Standing at the Crossroads IV: To See or Not to See

John 9:1-41
March 2, 2008
Rev. Dr. Judith Kaye Jones

One of the major metaphors in the Gospel of John is that of willing blindness. If it is the Gospel of Seeing, then the story of The Man Born Blind is the central miracle, and it is a double miracle. Above all else, this is a story of faith.

We all know the story. Jesus is in the midst of his ministry, and is beset by people challenging his story, challenging his miracles. Sign after sign, and still there is the persistent darkness of doubt, fear and enmity among those who hear of a God of light, a God of love. He is, as is so often the case for this man of journey, walking down the road, and he and his disciples pass a man who was born blind. After the ideas of the day, the disciples, surely among the persistently blind, ask him for the reason God had caused the man to be blind—was it his sin (unlikely, since he was born blind), or the sin of his parents, visited upon their helpless child. I say they were persistently blind, willfully blind, for where in that question could there possibly be a God of light, a God of love? Jesus answers that the man was not born blind, born into the darkness of no vision, because of sin. He suggests that the man may be there, in their path, so that not only the man might be healed, not only God's power to bring light into darkness lifted up, but also so that they might, finally, see. So that they might finally understand the mystery, the miracle of God's love. So that they might understand that God's power is never manifested in suffering and loss, but always in love, only in love.

Jesus heals the man. Calling upon the power of God in whom all such healing, all such miracles reside, Jesus gives the man sight. The darkness is rolled away. Inside the head of that man it must have been just like the primordial darkness that had never known, never imagined anything but dark, a darkness in which words like bright, beautiful, were meaningless. We can imagine that it was, inside that man's head, inside his dark universe, much like that primordial darkness who, hearing the words roll out over the void, over the great dark deep, "let there be light" was split into the then and the now, the was and is, split by that great dawning shining brilliant transcendent—light!

As we were discussing this passage this past week, I asked a question that had occurred to me. We all hear this story and celebrate the wonder, the amazed joy of the man who having been blind, now sees. But would he! What would it be like, I wondered, to suddenly see, to suddenly all at once have the use of this sense we call sight, to suddenly be wrenched from that familiar, comfortable, totally known and understood home of darkness and thrust into the light? It would be, would it not, terrifying—disorienting—incapacitating? Wouldn’t the man, I reasoned, have to adjust to this new sight, but actually learn to live again, walk again? Everything would be different, he would suddenly be aware of things he had never known such as movement, and distance and light, above all, light. Was it then, an easy miracle to celebrate, this sudden gift of sight?

Curious, I went to the source of all knowledge and ask the internet for any stories about a person who had received the gift of sight after being born blind. I finally found one story, written by a doctor , about a man we shall call Virgil. Virgil was born in Oklahoma, and though he was not actually born blind, he did begin to loose his eyesight as a very young child, and by the age of ten he was completely without sight. Virgil grew up in this world of darkness. He built a life around it. He became a massage therapist, and got a job at the YMCA. The Y provided him with a little house across the street from his job. He lived a complete bachelor existence, with a dog and a cat, in his little house. Every day he took his cane and walked, with surety and confidence, across the street to his job where he worked on the aches and pains of others, giving relief, comfort, relaxation to tired or damaged muscles. Back home then, to his small life, his familiar life. He loved to listen to baseball, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the game, its history, its players, and all the great statistics of runs batted in and great home runs and great catches and great wins. Virgil, if he had been asked, was not troubled greatly, if at all, by his blindness, because he had never really known anything else. Like the Man Born Blind, Virgil was at home in the dark.

Then a woman entered his life, an old friend he had met years ago, and had kept in contact with over the phone. They met again, and eventually, Virgil married her. Immediately, Pat became determined that it was possible to restore Virgil's sight. She took him to her doctor, who upon deeply examining his eyes, came to believe that his retinas were partially in tact, and the deep cataracts over his eyes might be the main impediment to his sight. Virgil agreed rather indifferently to undergo the surgery, although is family was opposed. I found this interesting, in light of the reaction of the family of the Man Born Blind—fear, you remember, and reluctance to discuss the miracle or testify to it. So Virgil had the operation, and sure enough, the bandages were removed and he could see. He didn’t have perfect vision, to be sure, but there it all was, lights, color, action. But, the doctor made haste to say, there were no cries of "I can see! I can see!" No overwhelming joy at this great great miracle. Virgil could see, but it meant, it became clear, nothing to him. He finally, when his doctor spoke to him, realized that the shape in front of him, the face in front of him, belonged to the voice, and the hands of the man he knew. Slowly he associated voices with other faces, and began to absorb the reality that those voices lived inside those bodies, behind those faces, and that the people he knew by touch and sound, were these strange beings who seemed so strangely disconnected to his understanding.

Time went on, and Virgil struggled with his new world. He did, indeed, have to almost learn to walk again. He had no sense of balance, couldn't navigate stairs or through his own little house, the house he knew like the back of his hand, had to resort to his cane to help him, sometimes closing his eyes and welcoming the security of the dark. His job became a problem, too. Once, people were warm skin, and bone and muscle to him, and he was sublimely unaware of many of their differences. Sight restored, Virgil was confronted for the first time in his life with wrinkles, discolorations, blemishes, an awareness of too fat or too thin or in many of a multitude of ways, not just smooth and warm and living. He became repelled by these differences, by his own body, and could find no beauty in the faces of people he knew. He could not tell his black and white dog from his black and white cat unless he picked them up and felt of their bodies. He could see skyscrapers but could not believe in them, could not understand how things went together. The doctor writes: "The real difficulty here is that simultaneous perception of objects is an unaccustomed way to those used to sequential perception through touch." We, with a full complement of senses, live in space and time; the blind live in a world of time alone. For the blind build their worlds from sequences of impressions (tactile, auditory, olfactory), and are not capable, as sighted people are, of a simultaneous visual perception, the making of an instantaneous visual scene. Indeed, if one can no longer see in space then the idea of space becomes incomprehensible and this even for highly intelligent people blinded relatively late in life. In fact, we are none of us born seeing—we must learn to see. We must spend, if not a lifetime, then surely the formative years of our lives learning to put special relationships together, to make sense of what our eyes, and ears, and other senses tell us.

In the end, Virgil became ill again, and became once more, totally blind. There was no change, the doctor insisted, in the condition of his retinas. Finally, he thought that perhaps it was the light. Protected by all those fifty years by cataracts, perhaps Virgil's optic nerve just could not bear that influx of light, of blinding light. And so Virgil retreated into the darkness that had, after all, always been home.

This morning on television there was another story about such a man. Don't you love how someone in television is aware of the lectionary—it can’t be an accident that on Man Born Blind Sunday there is a television about a man who, though not born blind, lost his sight at the age of two, before he had truly learned to distinguish details, face recognition, and so on. This man also learned to live light without sight. But he did it in a big way. His world was not his little house. He determined to live life as fully as possible, and became an athlete, winning gold medals at the para-olympics for skiing, if you can imagine. He embrace life like the adventure it is, and took part in it with his whole heart and soul. And then, as an adult, he received the gift of sight. And the story is that unlike all other such stories, his was an unqualified success story. Unlike other, historical cases of the sudden restoration of sight, where the people were reduced to clawing out the offending eyes, going into deep depression, suicide, he decided to embark upon the great adventure of seeing with as much zest and determination as he had shown as a blind man. He learned everything again, to walk securely, then to ski. To dance. To do all the things in life he loved doing, but now with the extra added gift of sight. Of color. Of form. Of movement. In other words, this man didn't just receive sight, he choose to see.

And that is the heart of the story of the man born blind. Just like Virgil, just like the man on television, he had that moment, that terrifying, disorienting, stomach churning, terrified moment of transition from the comforting dark to the overwhelming light. And he, trying desperately to explain what had happened, was challenged, threatened, and finally driven out of the presence of family and religious consolation, driven out because he could not explain his gift or the man who had given it to him. And please note, having been driven out, having been left in what must have been a terror, a spiritual darkness that was infinitely more dense and hopeless and endless than the physical darkness he knew so well, Jesus comes to find him. He is not left to grope his way, his uncertain, unsteady and frightened way back into life. Jesus comes to find him. And the man born blind is able to look into the face of the Savior and recognize him. The man born blind now chooses to see—to see Jesus, to see the world, to see the love of God made flesh, dwelling among us, with him. To see God. And the man born blind was given, not just sight, but vision.

There we have it. People born blind. People who choose the darkness. People who choose to see. AS with all things, the choice to see or not, is ours. It is a crossroads, after all, between the dark and the light, between love and hate, between compassion and prejudice. It is the place where we meet God, day after day, and make decisions about what and whether we see. And when we choose the Jesus life, difficult and disorienting and hard as it is, we move not just from darkness into light, not just from blindness into sight, but from the void into vision. To See or Not to See, that is the question.

Standing at the Crossroads (or—but that’s not the point!)

John 4:5-42
February 24, 2008

Our two stories this morning seem to have one feature only in common. Water. Moses in the wilderness with those eternally murmuring Hebrew people, needing, craving, demanding water. And Jesus at Jacob's well in Samaria, asking for—water. On the surface, that is as deep as the comparison can take us. Water, after all, serves two different purposes in the two stories. In the Exodus reading water is a physical necessity. They are wandering in a desert and have no water. The ever-present "Back to Egypt" Committee is ready and waiting to ask the difficult question—why on earth did you take us all the way out here into the middle of a desert so we could die of thirst? (implication—there was plenty of water in Egypt, after all.) And the water supplied was real water too—Moses complained to God about the complainers, and God told Moses how to find water. Hit the rock and there you go—water in the desert.

