Matthew 2:1-12

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, magi from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel.’”

Then Herod summoned the magi secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared; and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” When they had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

When Christians think about what it means to live a faithful life, a good life, naturally we think of the great commandment: “You shall love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And we think of how Jesus put together that great commandment with a second commandment of the Jewish law (torah): “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus took that core teaching of torah and added a radical dimension when he taught us that even our enemy is our neighbor – even our enemy is one we should love. How many of us have ever really absorbed that message?

To live in love – love for self, love for God, love for neighbor, love for enemy – this is the core of the Gospel; this is what being a disciple of Jesus Christ is fundamentally about. The first and most important dimension of Christian life is the dimension of love. But on this Epiphany Sunday, in these first days of a new year and a new decade, I declare to you that right up there among the most important qualities of a faithful life is this:

to live with all our senses tuned to the glory and wonder of creation,
to live with deep curiosity and fascination,
to be an explorer and a discoverer.

Most of you know that I have a personal tradition associated with Epiphany Sunday, the Sunday we tell the story of the Magi who followed the star to Bethlehem. In the days before Epiphany is celebrated I read all the stories I can get my hands on concerning the most significant discoveries of the previous year. I read all the top 10 lists: Scientific American, Discover Magazine, Biblical Archaeological Review, Time Magazine, and many more. I pick six or eight stories that particularly appeal to my imaginatio. In my Epiphany message I highlight those discoveries and the people who made them. I had intended to continue that tradition this year; in fact I read all the usual lists. I love to do it. The more you read of these discoveries in astronomy, physics, archaeology, genetics, biomechanics, human evolution, computer science – you can’t help feeling a sense of excitement and wonder at this amazing universe and at being part of this species, homo sapien, who have been given the gift of intellect and the gift of curiosity to be explorers, discovers in this fascinating universe.

But this year, rather than tell you of the discoveries that seemed particularly fascinating to me, I ask you to focus on your own discoveries. Certainly go read about the discoveries of others and be inspired by them – be inspired to be, yourself, an explorer. Have you ever discovered something? My brothers and I did.

The year was 1960. Our family was at Lake Chautauqua, where my mother’s annual family reunion was held. My uncle had a cottage on the lake. The kids would swim in the lake while the adults ate and talked. The lake bottom was muddy and full of weeds and mussels. We would dive down and grab the mussels out of the mud and bring them up and toss them into the canoe. We were pretending to be treasure hunters gathering treasure from a sunken ship. At one point my younger brother tossed what he thought was a mussel into the canoe, but it hit the canoe with a loud bang; it did not sound like the others had sounded. My older brother picked it up and rinsed off the mud, and realized he was holding in his hands a Native American tomahawk.

It was almost perfect. So smooth and beautifully shaped, rounded on all sides except where it came to a sharp edge. Our imaginations went wild. We imagined all the battles this tomahawk had been through. Later we brought this to a collector who was an expert in Native American artifacts. To our disappointment, he told us that this was not an implement of war; it was a hand tool for chopping. That’s why it is so beautifully smooth and symmetrical, so that it could be held comfortably in the hand for long periods of time for domestic work. This artifact has stayed in our family. Every time I take it up in my hand I remember the thrill we had as boys when we first discovered it in the mud at Lake Chautauqua.

One of the great gifts of parenthood is that as a mother or father you are participating in a daily drama of discovery. The parent discovers the world again through the eyes of the child, and as we interact with our child we constantly learn new things about ourselves. The most common illusion of adults is the illusion that we have seen it all. We may think we know all we will ever know or need to know. We may stop looking deeply into things. When our daughter was about three years old she was playing in the sandbox with her mother looking on, but her mother was distracted and had her mind on other things. Our daughter was doing what kids do, discovering and creating and constantly sharing her discoveries, “Mommy, look at this! Mommy, look at this! See how I made this!” Mommy was answering perfunctorily, “Yes, it’s beautiful… Yes, that’s wonderful.” Then our daughter said with all the sincerity and innocence of a child, “Mommy, how is it that grown-ups can see things without looking at them?”

How can one be a Christian and believe oneself to be a child of God living in a universe that is God’s creation, full of endless mystery and wonder – how can one be a child of God in such a universe and not be curious and amazed and want to take each day as an opportunity to see more, to experience more, to explore like the wandering magi explored when they followed the star?
Again, I declare to you that among the most important qualities of a faithful life is this:

to live with all our senses tuned to the glory and wonder of creation,
to live with deep curiosity and fascination,
to break through the illusion that we have seen it all –
no matter how much any of us has seen, we have barely scratched the surface of this mysterious creation. If the truth be told, none of us even really knows much about ourselves — there is a universe out there and there is a universe within each of us – and they are equally mysterious.

The first commandment of God is to love.
But maybe the most basic command of all is to be alive, consciously and enthusiastically alive.

A blessed new year to all of you, my fellow journeyers, my fellow explorers.

Shalom.

