’t pretend to know how it works,  exactly, but I’ve received great benefit from that kind of not-quite-touching healing.  Quite a few of my clergy colleagues also practice healing touch of various kinds. 

Any one of us can bring healing touch to another.  Perhaps the first thing I learned when I began to work with older adults was the healing power of touch.  So many who live alone are rarely touched with affection or care.  Even those who are in retirement communities and care facilities go without a hug or any sort of caress and are starved for some kind of loving touch.  Gently holding or stroking someone’s hand when you visit can make a every difference in their day.  

There are sorts of healing through love.  Many of you know that Pastor Josue and his congregation go out on Saturdays to distribute food.  They randomly pick a street corner and set up their truck, so they can give food to whomever shows up and pray with them. On February 20th they went to the corner of 4th and Grove.  Little did they know that earlier that day a homicide had been committed on that very corner.  The people of that particular neighborhood were in desperate need of the healing touch Pastor Josue and his people brought to their corner that day.  

Jesus was filled with pity for him and touched him . . . immediately he was made clean.   

According to the dictionary, pity is a feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others.  It is a by-product of love.  You cannot pity - you cannot know compassion - if you do not first love.  You cannot heal another, if you do not first love.  Healing is more than making someone feel better.  The doctor made me feel better by providing medications to take away my bronchitis.  But healing required the kind of loving touch that I received at other hands - ice cream from Marsha, oranges from Elmo, phone calls and emails from various people checking to see how I was doing.  Although the antibiotics took care of the physical illness, wholeness came from knowing I am loved.  Healing came from knowing I am loved.

When the people of Judah were suffering under evil kings who cared only for their own power and property, the prophet Jeremiah asked, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?”  (Jeremiah 8:22)   Later, Jesus would say,  “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick;  I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”  (Luke 5:31-32)  Jesus came to touch us with love, so that we would be made whole, restored to spiritual health, and learn to love others so we, in turn, could restore our world to wholeness.  

The Good News is that there is, indeed, a balm in Gilead.  There is a physician who came to heal the world and restore it to wholeness. There is a way of living and being, rooted in love, that has the capacity to heal every soul, fill every heart, ease every spirit.  That way is the way that Jesus the Christ taught us, and continues to teach us - loving one another as we are loved.

When we go out from this place today, let us remember that we are sent out to love so that we may heal the sick at heart, comfort the prisoner of depression and loneliness, cast out the demons of self-loathing and despair, and welcome into our family those who feel they don’t belong anywhere.  Let us go out with love, to touch all those whose hearts are weary, whose souls are sick.  Let us go out to be that balm, that healing ointment, our love poured out on our neighbors as Jesus also pours his love out upon us.  Let us go, and restore wholeness in this fragmented world.