The narrative of the Samaritan Woman does indeed begin with the request for water—real water, actual thirst quenching water from a well. But no miracle, no plea to God for salvation from death by thirst is made, no dialogue between Jesus and God explaining the need and asking for deliverance. It is hot. Jesus is thirsty. But there is water already—he just has no way at the moment of drawing any. And so he asks the woman who has come to the well to draw some out for him, and to let him drink from her water dipper. We have discussed the Woman at the Well – well, several times, you and I. It's one of my favorite stories—and I believe, one of the most important evangelism stories in the New Testament. It is a story so rich in detail that it is possible to preach about it from several points of view. It is the longest reported conversation of Jesus. It is a narrative so rich in detail it is difficult to narrow focus down to just one point.

We have explored the woman herself, her status within her own country as something of an outcast, explaining why she is at the well in the hot part of the day. But today, that is not the point. We have examined the time of day—the bright hot sun beating down, casting no shadows to blur vision or disguise the landscape of the spirit—but that is not the point, today. We have considered the relationship of the Jews and the Samaritans, and why Jesus chose to go out of his way into Samaria at all—but that is not the point, today. We have discussed the empowerment of the woman when she turned and ran back to her village, fining her voice, calling out the joy of her discovery into the startled and fascinated neighbors. But even that is not the point, today. The point today is that the woman encounters a cross-road at the well. And so does Jesus.

We know the story so well, we have even put ourselves in the place of the woman, imagined her pain and her loneliness transformed into joy. But think about that moment when she stood poised as it were between one world and another. The crossroads had been reached. It is for her to take the first step forward into the rest of her life. She can remain true to stereotype, continue to listen and be polite to authority, then creep back to her village, still silent, still the outcast—after all, who would listen to ME? Who am I to tell anyone anything? I have no power, no voice. What if they laugh? What if they hurt me, stone me? Such things do happen, after all. She could have gone quietly meekly back to the life that oppressed her in all its emptiness and meaninglessness. She could have played it safe, and maybe took the compelling, dazzling, enlightening words of Jesus out of her memory from time to time and thought about what she had been offered and rejected. She could have, in other words, have embraced the thirst of her existence and refused to end its torment by taking that first wonderful, terrifying, quenching swallow. She could have. But she didn’t. She simply flung down her water jar (old life, empty and dry and thirsty) and ran to her village, crying out the good news, the Word on her tongue. No longer without voice, she speaks, she summons, she questions and answers all at once. So the woman at the crossroads in Samaria, at the point of choice between the security of the old (nothing is more secure than slavery—its what motivated the “Back to Egypt committee out there in the unknowable desert with Moses), choice between thirst and a fulfillment only dreamed of—steps into the road to the future. She will go. She will drink. She will be filled. And she will carry the living water to others who are dying of thirst in a lonely, dry and empty world.

Story: When new pastor went to one of the bigger Disciple churches in Sacramento, one of the old time church leaders, a real big wig in the region, took her out to lunch and offered to help her understand her congregation. "I can tell you where the bodies are buried, show you all the skeletons in the cupboard." Her reply: I'm really only interested in their potential.

Jesus, too, stands at a crossroad. Hitherto he has addressed himself to the Jews. Other scriptures tell us that he thought of himself as coming for the sheep of Israel, to the chosen ones, to the children of Israel. But here, he encounters someone and in her he recognizes potential. He sees here there in the glare of the sun in the unforgiving desert landscape and he doesn’t see what others might see, what his disciples will see. In a blinding flash he sees someone who represents a whole new direction at the crossroads of his ministry. He doesn't see a woman—a second class being, a possession with no rights and no voice. He doesn’t see a Samaritan—a hated enemy, religious heretic. He doesn't see an immoral person whose soiled life makes her unfit for the company of decent people. What he sees—what matters to his vision, is potential. He sees in her soul the potential to hear the Word and be transformed by it. He sees in her soul energy, enthusiasm and courage. He sees an evangelist.

Scholars believe this story represents the shift in Jesus' life from ministry directly and only to the Jews, to a wider mission to the world. The Samaritans, of all outsiders, were the most outside, the most despised. If Jesus could actually step onto the crossroads that led not to the exclusive messiah to Israel but to the Christ of the world, then here it is. He looks at this person and sees the mission to the Samaritans, and to the world.

Now, as a seminary professor once cautioned me in an excess of enthusiasm, Jesus doesn't send her. He doesn't commission her to go. He simply offers her the life-changing water of hope and faith and commitment, and she goes. She goes! I still don't agree. He may not have said "go," to this woman. But he filled her up with such joy, such an overwhelming need to share her encounter with her neighbors—those same neighbors that had shunned and shamed her for years—of course she was sent. Because when Jesus looked at her, and spoke to her, he did not see the shame, the mistakes. He saw her potential—and he ignited the fire of evangelism within her just the same as if he had spoken the words "go—go for me." What about you? What are your reasons—your excuses for not going and sharing the good news? I’m too old? God doesn’t see your age as a limitation, but as a deep well of experience, of wisdom and compassion. Too young? God sees your energy, your new appreciation of life and of God's love as a life changing force like water in a desert. Gay? Straight? Sick? Busy? Whatever you see as drawbacks, be sure, God does not look at it—at you, like that. God sees your potential—for empathy, for understanding and for sharing the word with those around you who are thirsty. Of course Jesus sent the woman of Samaria. Just as Jesus sends you. She went. What are you waiting for?

Standing at the Crossroads (Where on earth is Canaan?)

Genesis 12:1-4a; John 3:1-17
February 17, 2008
Rev. Dr. Judith Kaye Jones

Have you ever actually, physically stood at a crossroads? Of course, you say, but I mean, have you every stood on your feet, feeling the dirt or pavement beneath your feet, felt the breeze blowing on your face, felt the weight of your own body as you balance, lean forward, perhaps hesitating before lifting one foot to take that step that will place you on one road or another, and been aware, in that physical and ordinary moment of that step that you were in that instant, choosing the rest of your life? It happened to me, once. It was in North Florida, and I had gone for a walk down one of the unpaved roads in the small town of Monticello. I had much on my mind, and I was just wandering along, sort of looking about me at the Spanish Moss drifting on the wind above my head, shrouding the limbs of pecan trees like veils, or bandages—sort of looking at the swampy land on each side of the red dirt road, sort of listening to the sound of birds and breeze and somewhere, the barking of a determined dog, reminding me of the beat of my heart in its rhythmic persistent drumming on my eardrums. I was walking because I had a decision to make, and I had been restless and uneasy for weeks as I considered what lay ahead of me. I tend to put off difficult decisions, especially when whatever choice I make will cost me pain, or cost someone else disappointment. I waffle. I dally. I hope the need to make a difficult choice will somehow be taken out of my hands. I came to a crossroads. A country crossroads—no signs, no markers to tell you what lay down any of the roads. People who live in that part of the country know, you see, what lies down those roads, and they don't need signs. They're not about to put up signs for the benefit of those who don't live there. If you don't know what's down that road, the locals might suggest, then you probably don't need to go down it.

This morning's readings are about two people who stand at a crossroad in their lives. First, we have encountered Abram. Abram had come with his father's family out of what would today be part of Iraq, and settled in Northern Turkey. Abram's father died. Now Abram would have, in the natural order of things, become head of the family, responsible for all the kin and cattle, responsible for making and carrying out plans. The family lives there, they speak the language, understand the politics, if any—who am I kidding, there are always politics, they have a routine established for living their lives, rearing their children, providing for their futures. And then God steps into this well-understood way of life and says—get out. Leave. Get thee out to the land of Canaan that I will show you. And there, God promises, I will make you the father of a great nation, and I will bless you so that you may bless others. And Abram does just that. Now, a word about that leave taking that the Bible does not address. Sarai, Abram's wife, is not consulted. We know nothing of what she felt when Abram broke the news. God spoke to me, we're leaving. Abram may have had the task of listening to God, but Sarai, you may be sure, had the responsibility for packing. Throughout time the great prophets and visionaries have stepped into the road, their eyes full of dreams and their spirits soaring above the mundane world, but remember, someone had to remember to pack a lunch.

Why on earth would they go? They are old, they are at least comfortable where they are. We have no reason to think there was anything wrong with where they were. No famine, no war, no oppression. And we know from later stories that Abram and his family possessed great herds and flocks. Packing was no simple matter. Abram is an old man. His wife is an old woman. Wouldn't it have made sense for them to just finish out their lives at home and let the younger generation get on with exploring the future, with dreaming dreams and seeing visions. Wouldn't you have thought they would have preferred to shelter in their tents instead of stepping out into the wind? And where the heck is Canaan, anyway? No maps, no signposts, no onstar—just go to this land of Canaan that God promises—I will show you. Abram heard God speaking, calling, summoning. He stood at a crossroad, he and Sarai. Stay here, where it's safe and familiar, where our fathers and mothers and all our kin live, stay here where we understand everything—or step out into the wind.

Abram and Sarai are childless. They have no new life from their own bonding to carry on their family line. Yet here is God promising new life—I will make of you a great nation. The one thing that they did not have, new life, life for the future. Later God will promise Sarah a child, and you remember, for the sheer excitement and puzzlement and delighted disbelief and joy of it, Sarah laughed. So for new life, Abram and Sarai listen to God's summons. For the sake of new life they forsake the security of home and step out into the wind.