What is on your mind this morning? Dinner plans, chores, making your travel plans? What concerns you at this moment?

The weather?
Keeping peace in the family?
Getting over a cold?

What is it that fills your mind these days? What are worrying about, brooding over? What are your neurons working on these days?

One thing I’ve been thinking about quite a bit these days is Kohl’s Department Store. You see, they keep sending me notices promising me 15%, 20%, even 30% off my purchases. The problem is that there’s nothing that I really need. But I feel that I should be taking advantage of this opportunity.

Once upon a time, you went to the store because you needed something, and the store was a place you went to buy the things that you knew that you needed. That is no longer the case. A store is where you are enticed to go to figure out what you want. It’s not a matter of wanting something; instead you are simply wanting, constantly asking whether there is something you must need or would really like to have, even though you don’t know what it is. The store gets into our heads – teases our brain cells into thinking – “MUST GO TO KOHL’S! – must go to Kohls!” This is surely the triumph of marketing!

It would not matter much what sort of nonsense is floating around in our heads, except that we only have so many things we can think about, and we only have so much time, so it does matter that the things to which we devote our thoughts, our mental energy, be things that in fact are important and do matter.

When our children were little, they used to occasionally come out with the most astounding statements. Sometimes we wrote them down so we would not forget them. Eventually we made a book and had them draw pictures to go with the things they had said. We gave the book as a gift to grandma and grandpa.

There was the time our daughter was just learning to ride a two wheel bike. She was practicing on an asphalt parking lot, and on her first try she zoomed off and crashed. My heart stopped and I ran over to see if she was injured. Before I could get to her, she jumped up off the ground and said, “Tell me what a good job I did and I’ll do it better next time!” What a spirit! Sometimes we recall that scene in our family when someone needs encouragement: Just tell me what a good job I did and I’ll do better next time!

Then there was the time our son, at the age of five or so, declared, “When you close your eyes, your mind can hold things larger than itself.” In this Christmas week I invite you to hold something very large in your mind.

At our church’s family retreat last month we were invited to picture our galaxy – the Milky Way – a swirling cloud of billions of stars, whirling through space – in the center there are dense clusters of stars – and somewhere way out from the center, on one of those spiraling arms, there is a dot of light that is our sun – and around that sun the planets – and among the planets is this earth. We were invited to hold the earth in our minds – to behold the earth.

When Christ was born the angels announced peace on earth, and when the story of Jesus was told from the earliest times, the messengers spread the world that God, who made the earth, loves the earth, all the earth – the earth is wrapped in the love of God just as it is wrapped in a blanket of life-giving air and water.

It is possible for the human mind to hold large things. It is possible for the human heart to hold even larger things.

I saw some of the photographs from the Copenhagen climate conference this week. The agreements reached have disappointed many in the environmental movement; they fall short of what is needed. But I was moved by the image of the leaders of the world’s powers facing each other around a table, talking about earth. They were talking about our planet. They were bargaining and horse trading over who would do what. Even though they could not rise to heroic action, we have reached an extraordinary moment when the leaders of the great powers understand that they have a collective responsibility for something larger than their nation states. They have a collective responsibility for humanity’s home, this precious planet.

Go forth from here today – in this Christmas week, and treasure your days upon this planet. They are a gift. Focus your thoughts, your heart, and your actions on the larger things – things that matter.

Live in this world as a follower of Jesus. Carry this earth in your heart and mind, exercise your neurons on larger things; use your life for larger things, and use your heart to carry the love of God wherever you go on this earth.

Shalom
Salaam
Peace
Blessed Christmas

I Thessalonians 3:9-13

How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

This is an interesting day, this first Sunday in the season of Advent. It still feels like Thanksgiving, but the calendar tells us we are in a new season. Before we head back to work and school and the quickening pace of December, we pause here in the quietness of this place. This seems a good day to step back and take stock of things. Last Sunday, Mary Thombs led us in a time of remembering and giving thanks. Those of us who were here each got a free pen – on the condition that we used for the first time to write on a colored leaf some expression of thanks, some expression of gratefulness.
The leaves were gathered and placed on branches to make a Thanksgiving tree. It comes as no surprise that again and again people give thanks for family and friends, followed by health. Human beings and especially human relationships are very complicated, yet in some ways we are simple creatures who want simple things.

I was visiting yesterday in the intensive care unit a large hospital. There must have been fifty different machines and monitors in the room. The patient was wired up like an astronaut heading off into space. There by his side was his daughter, gently stroking his head. No matter how many breakthroughs there are in medical science, nothing will ever take the place of the loving presence and the gentle hand and compassionate caress of one who loves us. We are made to love. We have a deeply built in need for love and relationships.

And we are all part of some family – even if we have moved a thousand miles away – our family lives inside us. That is how we are. We sometimes call the church a family, and even refer to one another as sisters and as brothers. Actually one of the nice things about church is that we are not a family. We are not all related to one another, and we do not have all the complications that come with those we are biologically related to. We are a family of faith, not a family by blood. Our lives are very different than the lives of the first small groups of Christians who gathered in the time of the apostles. Even so, we have a lot in common with them. The earliest Christians were drawn together to form churches because they found in Jesus and in the community of Jesus a place of accepting love.