Then there is Nicodemus, or, as we have called him in the past, Nick at Night. Nicodemus is a man of position and learning, and more important, he is a good, a really good man, a man of principal, a righteous faithful believing man. And he has heard about Jesus. And he comes to see this man others are raving about. He comes at night. Now some argue that the Jewish scholars of his time were taught to study at night because only then could they truly concentrate, when all other distractions and noise and competition for attention have fallen silent. Some suggest that his coming at night really is a sign of respect for Jesus, that he would give up his scholarly studies to include Jesus, to listen to Jesus, to consider the reality of Jesus. But remember, the Gospel of John is called the Gospel of light, and from its beginning prologue to the end of the book, John is constantly contrasting those who walk in the light, and those who sit in darkness. Those who hear Jesus and believe, and believing, follow. And those who cannot hear, cannot see, refuse to believe, and so are left behind. Here is Nicodemus, and he has come at night, through the sheltering darkness, safe from prying eyes, his reputation, no doubt justly earned, as a pious, learned, righteous Jew safe because there is no one to see him visiting this radical, impious, scandalous breaker of laws and traditions, this Jesus. Perhaps Nicodemus began by asking himself, who the heck is this Jesus, anyway? Why should I risk all that I have, all that I am, for him, to be seen with him, to have it known that I had listened to him. Nicodemus stands at a crossroad. Something has drawn him here, to this unmarked crossing, some need, some hope, some dream or vision that his life does not satisfy, respectable and comfortable and worthwhile though it surely is. He has come to see Jesus—and has availed himself of the opportunity at least of casting off blindness and stepping into the light. He comes. He speaks with Jesus. And Jesus suggests to Nicodemus that he doesn't really have it all, after all. Jesus recognizes Nicodemus as a good man, an important man, but most of all, a man with great potential. He offers him discipleship—because that is what it was, this talk of being born from above. Nicodemus, a sure but perhaps a trifle pedantic scholar, thinks Jesus means "born again," another meaning of the word. But Jesus isn't talking about physical rebirth, and he is no doubt deeply disappointed that Nicodemus would stumble over such a mistaken idea. No, no, not again, above! Born from above! Born from God! Nicodemus, here is your opportunity to enter into new life, experience new birth into a life custom designed by God. All you have to do is choose to step into the wind, into the wind of new life that is blowing from God and that will make all things—even you, new.

Nicodemus, unlike Abram, can't face the wind. He is unable to overcome his status and his literal understanding. Messiah, though he has been looking for him all his life, is too frightening and challenging and radical an idea to be born in the flesh. He cannot leave the shelter of theory, of ideal and embrace the here and now. He cannot leave the shelter of the tent and step out into the wind. Yet.

But there is hope. As with God there is always hope. As with those who truly encounter the living Christ, all things are possible. Sometimes it is instant. Sometimes it takes a lifetime. Nicodemus has encountered Jesus, and though he cannot set out for Canaan at that first meeting, neither can he settle down and stay behind forever. Later, Nicodemus will speak from his seat in the powerful Sanhedrin, right there before God and everybody, Nicodemus will find the courage to stand up for Jesus. Talk about stepping into the wind—can you imagine what a buzz of talk and shock went round that room, a hurricane of anger and disbelief. Nicodemus, the righteous, the respected, defending the mad carpenter from Nazareth who preaches justice, and peace, and healing, and compassion, who heals on the Sabbath and suggests that he, and we, are actually children of God. And later, because apparently Nicodemus decided he kind of liked being out in the wind and storm, he would help Joseph of Aramethia take the dead body of Jesus down from the cross and lay it in the tomb. He would take upon himself the disgrace and ritual uncleanliness that came from touching the dead flesh of an executed felon. Is it possible that Nicodemus left it at that? I don't think so. I have no doubt that he never went back to the old life. Once you are born from above, once you experience the new life offered by God, you can never again settle for plodding through life. Once you have stepped into and embraced the wind, you have to fly.
When have you had to strike out on your own, without any guarantees from your family or faith community? What voice did you hear? How might this be a blessing for everybody — even those who did not go with you?

How do we honor the voice of God in the Bible and still listen for God to speak in unprecedented ways? What room do we make for other voices? What room do we make for God's voice?

Where is the wind of the Spirit blowing in your life? Can you afford to respond with openness? If not, what other responses are available to you right now? How can God transfigure your circumstances?
Call us out, O God, from familiar settings.
Lead us into unexplored regions,
and make our lives a blessing to all whom we meet.
Give us courage to explore you and to explore ourselves openly.
Amen.

Standing at the Crossroads (or—Who do you trust?)

Genesis 2; Matthew 4:1-11
February 10, 2008

You know, life is full of crossroads. We come to them every day as we drive or walk. A crossroads is also a place of decision. Do we turn right or left—do we go straight ahead? Or—sometimes, do we make a u-turn and go back? Life is a lot like that. We are constantly having to decide which way to go—every tiny decision is, in a way, a crossroads, and sometimes our choices can have surprisingly powerful consequences. You turn left onto the freeway instead of continuing on the access road and bam! You're in a traffic jam. So you are late getting where you are going. You lose your reservation or annoy or worry your friends or miss an important meeting. You lose a business deal. Left instead of right at a crossroads. Turning right instead of left—so you discover a waterfall instead of a pond at the end of the trail, you meet this person instead of that one, or no one—each decision in life, each tiny choice—fraught with consequences. Robert Frost's famous poem says it better than anyone else:
The Road Less Traveled

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We encounter all the characters of this morning's narratives at crossroads in their lives—major crossroads. Yet, in Adam and Eve's case, when they woke up that morning in the Garden, their thoughts were probably not filled with a foreboding of a momentous choice, one which would change their lives forever in unimaginable ways. To pick or not to pick, to eat or not to eat, to listen or not to listen? Perhaps none of that even so much as flashed through their minds as they stood regarding the tree. It looked good. The snake sounded reasonable. So they trusted the snake, and listened, picked and ate. The rest is history. Or not. But the rest of the narrative is pretty clear. If we believe in Fall theology, humankind lost paradise because they trusted the snake and turned to the left. If we don't believe in Fall theology, and I'm one of those, humankind chose life with purpose, life rich with potential, filled with all textures of emotions and experiences instead of endless timeless existence. Either way, they stood at a crossroads under that tree, turned left, and left Paradise behind until such time as they should have the wisdom and compassion and selflessness to make it again.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus has just been baptized. He has stood at that crossroads of decision, and stepped into the water of repentance and rebirth. And the Spirit of God has descended from heaven and alighted on him like a dove. What kind of life did he imagine, do you think, when he took that step off the bank and into the Jordan? The words from God descend from heaven, they are still hanging in the air above Jesus' head--"this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." And, the text immediately tells us, "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." We know immediately what the purpose of this hike into the hills is. Jesus doesn't stumble on temptation. The serpent, as in the Old Testament reading for this morning about the temptation in the Garden, does not glide out from behind a rock and surprise an unsuspecting naïve Jesus. God fully intends that Jesus should be tempted, and we are told about it right up front. Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil. But first, he must wait, and pray, and fast for forty days and forty nights. He has been led from one crossroad to another—he has accepted Messiahship by stepping into the baptismal river. Now he stands at the crossroads of what kind of Messiah he will be.

In order to fully appreciate the symbolism of this story of Jesus' temptations, after his forty-day travail in the wilderness, we must turn to another Old Testament story, this time of Moses, and understand the parallel that Matthew constructs between the leader of the Exodus and Jesus of Nazareth. Moses, and all the Hebrew people, were in Egypt because one Joseph had gone there, and had caused his family to come after him and settle there. In Matthew's Gospel we have also had an account of a Joseph who took his family to Egypt. Before the Exodus, Moses, you will recall, was saved from the death ordered by Pharaoh that all the male babies be killed. Jesus was saved from death at the order of King Herod, who demanded the slaughter of the boy babies in Bethlehem to rid himself of a feared future rival who just might be the Messiah. Moses was taken to a high mountain and shown all the land as far as the eye could see. Moses was with the Lord for forty days, and during those forty days Moses did not eat or drink. Moses' leadership faltered, and he failed the test of his forty years of wandering in the wilderness. He took power to himself, and made a miracle for the purpose of coercing faith, of underlining his political leadership. He commanded as if he were God. He got his miracle. But he lost the Promised Land. Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew, is presented to us as the new Moses, but the one who does not, will never fail the test.

He is offered three things by the devil, there in that wilderness. Famished, hungry to the very marrow of his bones, he is offered bread. "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." How wonderfully ironic. Surely if Jesus believed himself to be the Son of God, surely he might have reasoned, God would not wish him to starve to death. He is starving. Here is a way. He can embrace a ministry of bread making. And he would not be the only beneficiary. In a hungry world, making bread out of stones would be a well received credential. He would have had the biggest following, the greatest reputation, the most magnificent church--maybe even a crystal cathedral. What is so wrong with this making of bread? The key, I think, lies in the word "command." Command these stones. Don't ask God to make them bread, don't pray to God for the power, and the right to turn them into bread. Don't go humbly up to those stones, directed by God--Command them! Assert your right, your power to mold reality to your will. Assert your right to determine what is right and wrong in the universe, who shall be hungry and who filled. Command them! The voice of temptation does not recognize the difference between hearing the word of God and doing it, and commanding your own laws. Jesus decides against a ministry of bread. He decides against a ministry that would guarantee him an enormous following. He decides against, at the same time, putting his own agonizing needs ahead of his understanding of his place in God's creation. He responds that we do not live by bread alone, that he and we are not sustained only by the creature comforts of this world but first and foremost by the word of God. The only commands Jesus will make will be God's commands.

The second temptation is less concrete but more poignant. The devil takes Jesus up to the high pinnacle of the temple, not just any high pinnacle, mind you, but to the one that is not only the highest in the city but is the representation of the human family's reaching up to heaven for God, the pinnacle of sacred striving, and reminds him that he can jump. After all, the Son of God is a precious, valuable person. The angels will catch you. Kind of reminds you of stories about people poised on a ledge above death, driven there by an unassuaged hunger in their souls, and hearing the crowds below call "jump. Jump." This is the temptation to test God's devotion to Jesus. "You have said I am your son. You ask me to do something terribly, unimaginably hard. So prove you mean it." As we move into the season of Lent, the image of the Christ once again lifted up to a high place will haunt our very dreams, and we will wonder, perhaps, if he again thought of jumping down. Of rejecting torture and death. Of calling on God to save him from his mission, from glory bought by his blood. Then, as in the wilderness, he refuses to take action into his own hands. He asks, he perhaps begs, but he does not command, he does not jump.

Finally the devil shows Jesus from a very high mountain all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. And here he shows his true nature. First he tested Jesus' willingness to take power that is God's and be like God, second he tested Jesus' steadfastness and ability to wait upon God, now he comes out in the open. This time, the devil promises to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them, if Jesus will fall down and worship him. Now, perhaps, Jesus recognizes this voice for what it is. As he will later do in his ministry, he quiets the voice of the demon. Begone.

Jesus rejected a whole wilderness of paths to glory in this story. He stood at innumerable dry, dusty, badly marked crossroads, the signs twisted and faded and misleading. He rejected the temptation to demand proof from God. How hard is this one? To demand that God fix it, make it better, give me what I need, and want, and then I will believe and serve you. I have been baptized, after all, I am your child. So give me what I deserve. A very dangerous request, don't you think. How subtly the devil leads us to a clouded mirror, and how amazingly God clarifies it for us. Do not tempt God to give us what we deserve. Therein lies the path to the wilderness and no way out.

Jesus rejected a political answer to the world's problems. This does not mean that we may ignore politics. They affect our lives, and have the power of life and death over us all. But we must not confuse political strength and might with the ultimate power of God. We must not adopt the methods and means of the politically powerful in building the church. It cannot be about kingdoms, and glory. It is about sacrifice, and love, and humility.

He rejected a ministry of bread. I think, for me, that one was the hardest of all. It's easy to confuse earthly bread with spiritual feeding. It is not a bad thing, after all, to want to feed the hungry, or to eat when you are hungry. Haven't you every dreamed of what it would be like to be able to meet the need of a hungry world--to reach out and just create enough food for everyone? I know I have. And later in the story, Jesus would do just that. But he would not command stones to become bread. He would not be a magician. He would ask his disciples to have faith, to take what they had and pass it around. And they would discover that what they had to share was enough to do what they had to do.

In his response to each of these temptations, Jesus responds with quotations from Deuteronomy: We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." "You shall worship the Lord your God and God only shall you serve." Something more than bread, more than even potentially beneficial powers, political influence, religious spectacle lies at the heart of Jesus ministry. He counters with nothing but the Word. In Jesus we encounter one who did not try to be God or as God, and who did not try to use God to claim something for himself. The church, which can be too fond of power, place and claims of favor, needs to walk in the steps of Jesus. Too many people came to Jesus, and come to the church today for the wrong reasons. They lust for a quick fix for what ails them. They want to be healed--now. They desire some sure, absolutely fail-proof set of rules that will help them to negotiate the pitfalls of life, they want to be liberated, free, and unbound from any care greater than themselves. They want the crossroads signs—if crossroads are really necessary, to be clear and unambiguous, but they prefer a straight path with no divergence, no decision necessary. But life isn’t like that for us, just as it wasn’t like that for Jesus. Jesus found salvation in the Word of God, in every word. And he used his trust in God and in God’s word as his signpost. He followed the turning toward struggle and loss and hope. The best hope of Israel, Jesus, was willing to live by and if necessary to die by the Word. And here in Vallejo, He is our best hope, too. It all depends on what you decide when you come to the crossroads—and who do you trust?

Transform Us

Matthew 17:1-9
February 3, 2008

I can't believe it. It was right there, in front of my eyes, all this time, and I never saw it. As many times as I have read this text, thought about it, preached it even, I never saw this until now. The story we read this morning begins "And after six days…." I participated in a women’s retreat two weeks ago during which I was invited to read a scripture of my choice to open the Taize service led by my friend Barbara Hamm. Picture it. We are in a (to me) huge Catholic sanctuary, following the mysterious pattern of an ancient basilica church with high stone walls and stained glass, dimly lit choir stalls, a soaring ceiling full of mystery and shadows, picture the darkness sparked by a few flickering candles, and behind me a set of three banners glowing with the waters of creation. And I chose—how could I not—Genesis I—and it begins—"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was moving over the waters. And God said—let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that God had made, and it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day." And the great rolling poetic words wash down over us, ending with the sixth day, the final day of creation, the glorious and light filled day when God created humankind, gave birth to God's offspring, created in God's image—God's beloved children of humanity. On the sixth day, and it was good, it was really good, it was all good.

I whipped back to Exodus, and there it was again—Moses, up the mountain, cloud that covered the mountain, and the light—the glory like devouring fire appearing after the sixth day. So here again, six days have passed and we stand with the completed creation, we are at the point of decision, here it is, here it all is, here is all life, all light, all law. And in this story God roars, and thunders, and tries to get the attention of a beleaguered and confused and mutinous humanity that just can't see the light any more. They see the light, the text tells us, from a distance. The light is not yet shining on their own faces. Fascinating that the following narrative, during which Moses (we never hear what Joshua felt or thought or saw), Moses during the next forty days receives from God, along with the law, detailed instructions for building the ark of the Covenant, and the lamp stands and the cups and goblets made of gold and copper, and the tabernacle to house all this, bronze and blue and purple and scarlet linen, oil and precious stones—Moses is instructed to build a sanctuary for God.

So here I am, this week, between that retreat and the transformation crossroads event in Woodland, trying to carve out a little time for this text, and suddenly there it is right in front of me: After six days-- a dazzling light--a voice celebrating the goodness, the perfection of creation--"This is my son, with whom I am well pleased." My friends, we are back again at the creation, we have climbed this mountain with Jesus to re-experience the creation—or is it, rather, to see the creation transformed in the person of Jesus, the transfigured one? Is it to see creation, once perfect, now perfect again—perfect in the transfigured person of Jesus who so completely embodies what it is to be a child of God, created in the Divine image, the beloved.

We tend to focus on the ones who accompany Jesus on this journey to the heart of creation. And well we should, for we see them as our entrance into the story, particularly in Mark and Luke’s versions of the story—for you will remember, as they tell it, James and John and Peter are all overcome with sleepiness, and nearly miss the whole thing!— We, after all, we are the ones, are we not, who reluctantly keep on climbing up the mountain, the mountain that seems to lead us nowhere, get us nothing, just there all the time, demanding that our tired feet set out and our tired hearts keep on pumping enough blood and energy to get us up there. Are we not the ones who, having climbed, are tired, are weary, and do we not nod our sleepy heads and long to rest? Matthew's text leaves out the sleepy part, and focuses on Peter, as usual, in there pitching but apparently missing the point. He sees Jesus, sees Moses and Elijah, and wants so desperately to say something, to do something—he tries to do it, he offers to do it—"I'll build a booth, yeah, yeah, that's it, one for each of you, let me, please let me—I have to do something to mark this glorious, amazing, unexplainable mountain-top experience, this vision, this sense of being in the actual, light-filled, speaking presence of the creator God! So I'll build you each a booth—you, Moses, who led us out of slavery and were our conduit with God and the law, you who forged us into a holy people, and you, Elijah, touched by God, messenger of God, who taught us how to remain God’s people in the face of trial and sorrow, who taught us the mystery and power and endless faithfulness of God—and you, Jesus, friend, mentor, somehow taking your place here with these to former messengers of God's love, bringers of God's light, I'll make each of you a place for you to stay in, I'll enshrine you."

Well, apparently God has other plans. This time God does not want a building for Moses, or for Elijah, or for Jesus, of even for God's own sanctuary. Out of the bright cloud, gossamer and dazzling, comes the voice of God—not the thundering voice of God from Zion or Horeb, not that voice, but a tender voice speaking not of law but of love—do not be afraid, this, this is my beloved child, this one is the pinnacle of creation, the sixth day is finally here, it is complete, it is perfect because I have created the one who will reveal me to the rest of my children as no one has ever been able to do before, not even Moses, not even Elijah. They stand here with Jesus, those bringer of the early light, light that seems to have been a progression from that first moment of creation when God summoned light, first of all light, then the light growing and filling the void and then illuminating all that God brought about, and that light of God going out into all the stories of the Old Testament, now dim, now bright, marching with Abraham and Sarah so they could see to walk away from all they held dear and embark on an unknown path, light leading Moses and the children of slavery out of Egypt and into the wilderness, light leading them to their identity as children of God, into the land of the promise, light leading Elijah and the other prophets who all were sons and daughters of God, feeding, leading, healing, bearing the light of God to all who would listen. And here, now, on this mountaintop, is the transfigured one, Jesus, the beloved, who is so filled with that perfect light of creation that to see him is to see God. And Jesus is, God seems to say, my sanctuary.

No wonder Peter felt he had to do something, say something. What can your response be when you are suddenly confronted with the infinite loving healing light of God's presence, shining onto your very own face? Shouldn't you—don't you want to say something, do something to share, to bless and to acknowledge the gift you have received? So it is easy for us to enter this story as Peter, or as the sleepy ones who nearly miss the whole thing.

But what about Jesus? What did this experience mean to him? We probably can't expect to ever know—until our turn comes to receive that pure, unfiltered divine light in the face and know that we, our very selves, see God. But I think Jesus completed what he began at his baptism—that process that transformed him into the living, breathing son of God, bearer of the light to all humankind. I think he became fully the son of God, and saw himself standing in the company of those light-bringers who had gone before. He knows he has to go down the mountain, and face the people that wait for him there, good and bad, loving and hating, singing and hurting, faithful and betraying. He may not linger in a booth. He may not be enshrined, We may not enshrine him, in a text, or in a picture, or in a little gold cross around our necks. We must let him go down that mountain, transformed into the Word, the creative light and breath of God, into whatever waits for him there, into pain, into loss, into understanding, into service. And we, my friends, along with James and John and Peter, finally know what it is we must do. We must go with Him.