We heard a reading today from the oldest piece of writing in the New Testament, Paul’s first letter to the church at Thessalonica. This is the earliest letter of Paul that has survived, and it was written decades before any of our Gospels were written. It takes us right back into the earliest days of some of the first churches. Two things are quite striking about this letter: one is that Paul thinks the world is just about to end. He is surprised that it has not ended already, and he is quite sure that it’s going to end in the very near future, certainly in his generation.

Paul was wrong about that, but fortunately that is not the primary importance of this letter. You might say that this is the sweetest of Paul’s letters. It is written with great tenderness. It is a letter that overflows with love.

How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.

The letter tells us that the people of the church in Thessalonica were suffering, and that Paul himself was suffering. This was a letter from one who had known much pain to others who were in pain.
The church was suffering persecution. People were grieving, and fearful. It was a troubled time.
The letter was written at a particular moment to a particular group of people, but there is something timeless in the spirit of this letter. It has spoken to many generations of Christians, and still speaks to us now.

There is a special spot in the sanctuary where the bride and groom stand during the wedding ceremony. Thousands of couples have stood on this spot and declared their undying love for one another. Many of them — I hope most of them — have been bonded in love until parted by death, but many of them went their separate ways long before death. There are thousands of talk shows and magazines and movies and sermons and books devoted to love, but human beings are as tangled up in their passions as they ever were; we struggle to find enduring love; and relationships seem as fragile and difficult as ever.

It’s all over the news this weekend. A certain celebrity ran his car into a fire hydrant at 2 AM as he was driving away from his wife…. Thus a sordid story unfolds. Love drives people to extremes. Or as the country song says,
Love is a burning thing
and it makes a fiery ring
bound by wild desire
I fell in to a ring of fire…
(Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash)

Or as it says in the Bible:
“Love is strong as death,
jealousy is cruel as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.” (Song of Solomon 8:6)

You didn’t know there was stuff like that Bible, did you? And there’s more where that came from. There are things in the Bible that I am not be able to read aloud to you from the pulpit. You have to come to Bible study to hear the whole uncut version.

One of the standard questions I ask to engaged couples during premarital counseling is this: “Something like half of all marriages end in divorce; why do you think yours will not?” Of course, everyone has a good answer. The fabric of love, the way love flows from us and toward us, this is a key to human health and happiness. Love is a powerful force. It is not all sweet and sentimental. If you have a sentimental idea about love, that may be fine when the baby is sleeping through the night and everybody is happy and rested, but what about when the baby is not sleeping through the night and everybody is tired, and somebody at a very inconvenient time comes down with the flu? It’s when life is untidy, when life is messy, that love becomes deeper, more wonderful and more powerful – or love dies.

I wish there was a way that we could take engaged couples and fast-forward them into real life, life after the honeymoon, and see what happens to those warm fuzzy feelings they have for each other when life is unfair and difficult. Children are the joy of life in the flesh – but the child who held your hand so sweetly as a little kid might someday be the adult child who has been reckless and is in trouble and you are trying to decide whether it is an act of love to bail them out or whether it is a higher act of love not to rescue them.

Love is not always sweet and comforting. There are so many myths about love. In marriage, there is the myth that we grow closer to one another and sustain intense love by having long pleasant vacations together. I’ve got nothing against vacations, but it is closer to the truth to say that love grows and deepens and ripens as individuals learn to face challenges together, as they cope together with the unpredictability of life.

In family life there is the myth of the perfect family. Some people live with the myth that they have the perfect family. More often we live with the myth that other people have the perfect family. The myths we have about the ideal family make it more difficult to be honest and direct with our family members. I was not kidding when I said it’s a good thing that we are not a family – can you imagine how exhausted we would be if all of us were related to one another? It is not easy to be a family. If we could just accept that fact as a normal fact of life, maybe we could lower the pressure to be perfect and look for ways to strengthen our families without expecting them ever to be perfect. It is phoniness and pretense, pretending that all is well when it is not, that undermines relationships, marriages, and families over time. We have a responsibility to those we love to be truthful with them, and to ask that they be truthful with us. Simple honesty, being willing to talk when things are not easy to talk about: that is what we need.

It is our willingness to be honest with each other that protects our love from dying. Being honest with ourselves and with those we love is the best way to stay in love for the long haul. The letter that Paul wrote to Thessalonica is heartwarming to read even so many centuries later. You can feel the love Paul had for these people. You can sense the power of that love, the way the love of Christ in that community was sustaining people in their hardship and binding them together as a community in the face of violent persecution. That love we receive from sisters and brothers in Christ – the love we give sisters and brothers in Christ – this is a great gift. To be welcomed and accepted as you are into the community of Jesus Christ is sweet; it feeds the soul.