The Never Ending Dream

John 1:29-42
January 20, 2008
Rev. Dr. Judith Kaye Jones

The baptism of Jesus in the Gospel of John is a complicated story. We may—and have, approached it from several points. John recognizes Jesus as the lamb of God—the suffering servant who has come at last to redeem Israel. It is the occasion of the calling of Andrew, apparently one of John's followers. It leads to the calling of Simon, renamed and proclaimed Cephas, the rock. But this morning I want to talk about a different point, one that follows up on all the witness messages we have heard and participated in throughout Advent. For John, in this passage, steps aside from the primary leadership role in a call to renewal, steps aside and names himself not leader but witness. John is the witness, the first human witness to the coming of the Messiah, the suffering servant, Jesus who will redeem Israel.

The suffering servant is a term imbedded in the Book of Isaiah. This morning's reading is the second of the servant songs from that great book of prophets. It comes from second Isaiah, written during the time of the captivity in Babylon where the people of Israel dwell in exile, longing and waiting for release. Second Isaiah writes this song in promise and praise of the coming of the long-awaited one, the one who will re-establish Israel. But there is something very important imbedded in these servant songs. The long-awaited one is not described here as Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father—Prince of peace, words we are most familiar with from First Isaiah. This song lifts up a messiah who "labors in vain, who is deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the servant of rulers." This song is pointing the way to the suffering servant, the one who will be broken and humiliated that Israel might be healed by his wounds. This image of the suffering servant more perfectly prophesies the coming of the one we name Christ, the one we call Messiah, Jesus, than the great and gorgeous list of Kingly titles we sing at Christmas. This, after all, this suffering one, is Jesus. The one who answered the call at his Baptism, witnessed by John, the one who struggled with his call and acceptance of his destiny, the one who lived and suffered that other's might live and be reconciled to God. This describes the one we serve and witness to, Jesus.

Throughout the Book of Isaiah, as with the other Justice prophets, the sins of Israel are lifted up. And it is not the sin of whoring after other Gods, or sinful personal behavior as we understand it—theft, adultery, criminal behavior that has grieved God and separated Israel from God. No, Israel's great crime is injustice. Isaiah proclaims, as do Amos and Micah, that to wallow in wealth, to recline on silken couches and eat the fruit of other's labor, to enjoy all that is sweet and pleasant in a world where others go hungry, where others die from lack of healthcare, where others make possible the wealth enjoyed by the privileged—this is the sin of injustice, and this is the great sin for which Israel must pay, pay with its tears and its blood and the loss of everything it holds most precious—the promised land, the temple of the Lord, and the sure covenant with God. Injustice is the great sin, and it will be paid for.

The entire Old Testament is a hymn to the Shalom of God, created perfect and pure in the Beginning, the Shalom of God, peace and justice woven into the very fabric of creation. And humankind has raveled the web, has acquired the sins of selfishness, of greed, of prejudice. All the great prophets are calling for the Shalom of God to be reestablished in the land. When Isaiah and others prophesy the reestablishment of the kingdom, wherein all nations will come to the Holy Mountain, and wealth and joy will once again flow, they are not promising the individual people of Israel a cushy, privileged life. They are not promising the reestablishing of the pyramid of power with a few at the top, and the suffering masses at the bottom. They are pointing to a time when God's shalom will be reestablished. This is not history—this is theology. The prophets, particularly Isaiah, look to a time when Israel shall be a light to the nations. He is not talking about the light of commerce, the blinking neon light of wealth flowing and ruthlessness governing every aspect of life. He is talking about the light of justice, justice, that foundation upon which God built the covenant with Israel—remember and care for the widows and orphans and sojourners in your land, for you were once sojourners—slaves in the land of Egypt, and in compassion I reached out and saved you! It is a very clear, very specific quid pro quo—I saved you with love and compassion, you must save others. It's not just part of the covenant—it is the covenant. And it is the one part of that binding soul deep relationship between Israel and God that was never kept.

But Isaiah does not give up—none of them do. They keep on sending out the word to the people, now humiliated and lonely and desperate for the hills and valleys of home—they keep on promising renewal, restoration. But at a price. Oh the land will be restored to them—or rather, they will be restored to the land, for Cyrus will crush Babylon and will send the captives home. Oh, they will build again, and acquire again. But unless they mortar ever stone with justice, it will all to be done again. Until the suffering servant comes and shows humankind how to build with compassion, and love, and self-sacrifice. Until the light comes. Until the Messiah comes.

The baptism of Jesus in the Gospel of John is unique in that nowhere does it actually say that Jesus stepped into the river and was baptized by John. Unlike the other Gospels, where you have Jesus rising up out of the river to meet the descending Spirit, or the voice of God proclaiming him Son. In John's gospel John witnesses the spirit descending and knows him for who—and what he is. Even as Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit instead of water, it seems that God baptizes Jesus with that Spirit. Because in this Gospel it is central that John’s power to baptize with water be contrasted sharply with Jesus' power to baptize with spirit, a power direct from God. And Isaiah is there, too—for John quotes Isaiah when he describes himself as a voice, crying in the wilderness. Come to call the people of Israel to make straight the way of the Lord. John is a witness to the Christ, the one who will bring back to Israel the Shalom of God. For that is what Jesus' ministry will be about. Justice. And it will unfold in his ministry. What, after all, does Jesus not forgive? Adultery—neither do I accuse you, go now, and sin no more. Theft—this day, you shall be with me in Paradise. Extortion—Zacchaeus—come down out of that tree, I'm coming to dinner! Everywhere in the Gospels Jesus summons the sinners, and yes, calls them to repentance, but so gently, so easily—no fire, no brimstone—just "come." Except for injustice. The Pharasees he names "whited sepulchers"—whitewashed bone boxes filled with rotting death—because they live on, and perpetuate injustice. In the grand old tradition of Isaiah, Jesus indeed calls for the restablishment of God's shalom—justice, justice, justice. Jesus accepted the call of God, though he would struggle with it in life and in death. For to accept God's call is dangerous, and to demand justice is dangerous. For John, for Jesus, for Andrew, for Peter, it would be fatal.

Today we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King. He began as a new preacher in Montgomery Alabama at age 26. It was early December, 1955. Rosa Parks had just been arrested for not giving up her seat on the city bus. A bus boycott had been called by the NAACP and young Martin was asked to lead the effort. His name wasn't changed to Cephas, but he would indeed become the rock of the civil rights movement. In 1957 he was elected president of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the vanguard of the nonviolent struggle for justice in the South. This contemporary 'lamb of God' was spit upon, ridiculed, jailed, fire-bombed, yet he kept on moving—across the South, then on to Washington for his famous "I have a dream" in August of 1963, and then to Oslo, Norway, where he was hailed by the world as the Nobel Peace Prize recipient for 1964, somewhat as Jesus was hailed as he entered Jerusalem riding a donkey, on that last, fateful journey. Jesus came, calling for, demanding God's shalom, demanding Justice. The more threatening Jesus became to those in power in Jerusalem, the more they plotted to end his life. Dr. King's voice, too, became to loud, to threatening—not because he promised violence or hatred or retribution—but because he demanded justice. He left that moment of glory in Oslo and responded to God's call to become an even bolder prophet for justice and peace. His vision and struggle was expanded to include all victims of poverty and violence. It was his "poor people's campaign" headed toward Washington, and his condemnation of the war in Vietnam that probably led to the fatal bullets on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Dr. King didn't know his commitment to justice and peace would make him a lamb of God, a sacrificial lamb for the cause of God's Shalom, but he embraced the call from Jesus to live his faith as fully as he could, each day, no matter where it would lead.

But we are not focusing so much today on the end of the journeys of Jesus, Andrew and Peter, and Dr. King, as on their beginnings. Each was summoned. Each had to make a decision to answer God’s call. Each struggled. But each accepted their place in God's great march towards Shalom, toward justice.

We are reminded as we look at the great panoply of history, that many many people have answered God’s call. Many have stood in the path of death proclaiming justice, courageous people who confronted violence and injustice wherever they found it. And we are called to do the same. We are called, here in our safe little lives, to challenge prejudice, cruelty, and injustice. We can do things to make our world better. We can challenge unfair public policies that leave the burden of poverty and helplessness upon the shoulders of the poor and the disenfranchised. We can examine our political process and use our voting power to demand justice and equality for all people. We can reject consumerism and greed in our personal lives, and on behalf of our economic practices at home and abroad. We can work for gun control. We can speak out against unfair laws that use fear as the excuse for curtailing liberty and equality.

God has been calling for the reestablishment of Shalom—peace and justice, ever since Cain murdered Able. The call for justice is woven throughout the Old and new testament, a dream of justice. It is God’s dream. It was Martin's dream. It must be your dream, too, and mine. And we must never stop working and praying for the never-ending dream of peace and justice to be made real. God sent Isaiah, calling for justice. God sent John. God sent Jesus. Jesus sent Andrew and Peter. And Jesus calls us. We can all, each of us, follow our Jesus toward a life of God's Shalom.

Nine Miles Off

Matthew 2:1-2
January 6, 2008
Rev. Dr. Judith Kaye Jones

The season is ending, as it always does, with the fading of carols, the dimming of colored lights and tinsel, the disappearance of the gaily colored wrappings that so lately held the promise of joy. Slowly we will put them away, some of us more slowly than others, those things that represent, year after year, the birth announcement of God with Us, Immanuel, come to earth to save us. And into the absence of all the preparation trappings, in the suddenly open and empty sky, missing the shimmer of angels in flight, we see—the star. The season draws to its close, ending as it always does in the burst of divine radiance from that silent, far-off star, ending in the unimaginable majesty of a poor newborn child lying in straw, imaging God, ending in the wail of new life, promising everything, hoping everything, risking everything, ending—so that it can begin all over again. Today is the Sunday we call Epiphany, the Sunday we traditionally celebrate the feast of the Magi, the arrival of those mysterious visitors from the East who traveled untold miles through mountains and deserts, seeking the fulfillment of the prophecy that a new kind of royalty was being born into the world, a new kind of power, a new kind of rule. And we envision them, as we have for several weeks, arriving in the shimmer of silken robes and the jingling of harness, swaying above the slow, careful feet of camels, dismounting outside a shelter for beasts, rustling to their knees in that homely stable, laying out their gifts and worshiping the unlikely manifestation of divine kingship that lay so humbly on his bed of straw. But as Vince reminded us in his eloquent Epiphany invitation via email this week, The origin of the word "Epiphany" has nothing to do with Christmas itself, or gift-giving. Rather, it comes from the Greek word meaning "manifestation"; and when we refer to January 6th as "Epiphany," we are marking the occasion on which the church has historically commemorated the manifestation of Jesus to the magi kings who came to pay him homage.

We have already talked about the Magi—we have talked about who they were, and where they probably came from, about their numbers and their gifts and the meaning of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And we have talked about ourselves as the Magi people, summoned to lay our gifts in the straw of poverty and humility. We see them as an essential part of the Christmas story, yet do we ever ask ourselves, did they truly understand what they found in that stable, and how did they feel about it when they found it. Why did they think there would be something worth all the struggle and discomfort of a long journey in that small, dusty town in an occupied country? What is Matthew trying to tell us about the manifestation of Jesus in this story of the mysterious Magi from the east?

To begin, they came from the East. The Assyrians had come from the East. The Babylonians came from the East. The Persians came from the East. They all came, the conquerors of old, ravaging, pillaging, killing and plundering, carrying off their booty and their slaves, leveling the towns and cities, destroying farms, destroying the temple of Yahweh, destroying everything in their path until not but a tenth were left in the land, until Israel, her Shepherd King, and the promise of the Messiah were nothing but an old, old story to be told and retold around campfires and hearth-fires and whispered about in the quiet, fearful voices of a yet-again conquered people. From these palaces of earthly power and might, then, palaces that dwarfed the residence of the mad king Herod, came these magi, astrologers, wise men, following a star and a prophecy. But why? Scholars have found that ancient sources refer to prophecies that the kings of the earth will come from Judea. Can you imagine it, those people from the great, ancient civilizations, looking on their maps and seeing tiny Judea, suffering remnant of a once small and prosperous country unique only in its devotion to a single God of justice. Seeing that insignificant speck and somehow experiencing the conviction that one day, one day, all the earth would look to Judea and tremble before the King who would therein arise. So they came, these messengers of the might of ancient principalities, these sages, to find him, because the prophecy would not apparently leave them alone. It troubled their dreams, it distracted their learned, intellectual discourse—it would not allow them to know any peace until they mounted their camels and rode off in search of a dream, and they came, these sages in search, from the East.

And they were nine miles off. Instead of going to Bethlehem, still more insignificant speck inside the insignificant speck of Judea, they go to Jerusalem. Jerusalem—the once proud capital, rebuilt and rebuilt after each successive conquest and desecration, now laboring under the brutal heel of the Roman occupation. They go to the king who rules by the sufferance of the Romans, the mad and brutal tyrant who made even the Romans turn away in horror and disgust. They go where it makes sense to go. If you are looking for power, power as they understood it, then you go to the powers and great halls where power resides. Jerusalem might be only a shadow of her former glory, capital of a remnant of the former Promised Land of God, but it is the best Judea currently had to offer. So that is where they went. And when they got there, they come in response to the prophecies of Isaiah 60. "Rise, shine, for your light has come." Third Isaiah wrote these glorious words to a people who had returned from the East, from the bitter captivity and defeat, released by the Persian King Cyrus to go home and rebuild. Imagine their feelings—most of them had probably been born in Babylon, or had gone there as small children. Now they are sent out on the road to rebuild a decimated country, inhabited by strangers, sent back to set the stones on top of broken and burnt foundations, plant seeds in empty and ruined fields, stumbling out of the east to an empty and ghost-ridden Jerusalem. "Rise, shine," the poet demands, "for your light has come..." He anticipates that Jerusalem will become a center for trade, a hub of new economy, "Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn." In this and other Messianic prophecies, the wise men know they are to go to Jerusalem, that they are to take rare spices, gold and frankincense and myrrh, and that they are to find the new king of all peace and prosperity.
The story tells us that Herod, appalled that his worst nightmare is coming true, demands reassurance from his own scholars. Why have these representatives of past conquest and superiority come to his home looking for some king other than himself? Can’t you hear him demanding reassurance, tell me they are wrong, tell me this prophecy doesn't mean what they think it means. His own sages then tell him something that does not reassure him at all. They tell him that the Magi are using the wrong text. Isaiah 60 has misled them into thinking that Jerusalem, ancient seat of the majesty and glory of Israel will rise and become again a prosperous, even richer and more powerful center of global economy. You really want to be looking at Micah 5:2-4: "But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in travail has brought forth; then the rest of his brethren shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth."

Not in Jerusalem, then—not in the capital city with its memories of power and privilege, with its bustle and greed and ambition, not in the already crumbling palace of earthly tyranny, not there, but in Bethlehem, in that small and insignificant little town whose only claim to fame was that once, long ago, a shepherd boy named David who was born there was anointed King. The Magi are nine miles off. They have made the mistake probably every one would make, they have followed their wisdom and logic and intellectual learning and sought the manifestation of divine power in the seat of power. But they are nine miles off. God has been made manifest to the human family, not within the walls of a palace, but in the rude shelter of a stable. And they have to go, they have to travel that last nine miles and humble themselves before the peasant king, because they are driven there by God as witnesses to the new order. God who sends the Word into their hearts: True power is not to be found in wealth or majesty. God is not manifested by the trappings of kingship. The reason those kingly treasures must be laid in the straw beside their noble knees is simple: You are not merely acknowledging that this child is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. You are proclaiming him as the Lord of the Earth, the promised one who will simply turn the world upside down. Everything you think you know and understand about the way life is and the way the world works, everything you think you know about power and might and hope and peace—everything you think you know about who you are and who you are called to be—everything must go down into that straw.

Think for a moment what these witnesses to God made manifest must give up! Gold! It is as dross. Precious spices—years of their lives spent in travel—poof! Nothing at all. The greatest sacrifice they must make is nothing less than themselves. They will, once they have knelt in the straw before God with us, they will have to reorient themselves, rethink everything they understand about living and the meaning of life itself. They will have to become new creations because of a baby born in straw, lying in straw, a child of poverty and humility yet whose coming commands the brightest star.

Poet T.S. Eliot wrote a poem describing the powerful sense of loss that he felt these sages from the East must have felt when they confronted what they had truly found in that manger place.


'The Journey of the Magi'

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

-- T. S. Eliot

We will not end on that note, however. Eliot's Magi found the death of all their assurances and understanding, and they find it bitter. But remember the line— "I would do it again." Even knowing what the sacrifice would be, what the journey would reveal, even though he knew the unsettling new truth that would forever rob him of the complacency and comfort of the status quo, even though he knew that he would have to endure the pangs of new birth himself as he was reborn in a new understanding of God, even so, he would go again, kneel again, worship again, give himself up—again.

There is room for us, too, in the straw at that manger bed. The question is, once we have found our way there, are we ready to kneel down and worship him? Knowing what will happen to us when we do? Are we ready?

I've been thinking . . . about the season of giving

At the last Administrative Council meeting we were discussing everyone's favorite subject—the Budget. That topic that causes long silences, and nervous paper shuffling, anxiety and worry and ultimately, the grim determination to carry on, go forward and trust to God and the process. And again, as seems to have become a tradition, our congregational meeting to vote on the budget falls smack in the middle of Advent. I remember when I had been here at Vallejo First Christian Church one year, this situation arose and I remember Glenda saying "we've always tried to keep the budget from interfering with the celebration of Advent." Boy, I know what she meant. Sort of like my feelings as Christmas approaches, and I look at my list of dear ones whom I would like to give wondrous and sparkling gifts, and the bank balance that tells me just exactly what is really going to be possible. If only the budget didn't get in the way of our earnest desire to give, and give with joy, radically generous, overflowing openhandedness, sharing with abandon all good things with others. If only we didn't have to worry about balance sheets, and budgetary considerations and, most depressing of all, the bottom line—wherever that is. If only we could just concentrate on mystery and magic and Magi, speaking in a soft, sibilant foreign tongue, coming through the starlit night bearing exotic gifts of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh in search of a king born in a stable and promising peace and hope for the world. If only.

Yet it is not to be. The budget must be undertaken, and we, the people of God in this place must put our festivities, our proud and privileged celebrations on hold long enough to look to the future of the church. Early Christian artists figure the Magi as kings, and that image too has taken hold of our religious imaginations. And those artists, painting with the colors of devotion and faith and a keen theological insight, painted those great kingly figures, arrayed in royal purple and red and blue, humbly kneeling in the aromatic hay of a stable, cheek by jowl, as it were, with donkeys and sheep and their equally aromatic keepers. Humbly kneeling before a woman of no wealth or position save the one God gave here. Humbly kneeling before a woman and here illegitimate child born in the rudest of all habitations, born in a stable, a place fit only for animals, born the king of the Jews, but something so much more, so much more important. Born the king of all time, all people everywhere, born Emmanuel, God with us. Only by pictorially showing these earthly rulers could the artists of those wonderfully jeweled canvases depict earthly power and might humbled by the sight of the child who would bring the promise of riches no ruler, not even all rulers of all time could give—the promise of the peace of the soul, the presence of God alive and active in each and every human heart, the promise of the ultimate triumph of life over death. Only by drawing the mother and child, high and lifted up, with these three kings and all their panoply of wealth and power lowly, bowed, humble, could they testify to the true source of power on earth, and the transitory and illusory nature of earthly might.