It is painful to see people use the Bible to deny people their rights and even to encourage hostility against others. Today in all the Catholic parishes of New Jersey a letter from the bishops of the state is being read the congregations. The letter urges people to ask their legislators to deny marriage equality to gay people. The Catholic bishops believe they are acting on the basis of natural law and biblical truth. I could not disagree more. The early church grew because it offered people a place of acceptance and love, and this message appealed especially to those who were least accepted by their society. I believe that the words of our congregation’s Welcoming Statement convey the deepest spirit of Christ and the scriptures:

Asbury United Methodist Church in Yonkers, New York, established in 1771, has long been a welcoming community. We strive to follow the example of Christ, grow in love and welcome into full fellowship persons of every race, gender, culture, nationality, sexual orientation or gender identity, economic circumstance, age, physical and mental ability, family and marital status. We affirm that all persons are individuals of sacred worth.

Each of us is hungry for love. We are made that way. And the heart of the gospel is this: that human beings find in Christ and in the people of Christ welcoming and accepting love:

How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? … And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.

Grace and peace to you

And as Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.” And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished?” And Jesus began to say to them, “Take heed that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, `I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines; this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs.

Mark 13:1-8
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The world is coming to an end. That is a fact.

On our retreat last week we contemplated creation. We were asked to search for tiny objects that manifest the wonder of the earth. Someone brought back a very small clover, and with it an even smaller clover, and one smaller yet, then pointed out in a clump of dirt a tiny green speck that was the sprout of a clover coming into being.

We contemplated the vastness of creation: the sun and moon and stars. We watched a scientific animation showing the surface of the sun: massive, one million times the size of Earth, a furnace of nuclear fusion blasting energy throughout our solar system. We were reminded that all things that burn one day burn out. We were reminded that the sun is five billion years old and that it has another four or five billion to go. From the astronomer’s viewpoint that will be the coup de grace for planet Earth. No sun = no earth, unless we are struck by some comet or large asteroid before the sun burns itself out.

It is an awesome thing to contemplate the Earth and the Sun to know that nothing, not even Earth and Sun, last forever. Not even mighty galaxies with their billions of stars last forever. An awesome thing to contemplate.

In a mysterious passage in the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Mark Jesus seems to be talking with his disciples about the end of the world – I say “seems to be,” because this passage is not necessarily what it appears to be. I will come back to that thought in a bit later.

13:1 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”

13:2 Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

13:3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,

13:4 “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?”

It would appear that Jesus was for-telling the destruction of Jerusalem , which for Jews would signal the end of time in history as we know it. At least some of the early disciples of Jesus believed that the world was going to end in their lifetime. Scholars are sharply divided over whether Jesus himself taught that the world was about to end. What is clear is that the world did not end at that time, and it is still here today.

For hundreds of years people have been saying that the world is coming to an end. Throughout my years in ministry, I have been told by any number of people that the world is coming to an end. This is usually declared with a resigned shake of the head, “Reverend, it’s pretty clear isn’t it, we are coming to the end of days? The way the world is; it’s got to be the end.”

It has come to my attention that there is a growing belief that the Earth as we know it will come to an end – not 5 billion years from now – rather, it will end 1,132 days from this day, precisely on December 21, 2012. This very precise prediction is based on the Bible, Nostradamus, and ancient Mayan calendars from South America. I heard a popular radio teacher just recently declare that the end of the world on December 21, 2012 is no longer just a possibility; it is an established certainty. There are hundreds of web sites dedicated to announcing the coming end of the world on 12/21/2012 . These offer everything from spiritual advice to assistance in stocking up on specially prepared foods that are guaranteed to have a shelf life of at least thirty years.

Because this is the USA, enterprising individuals realize that the end of the world may sound bad to most people, but it is ripe with commercial opportunities. They have even developed a slick marketing term for this emerging opportunity: “ 2012 mitigations.”

There are engineering and construction companies that will build a fortified home for you with all the necessary underground bunkers, air filtration systems, and other features to help you survive the dreadful events of that day in 2012. One such company, Hardened Structures Inc., describes itself as:

“A Professional Construction Program Management Firm specializing in… fortified homes, bomb shelters, bunkers, storm shelters and self-sustaining hardened facilities… We provide Client/Project specific designs addressing conventional weapons…. chemical, biological, radiological and explosive weapons, 2012 mitigations, Climate Change and any type of Apocalypse or World Ending Scenario.”

Nuclear warfare, chemical warfare, mass starvation, plagues; not to worry! For a price we will “mitigate” for you!

There are also individuals who have been appointed as God’s special ambassador to the world to interpret the unfolding of these events, or so their web sites tell us. Take Ronald Weinland, for instance. He has announced in all humility that he is nothing less than the one “sent by God as God’s final witness and God’s end-time prophet.” Mr. Wineland informs us that in 2012 we will see the whole world engulfed in war which “ will be the result of clashing religions and the governments they sway. Billions will die! The destruction of this time will far exceed the very worst times of all human history.”