We come each year, looking for the star, waiting, waiting. We gather, each year at the manger bed, hoping, hoping. And we need those shepherds who remind us that it was to the humble of the earth that the angels first announced the fierce glad carol. We need them to remind us that the humble of the earth have first place, perhaps, at that manger bed. First promise of peace and healing and hope. But we also need those wise ones, those Magi. Because we are not the shepherds, we in our advanced culture with all the trappings of wealth and the power to determine so much about our own lives. We are the best educated and most far-seeing people on earth, don't you think? We have a direct pipeline to the information highway, we have access to all the world's greatest art and scientific discovery, the literature of the ages and the music of the spheres—we are all, each and every one here, Renaissance people in the old sense, masters and mistresses of a thousand skills and abilities which we don't even notice as we go about our daily lives, but for which the vast majority of people alive on the earth can only dimly, if at all imagine. We, my dears, are not the shepherds, we are the Magi. We are the wise ones, wealthy and well-informed who travel guided by prophecies we only dimly understand, looking, looking for the star to shine at the end of our path, to light our way to the peace that passes all understanding. We are the Magi people who say we want only to find that child, that Emmanuel, that God-with-us miracle in the manger. If so, if we really mean that, then we must take our utmost special treasures with us, and willingly lay them in the straw at the baby's feet. We must set out into the unknown country lighted only dimly by that far off, silent star. We must set our feet into the road of faith to discover the true birth of God on earth and in our hearts. We, this small number, like those original Magi, must be willing to set out in darkness and uncertainty, refusing all setbacks and all obstacles, following our star of belief toward that new kingdom of glory and majesty. We must sacrifice security and comfort and the unchallenged life of the privileged, and must be willing to lay our utmost treasures at the feet of some nearby, shivering infant. Into the midst of life, God comes. Magi people, halleluiah!

Shalom,
Judith

I've been thinking . . . about our reputation

A man came to the church office today. He was thin, rumpled, and obviously life was hard for him. He asked for food. My immediate response was to say "I'm sorry—we don't have a food closet. The church on Colusa on the other side of Tennessee has a food program." He shook his head. "No," he said, "you have to belong to a certain denomination. They wouldn't give me any." (He was mistaken about this.) "I have paid my rent, but I need food. I'm hungry. Someone told me to come here and you would help." My first thought was mild annoyance—who had told him to come here, and why? We don't have a food program. I really don't like telling people "no" and I resented someone misleading the man. But almost immediately, his insistence brought a little warm glow to my heart. He was sure we could and would help. Someone out there in the community had assured him of it. What a great thing for people to think about us—that we can and will help! That means they know we preach the Gospel here and take it seriously. "I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. When you do it for one of the least of these, my brethren, you do it for me." Mary was here with me, and she asked if we could give him some of the Salvation Army basket contributions. We agreed to give him a bag of food, and to replace what we took from the basket. He was so grateful. "Thank you, thank you. You have saved my life."

Mary and I bought a sack-full of Target brand macaroni and cheese (35 cents a box), some canned goods (30-50 cents a can) and refilled the Salvation Army Basket. That is a special ministry, and we shouldn't take from it to give to someone else (I think it's called "robbing Peter to pay Paul." So we are going to set up some "gift bags" of food to give out to people who come by. It makes my heart ache—and my blood boil—to think that there are people out there who are hungry and have to knock on doors to survive. I am shamed that a few boxes of macaroni and cheese and some beans could make someone so grateful that they would say "you have saved my life." I know this is a busy, giving season with so many demands on our time and our purses. But it is an opportunity for us all to get in the habit of thinking about those in need. Many of you support the Salvation Army basket regularly. Many would if they remembered to bring their contributions. And now I am asking you to occasionally bring food for our new, tiny little food cupboard. (Remember, we don't have to solve the problem of hunger—would that we could. What we do have to do is whatever we can—great or small.) When you go shopping, and you see something like mac 'n cheese or peanut butter or crackers or soup on sale for a really low price, pick up a few for the food ministry here—both the basket and the cupboard. Then say to yourself "we have a food program at our church." Isn't that terrific! After all, we have a reputation to uphold.

Shalom,
Judith

We Chose Lamech

Genesis 4:8-16; 23-24
Matthew 18:21-22;
September 10, 2006

Genesis 4:23-24 Lamech said to his wives: "Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, hearken to what I say: I have slain a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold."

Matthew 5:43-45a. You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of God who is in heaven; I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Matthew 18: 21-22: Then Peter came up and said to him, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.'

Anniversaries are funny things, sometimes. For example, Fred and I have trouble remembering ours. We are happy, we rejoice together on many occasions during our years together, but we almost never remember our anniversary. We know when it is, and sometimes we will look forward to doing something special for several months, but then, somehow as the actual day draws near, we forget about until it is passed. Then we laugh, and say—well, next year! Next year. There are days when nothing at all is special to remember, no great event, no small triumph, no pressing memories, nothing but the easy and ordinary breathing in and out and going through the steps of ordinary life. Today is not such a day. Today we have a day with too much to remember, too many things to think and talk and pray about. Today is the beginning of the "Light a Candle for the Children" season of concern and activism on behalf of the children of the world who languish in poverty and fear, victims of neglect and violence and unremitting need. That alone would be enough deep thought, deep remembrance for one day. But today is also the day of remembrance for the attacks of September 11th. I originally did not intend to do a service about Sept. 11th today. I have noticed, as no doubt you have too, the number of new movies and specials and newscast look-backs about that dark day that have flooded the airways in the last month or two. Patriotic music, dramatic throbbing voices, the weeping eagle, the flag flying over the pits of death and destruction that once were the proud towers of unbelievable wealth and influence and power—all these emotionally jarring sounds and images, reminding us relentlessly of that tragic day when so many people died horribly. That day when ordinary people, going about their daily work were exploded, burned, crushed. That day when ordinary people found reserves of enormous courage and self-sacrifice in helping one another, searching for one another, rescuing one another, plunging into a dark hell in hopes of finding just one more survivor. That day when ordinary people took a plane, and themselves, down in death rather than be a weapon used against the Capitol or White House. No, I don't need the television or the newspapers to remind me of that day, I don’t need to see the images of that beautiful clear day when the planes flew into the soaring towers and the world—especially our world, changed forever.

But then I kept hearing about special events, memorials to those who lost their lives, and I became uneasily aware that what was a catastrophe was being memorialized into something else. Somehow, 911 has become a day to praise the courage of the true American fire-fighters and police officers and ordinary citizens, to mourn the loss of American lives, somehow it has become a symbol of the unbreakable American spirit and determination, and we were asked to light candles in remembrance of the day we survived an unjust and unprovoked attack. Somehow, 911 has become an event to be looked upon with pride—not just the pride of those heroic men and women who helped each other survive and sacrificed themselves for others. We may well remember with pride the heroism that disaster elicited from all those people. But 911 is not a day to remember with pride. Anger rose in me as I heard all the pious talk about services celebrating our nobility under unjust and undeserved attack. I'll light no candles for that memorial. Because the events of 911 should serve to remind us all of the day in which the complete travesty of our foreign policy, the injustice of our economic policies, and the abject selfishness of our worldview was illuminated before the world in the glare of the fire and broadcast in the cries of the dying.

Five years ago those attacks brought America to one brief, agonizingly brief moment of stunned and grief-filled silence as we considered the dreadful evidence of the hatred felt for us as a nation and a people by people in other countries, of other religious persuasions. We stood on the brink of a terrible decision. How would we, as a nation, respond to this attack upon our way of life? Five years ago I remember standing in this pulpit, and praying that our response would not be for vengeance. That our true spirit would be revealed as one of global awareness, of the kinship of the human family, and a humble recognition of the part we had played in bringing that terrible event to fruition. And the world, in that moment of shared sympathy and unity, waited with breath held to find out how we would choose to respond. Soon, too soon all the loud clamor of grief and outrage poured into that momentary silence, voices calling out in pain and sorrow, voices calling out in anger and frustration, voices calling out—to be avenged. Four years ago on the date of this anniversary, I preached a sermon entitled "The Way of Lamech."** It was a sermon filled with foreboding that we, the United States of America, would choose the path to destruction. That we, as a nation, would in our throws of the agony of loss and outraged pride choose the way of vengeance. And so, it seems, we have. So today is not a day to celebrate the ordinariness of life, the small pleasures and joys and annoyances. Today is the day we must revisit the story of Lamech.

Lamech was the great, great, great, great, great grandson of Cain. Cain, the one who was jealous that the LORD received his brother’s offering over his. The one who longed to be first, to be the most beloved, to be the most respected and honored. Cain, who labored long and hard to bring his offering of grains and fruits to the attention of the LORD, who preferred the lamb offering of his brother Abel. Cain, whose longing and jealousy finally drove him to murder his rival for the LORD's attention. Cain, who was banished from the home of his family to wander in strange lands. Cain, who feared retribution by the strangers he must spend his life among. Cain, who was marked by God with a sacred sign, a sign that no one may lay a hand upon him. Cain—who married and who apparently settled down and produced children, children who would build a city, who would become workers of bronze, tillers of soil, inventors of civilization as we know and treasure it. And the generations of Cain went by, and then—there was Lamech. Lamech, who inherited the grain sowed by Cain all those generations and lifetimes ago, when he took his hand and lifted it up—against his brother.

The seed of Cain is not unknown to later Biblical texts. Proverbs warns "Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail." (Proverbs 22:8). Hosea warned: "They sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." (Hosea 8:7).