I don’t know if it’s just a coincidence that God is going to bring the world to an end exactly one month before the next presidential inauguration. You get the feeling that there are people out there who just can’t believe that God would allow the first Black president of the United States to complete his term of office.

My father taught his children never to ridicule the religious beliefs of any other person no matter how peculiar we find them to be. That was and is wise advice. But people who claim on the basis of Nostradamus or ancient Mayan carvings or the Bible to know how and precisely when the world will meet its end are charlatans pandering to fear and superstition in the name of religion and sometimes in the name of making a buck.

In the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Mark Jesus talks about the signs of the end of history as we know it. This is complicated and challenging section of the gospel. No one can claim to be absolutely certain as to how to interpret it, but there is an interesting theory that is held by most biblical scholars and historians. It goes something like this:

The Gospel of Mark was written some time after the year 70, following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the destruction and burning of the city of Jerusalem and the massacre of much of its population by the Roman army. The writer of the Gospel of Mark inserted into his gospel a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples as a way of making a commentary upon the horrifying events which had unfolded in his time. He had to be careful about how he phrased it so as not to invite violent persecution by the Roman state.

Think how horrified we were at the destruction of the World Trade Center. Imagine that the cities of New York and Washington DC had been destroyed entirely. Imagining that may give you some notion of the overwhelming catastrophe that fell upon the Jewish nation at the time Mark’s Gospel was being written. When Jerusalem was destroyed, the political and religious and symbolic heart of Judaism was destroyed. We should remember too the spiritual and historical center of the early Christian church was Jerusalem. The Jerusalem church was also destroyed. This truly was a moment of supreme terror.

There is not time here to go into detail – you will be glad to know! – but the point is that chapter 13 of the Gospel of Mark is not so much a prediction of things to come as it is a commentary upon a disaster that has already happened. It is an attempt to come to terms with a great terror.

Whenever human beings are deeply shaken, through events in our individual lives or through shattering events that affect millions of people, we have the sense that reality as we know it is coming apart at the seams. It is understandable that people may see in their own suffering or in the events of their own moment in history a sign that all of history and all of the Earth as we know it is coming to an end. But the Earth so far has survived all of these predictions, and humanity has survived its endless cascade of tragedies.

And as a theological matter we must ask ourselves, “Why would the God who created the world and called it good, the God who gave human beings the gifts of intellect and freedom, the God who calls us in Christ to nonviolence and reconciliation – why would such a God arbitrarily and violently destroy the Earth, destroy the beauty of earth, destroy humanity, or cause to suffer further this suffering world?”

The Scripture today speaks about reading the signs of the times. There are important signs that must be read by humanity in this moment in history. There are real dangers to humanity in this moment in history. We need to be asking ourselves, “What is God’s claim upon our lives in this time of momentous threat and challenge to humanity? Do we love God and God’s earth and God’s creatures and God’s people in such a way that our hearts are moved to act on behalf of these things we love, to honor and protect these things we love, and to accept change even if it is painful in order to protect that which we love?”

This is not a time to build bomb shelters and or to stock up on enough provisions to ride out the Apocalypse. This is a time to take stock of our own lives. How are we using our lives, how are we using our individual material and spiritual resources, and how are we using the Earth’s resources. It is a time for people of faith to make a fundamental decision and commitment. Are we going to live in this world and conduct our lives as though this is a throwaway world, a world for the human species to use and discard, a world where our comforts in the moment take precedence over the well-being of the Earth for generations to come?

Or shall we do all we can to honor the God of life, the Creator, and preserve and pass on this glorious wondrous Earth that it might sustain and inspire our descendants a million years from this day?

Grace and peace to you
in the name of the one God
who is our Creator
our Redeemer
and whose Spirit moves among us in this very moment.

Those of us who are studying the book of Genesis are having a grand old time. For me pondering the Bible is one of the great pleasures of life, and there is no more fascinating book in the Bible than the book of Genesis. It begins with the grandeur of creation, proceeds as something like a soap opera complete with violent family feuding, and ends with an extraordinary scene of reconciliation.

In the second chapter of Genesis, after God created all the creatures of the earth, God does a most interesting thing. Instead of giving all these creatures names, God brings them one by one to the human being, and waits to see what the human being calls them.

[19] So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the human to see what he would call them; and whatever the human being called every living creature, that was its name. [20] The human gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field.

This must have taken a very long time. By the way, that is the very first thing that human beings do in the Bible – the human names the creatures of the earth. There is something about names. We humans need to have names for things. And we need to have names for one another. We must name things in order to make sense of the world.

When we baptize a child, we ask: “What name is given to this child?” We baptize the child by name – by her or his name – and in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Our name becomes a part of our being.

On this day that we call All Saints Sunday, we read a list of names. Each name is so much more than a name. Each name is a living link through memory and spirit and love to those we see no more. With the name comes a flood of memories. With each name comes gratefulness for the inexpressible gift of life, the inexpressible gift of each of their lives.

Death and separation and grief are so universal, yet every loss is unique and personal and each human grief is unique and personal. For me and for Mary Ellen the list of the Saints now includes both of our fathers and Mary Ellen’s mother. For us as a congregation, the names added to this list in the past year include old and dear friends, people who were living treasures among us – Carl and Muriel, Rowena, and Josephine ….. These losses we take into our souls with a sigh and a tear, and we accept the dying of these old friends as part of the rhythm of life and nature and human mortality. For us as a congregation, other names added to our list of the saints since the reading of it a year ago are far more difficult to accept. The death this past summer of two beautiful young men, two brothers, Chris and Chad, still breaks our hearts.

The reading of these names of the saints – our parents, our children, our wives and husbands, our sisters and brothers in Christ – touches upon the whole spectrum of our emotions. We stand in awe of so much life, so much loss, and so much love.

Usually these days when we hear people referred to as saints, it is because they have lived lives of extraordinary compassion and sacrifice, but that is not the way the word is used in the Bible. You don’t need a halo to be a saint. The biblical word for saints is hagios. In the early church the hagios were the ordinary people who were drawn to the message of Jesus. At first they came together in one another’s homes to share their food and share the communion wine and to share what they called their new life in Christ. Sometimes they argued, often they made mistakes; they held different opinions; none of them was perfect, but they were saints anyway.

When we name the saints today, we are not holding anybody up on a pedestal – there are no perfect people on our list – each one lived and struggled and achieved and failed. What they all have in common is that they were and are loved. They were and they are held in the bond of human love and in the love of God. That invisible mixture of human and divine love is what we call the communion of the saints.

That means that we, too, are saints. You do not need to be perfect to be a saint. And you do not need to die to be a saint – not in the Biblical sense of the word. We are all saints – mortal, fallible, flesh and blood, confused and struggling creatures – yet we are saints by the grace of God.

In the United Methodist Book of Discipline there is a section on what it means to belong to the body of Christ and to be joined in the communion of saints:

Each member is called upon to be a witness for Christ in the world, a light and leaven in society, and a reconciler in a culture of conflict. Each member is to identify with the agony and suffering of the world and to radiate and exemplify the Christ of hope. (par. 219, 2000 Discipline)

We are ordinary human creatures, finite and mortal, but we have a very high calling here. If we were immortal beings, we would have forever to mend our hurting relationships. We would have forever to offer love and to receive love. Would have forever to forgive and to seek forgiveness.

If we were immortal beings, we could identify with those who suffer discrimination and injustice, hunger and homelessness; we could care about our neighbor, but as far as doing anything we could wait another century or two or three.

But we are not immortal, and because life is short the call to faithful discipleship is always an urgent invitation. It is an invitation for today, not tomorrow. The issues confronting us – the issues confronting humanity – are at present so urgent that we do not have the luxury of procrastination.

Each of us may be little mortal specks in the vastness of the universe; but in the brief time given to each of us we are called to high purpose. Each of us is called to a high purpose. Nothing less is asked of us than this:

in the present time
to identify with the suffering of the world
and to radiate
and exemplify the Christ of hope.

As we name the saints and claim our place among the saints we are called to live the remainder of our lives with high purpose: to be a living sign of hope for one another and for the world.

Mark 10:46-52

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

When our son was three or four years old, one of his favorite books was entitled Blind Bartimaeus of Jericho. It was a child’s version of the story of Bartimaeus found in Chapter 10 of the Gospel of Mark. In the original story in the Gospel of Mark, Bartimaeus shouts out from the crowd,“Jesus, son of David have mercy on me!” For some reason the crowd is hostile to the poor guy. Mark reports that, “Many sternly ordered him to be quiet.”

In the children’s version that we read to our son, the people in the crowd say to Bartimaeus, “Hush, blind fool!” Jesus, however, hears his appeal for help and restores his sight. Our son really liked those words, “Hush blind fool!” That was the part of the story that stuck in his mind. He would use that expression with his sister when she was annoying him, and one fateful day he tried using that expression when his mother asked him to do something he did not wish to do. “Hush blind fool!” That’s when he learned how much trouble you can get into just by quoting the Bible.

It is a great children’s story: a blind guy by the side of the road, lost in the crowd, told to be quiet – every child can identify with the little guy who is told to be quiet, because the bigger more important people have more important things to do. When Jesus pays attention to the little guy and calls him forward and talks to him, this is a very satisfying outcome from the child’s perspective.