We are a good people. We all think so, here in America. We know we think so because when the twin towers came crashing down in unthinkable bursts of flame and death and crashing stone, when the Pentegon was violated and part lay in ruins, when Americans died striving to prevent more death and destruction, well, we sang "America the Beautiful," and famous religious leaders appeared on television proclaiming to a grieving and shocked nation the need for retaliation and proclaiming us all children of God in the same breath. And then, Paul warns "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." (Galatians 6:7). We did not choose the path of forgiveness impressed upon us by Jesus whom we proclaim Christ. We chose the way of Lamech.

We have the sown seeds of terror and violence across the earth, and enabled others to do so, and countless innocent lives have paid for it. We mixed those seeds with learning and protection and food and medicine. We sent doctors and teachers and dam builders and farm technicians. And we also sent planes and bombs and napalm. We have responded to violence with the same. We have chosen the path of Lamech. We proclaim ourselves to be a Christian people, at least, many of us do though that is no longer so large a number as once would have made that claim. Could it be that in part that shrinking number owes something to the absolutely incompatible resolves of loving and forgiving our enemies, the way of Jesus of Nazareth, and repaying insults and injuries with death seven fold, the way of Lamech? Could it be that we are reaping the whirlwind of our own sowing? Of course it could. When we sold American made missiles and tanks and artillery and military technology we have closed our eyes to the crop of our sowing. We see the images nightly on the news, bombed out villages, women weeping in the streets of Bagdad, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, children staring at the cameras hollow-eyed with grief and hatred, we see the crop of our sowing, yet we close our eyes. When our bombs fell on Iraq and Libya and Serbia, not only soldiers died, but women and children and old men and the sick and infirm. Just as civilians and military lives were lost in the Pentagon. And perhaps the most insidious crop of all our sowing, the unimaginable wealth we all enjoy, that rests in part in the profits of our sales and support and partnering with death merchants and despots around the world. We have partnered with people we now denounce as evil. We supported Noriega, when it was advantageous to do so, in spite of the countless ruined lives he and his drug cartel caused. We supported and trained Osama Bin-Laden when he was our "freedom fighter" against the evil empire of the Soviet Union. Now we hunt him throughout the world, searching for the roots of the evil empire of his creation. We considered Saddam Hussein our ally when he supported us against the Ayatolla in Iran. Now he is the evil one, against who our newest seeds of death and destruction are turned. And our system trained Timothy McVeigh, a killing machine that turned against his masters when he believed they had betrayed him. We have supported military efforts in the middle east and in Israel, and half a million children have died in Iraq because of the seeds of hatred we have sown through sanctions. All those millions of lives were as precious to God as our own. God has not shielded the children of other nations from the results of violence and warfare and terror that we have assisted in growing, and now we see that God will not shield us from the reaping of the terrible crop we have sown and are sowing and are planning to sow.

Lamech turned God's sign of protection and mercy into license to avenge himself on anyone who wronged him, returning injury seven fold. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech is avenged seventy-sevenfold. We invaded Afghanistan, and pursued our enemies through the mountains and ransacked villages. When we were unable to lay hands upon him, we turned to Iraq, and the sowing of violent seed escalated. Lamech speaks yet today in our midst. God may forgive, but we do not. Think for a moment about seeds we have sown. When a cold-eyed Timothy McVeigh described the deaths of our children at his hands as "collateral damage," we were horrified and appalled. Yet Madeline Albright spoke of collateral damage from our bombs among Iraqis and Serbians, and didn't our country shrug off the deaths of thousands of other children? Don't we ignore the news reports of the civilians who die due to our military support in the Middle East, South America, Africa? We are told that this course of action is necessary to protect our national interest, and we accept it. We try to convince ourselves that it is necessary if we are to accept our responsibilities and try to contain the ravages of Cain who walks among us. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves, we have practiced terror and violence among others, and enabled others to do so, and yet we condemn the actions of others who do so when their interests and ours do not coincide. We are so unwilling to accept the crop of our own sowing, that religious leaders proclaimed that we suffered the attacks of September 11th because "God has withdrawn his protection from us, because of our sins of feminism and immorality." In truth, God has never protected us from the consequences of our sins, and nor will God do so in the future. We reap what we sow eventually, and eventually came on September 11th. So as a nation we bear this judgment not because God has willed it but because we have willed it.

Today we remember the victims of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC. But I submit that we must also remember those who have suffered and died through terrorism supported by our money and our technology among people of other nations. If we would truly remember, if we would truly erect a monument of honor to the victims of terrorism, I suggest that we not listen to Lamech, that we not follow his way. Seventy villages for seven, seventy cities for seven, seventy children for seven. I suggest that we must not shrug off as hopelessly idealistic the words of the one we call our Savior, the Savior of the world. I suggest that to honor the terrorist’s victims, we repent of our arms industry, declare as a country that we will not trade or subsidize trade in death, with terrorist groups or governments. That we renounce land-mines and first-use of nuclear weapons. That we repent of our corporate profits from the poverty of other nations, that we forgive developing world debt and establish fairer trade for the world’s poor would do such honor. That, in the words of Paul, we "do not return evil for evil, but overcome evil with good." We gathered here today have pledged in the witness of God and others that we accept Jesus and his Word, and that we will follow his way. There is "no two ways about it." We can mean what we say, and pray for and act for and demand peace. Or we can follow the clarion call for vengeance and the righteous prosecution of a war of retribution. Or even worse, a war against a nation that had no hand at all in bringing the towers down, a nation of people who suffered under the iron fist of a dictator and then under the bombs and guns of our invasion and who now view us not as liberators but as bloody-handed occupiers, bringers of death and destruction. That is the way of Lamech. We should be lighting candles in memory of the children made homeless and orphaned by the attack on 911, both in the Untied States and in Iraq and everywhere in the world that violence and retribution guide our hands. We chose Lamech, and in so choosing we forgot something. God did not stand between the children of Bagdad and our bombs. God did not stand between the children of the West Bank and the guns and tanks bought from us. God did not stand between the children on the highjacked airliners or in the streets of New York and the rain of death purchased with hatred. And God will not stand between our children and the murderous intent of people who thrive in a world where might makes right and violence is acceptable if the government tells us it is in our national interest. Someday, somewhere, someone will have to try the way of peace. Shouldn't it be us? Or are we happy with the choice we have made?

**The original sermon was inspired by a brilliant article entitled "The Way of Lamech." I am indebted to the writer of that article, though sadly I have lost the cite and cannot thank him/her by name.

I’ve been thinking . . . about new adventure

Remember those old westerns about pioneers setting out from the East, heading West in covered wagons to build new lives? An inevitable scene in many of those “oaters” was the crossing of a wide, fast river. You remember, the drivers would crack their whips over the backs of the unfortunate horses, urging them to plunge into the rushing water. The wagons would tilt and crash against the rocks, almost falling over, almost sending those trying to drive the wagons into the drink. Everywhere men on horseback would be riding around the wagons, yelling and urging and pulling, trying to get everyone—horses, wagons and of course, people—across the raging river. This memory of many movies past popped into my head as I contemplated the end of our church year and the new officers taking over the many tasks that keep the church moving forward. Now I don’t say the change-over from last year’s officers to this year’s is anything like as chaotic as those old movie crossings—Praise God! But we are, every June, standing on the banks of the river of change, getting ready to cross over to the other side.

In some ways it is confusing to have so many new beginnings. We have the church year beginning in July with new officers. We have the financial church year beginning in January with all the new promises and pledges to make building the kingdom for one more year a reality. We have Advent, at the close of each year, with its promise for a new beginning of faith, and again at Easter our faith is called to rise up and be new again. And then on Pentecost—new again, a new beginning for the birthday of the church. We truly have a God who loves to shout—“behold, I am doing a new thing!”

As all of you know (at least, I hope you do), this year (whenever you want to start counting) is the first of a three year regional commitment to transformation. This is not a program, nor is it a promotion, nor yet just another new buzz word for the same-old, same-old problem/opportunity for church growth. Transformation means taking what is and making something new. Transformation means seeing the new potential that is yet untouched, finding in ourselves and our churches new meaning and power and grace. Transformation is a process, not a list of answers. We have been invited to join other churches in our region in affirming a three-year covenant to engage in this exciting adventure. We will have an opportunity to explore the meaning of Transformation as a process when Sandhya Jha, minister of transformation for the region comes to our church. She will be with us on Sunday, July 9th for a special sermon and after-church presentation. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet Sandhya, to discuss what transformation means for the region and for our church. Please plan to be in church on the 9th, and to stay for Sandhya’s presentation.

So—here we go again. A new church year. A new church vision. New saints ready to drive the wagons! A new horizon beckons. Wagons, ho!

Shalom,
Judith

I’ve been thinking . . . about prayer

The Oxford Bible Dictionary defines prayer as follows:
prayer The act of communicating in words or in silence with the transcendent God. Conversations between God and men are reported in the OT (e.g., Abraham, Gen. 15:1-6; Moses, Exod. 3:1-4; 33:11; prophets, 1 Sam. 3:4-9). OT prayer includes petition, intercession, confession, and thanksgiving, and set hours and days are prescribed for prayer. In the NT Jesus is reported to have prayed to his Father frequently and he gave the 'Lords Prayer' to the disciples (Matt. 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4). The epistles teach that prayer to God is offered through Christ (Rom 1:8). NT prayers include praise (Acts 2:47), thanksgiving (1 Cor. 14:16-17), and petition (Phil. 4:6). Prayer is not regarded as a method for compelling God to act but asking that his will be done and his kingdom come.

Recently a member of our congregation asked me to preach about prayer. Now, that doesn’t sound hard, on the face of it. After all, we pray all the time—don’t we? Some of us pray morning and evening, some at regularly scheduled times, others rather “on the run.” Some of us read prayers, others merely “think into the silence.” Some of us feel prayer shou