This morning I suggest that we look at this story in its relationship to the story that came before it which I talked about last Sunday. If you missed church last Sunday, I am sure that you read my message online, however, just in case there are some slackers among us, let me refresh your memory:

Last week’s reading concerns two very important disciples of Jesus – James and John – two of the three first string disciples – you didn’t know there were first string disciples? There certainly were: James and John and Peter were the first string, the Big Three. In this story, James and John came to Jesus and tell him that there is something that they want. Jesus says to them, (Mark 10:36) “What is it you want me to do for you?” They explain that they want power and glory. Jesus tells them “You don’t get it – you don’t understand what you are asking for.” Then he gives them a lesson in humility and leadership: “I am among you as one who serves; the greatest among you must be your servant.” Very striking, isn’t it, that these two, two of the three most important disciples, missed the point so badly.

So here’s where the Bible gets interesting: in the next story in the Gospel of Mark – the story of the blind beggar Bartimaeus, we have another person who wants something very badly – so much so that he is shouting at Jesus, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus said to Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” Ah! – remember – that is the question Jesus asked James and John.

In these back to back stories in the gospel of Mark Jesus asks exactly the same question: what do you want me to do for you? That is the question we focused on last week – what do you want? Jesus challenges us with that question – what do you want? – do you really know what you want, and what makes you think that if you get what you think you want you will not just want something else, so what it is that you really want? According to Jesus, James and John do not know what they want, but Bartimaeus does. We have just seen that the disciples were blind; they did not see, but now a blind man asks to see; he begs to see. “My teacher, let me see again,” and Jesus responds.

Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.”
Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Did you notice that final detail? “…he followed him on the way – Bartimaeus became a disciple. The official disciples do not get it; they are blind. The one who is not a disciple, the one who has never heard Jesus speak until that moment; he is the one who gets it; he sees; he understands the message of his teacher, and he becomes a disciple. As Jesus goes from place to place he restores sight to the blind, and he challenges those who have sight to open their eyes. A bit odd isn’t it? Jesus teaches those who have sight to see. How is your eyesight?

At a wedding rehearsal this week there was a little boy, five years old. They say that happy healthy children should behave like puppies; like a frisky puppy. As we were waiting outside the restaurant before the rehearsal dinner, suddenly the little boy started to cry out, “O my God! O my God! O my God!” He was crouching down in the grass looking at something. Everyone came over to see what was going on. “O my God! O my God!” he kept saying. “What is it? What is it?” his father asked. “It’s a different kind of leaf,” he said, holding up a yellow leaf that had fallen from a nearby tree. It’s a different kind of leaf! Children make us aware of how little we really see. Children are constantly bringing us back to awareness of things that we see but do not see. They reawakened for us the wonder of the world to which we have become blind.

And what about those people in the crowd trying to silence Bartimaeus? They represent all those forces that tried to keep us from opening our eyes and seeing what is really before us. To a large extent we see what we are allowed to see.

From time to time I mention a woman named Virginia Satir, a teacher and a therapist who has distilled great wisdom into a few words. She argues that all of us are longing for freedom and authenticity, but we are surrounded by all kinds of forces that inhibit our freedom and encourage us to be fake. She has distilled the essence of what it means to be human and healthy and free into five affirmations, the Five Freedoms she calls them. They are:

The freedom to see and hear what is, instead of what should be, what was, or what will be.

The freedom to say what one feels and thinks, instead of what one should.

The freedom to feel what one feels, instead of what one ought.

The freedom to ask for what one wants, instead of always waiting for permission.

The freedom to take risks in one’s own behalf, instead of choosing to be only “secure” and not rocking the boat.

Notice that the very first freedom on her list is: the freedom to see and hear what is, instead of what should be, what was, or what will be. The crowd around Bartimaeus wants him to shut up. His neighbors are quite content for him to be blind and silent for the rest of his life. What happens to human beings when they are forced to close their eyes and close their mouths?

It means the quiet death of the soul. As a therapist Virginia Satir is very concerned with families, and these truths apply to families. Imagine the child of an abusive parent. The child can never be free; that child will live in oppression and probably depression, until such time as that child can find her or his voice and be able to see and hear and speak the truth.

Whether it is the family, the office, the church – in any relationship and in any community – there will always be pressure to conform and to suppress truth, and there will be the fear of rocking the boats, the fear of telling the truth. And there will always be the need for human beings to claim their freedom and to see and hear and speak what they truly see and hear.

It is remarkable that we have as a nation been at war for so many years and yet how little of that war we have actually seen, that is unless we have been there. For a long time the government decided that the American people should not even see the flag draped caskets returning from the battlefield. “Hush! Be quiet. Don’t look – there are things we do not want you to see. There are things we should not speak of.” So we have this paradox: bloody wars censored for the folks back home so as not to disturb us, and then we wonder why so many of the soldiers returning are so damaged psychologically as well as physically.

Jesus, acting by the power of God, gives sight to the blind. And just as often he tells those who can see that they are blind. What does Jesus want us to see? To see the stranger as neighbor. To see our own lives as honestly and clearly as we think we see the lives of others. What does Jesus want us to see? To see what our real values are – what we actually care about and live for and spend our time and money on, as opposed to what we profess to care about. What does Jesus want us to see? To see the sacredness of all things – the infinite in the infinitesimal – down to the smallest detail – “Even the hairs of your head are all numbered,” he says.

What does Jesus want us to see? To see the poor. To see hungry people even in our affluent county of Westchester. In one of his parables a rich man keeps tripping over the poor man at his door. The rich man with perfectly good eyes is blind. Jesus ermoasks us to recognize him, to see him, in the breaking of bread in his name and in the church’s attention to the poor: “This is my body given for you.” “Whatever you do unto the least of these my sisters and brothers you do unto me.”

Jesus asks us over and over again, “Now do you see?”

Shalom, Salaam, Grace and Peace to you.

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him, and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:35-45

What do you want?

What is it that you desire?

What do you long for in your heart of hearts?

What would make you truly happy?

I was in a department store, waiting at the checkout line. Standing near the line there was a mother and her daughter. I guess the little girl was a year old or a bit more, just at the age where the child can stand and walk or toddle around. The mother held the child in her arms and then tried to set her down on her own feet. As the child’s feet touched the floor, she let out a huge yell. WAAAAHHHH!!!! The mother laughed and picked her up and then let her down again. As her toes touched the floor she hollered so the whole store could hear: WAAAAAAHH!!!! After three or four rounds of this game, mama picked her up and held her – the kid got her way. I thought, “Wow, there’s a whole big feisty human being inside that little bitty body of that baby girl. And she knows what she wants and how to express herself to get it.”

Do you know what you want?

If we were to take a field trip down to the crib room right now, and if we were to interview the youngsters and ask them, “What do you want?” They would be able to tell us what they want – at least at that particular moment. “I want the toy that she is playing with!” “I want a cookie!” “I want my mommy!” There is an age at which we know exactly what we want.

But if I were to ask you in this moment, “What do you want?” I doubt very much whether most of us could answer as quickly as the children in the crib room. Ah, if only we knew what we truly want.

I was talking recently with someone who is under a lot of pressure. This person said to me, “There are four dimensions of my life that are extremely important to me. There is my wife. There is my work. There are my friends. And there is the house, the car, the lawn, finances and all that personal business. “ (This person does not have children.) After listing those four things he said, “ I only have time for two of them.” Well, that is a bit of a problem, is it not? It may be a problem you are quite familiar with. If I want more things than I have time to accomplish, then in some sense I still do not really know what I want.

Since this is October, we are in the thick of the baseball playoffs. The stadium is filled. Tens of thousands of people crowd the stands. It’s late in the game, the score is close, the winning run is on deck; the count is 3 and 2; the world hangs on the next pitch. In the stadium and at home watching or listening to the radio, millions of human hearts are beating faster; thousands of gallons of adrenaline are being produced as a result of eighteen men playing a game. People are holding onto each other. Many are so filled with emotion they close their eyes; the passage of time, that slow baseball passage of time is excruciating; here it comes… the pitch! Depending upon whether it is a strike out or a hit, millions of lives will be instantly affected. People will react in that moment with the passionate intensity of someone giving birth or hearing of a death — the body chemistry is all scrambled up; emotions are flying around like a swarm of bees. It is a great laboratory of human desire based upon a small object being thrown ninety feet.

That moment the pitcher goes into his windup, millions of people know exactly what they want. Maybe that is part of the appeal of watching sports – when our team is playing, at least for a few passionate moments we know exactly what we want. We know exactly what will make us happy… At least for a moment, and hour, or a day.

We have been reading from the Gospel of Mark in recent weeks. Each of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, has its own particular style and emphasis. Each one presents the disciples in a slightly different light. Mark probably presents the most negative picture of the disciples; Jesus is always having to correct them, admonish them, and remind them of what he is all about.

The story today from chapter 10 is just one of many of these episodes in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus has set his course to go to Jerusalem and to endure the cross. He has taught his disciples that it is the path of service, the path of suffering love that he has chosen and that he has asked his followers to choose.

Despite hearing this message a thousand times, the disciples on this day want something very different. They want personal power, glory and success. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus, and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Jesus told them, “You do not know what you are asking.”

And he told them for the thousand and firsd time what he was all about: “…the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
We want you – to do for us – whatever we – ask of you.
Ego – ego – ego.
I want… I want … for me… for me…

The other day I heard someone complaining about health care reform. This person said that the government was going to take his their health insurance and deny him the surgery he needed and basically ruin his life. I question the factual basis of some of these claims, but the person seemed quite convinced of the truth of them. Since this person had identified himself as a Christian I said, “I hear that you have these concerns about your health care, but let me ask you, as a Christian, what about the fact that millions of your fellow citizens do not have health insurance and do not have any of the sorts of benefits that you are worried about losing? How do you feel about that as a Christian?” It is amazing how our national healthcare debate has come to be framed in terms of: I want… I want…. for me.. Me… me… The message of Jesus is always pointing us to a place that is bigger than “ME.”
I heard an interesting comment by a scholar last week who has analyzed our culture and the attitude that got us into the financial crisis. Of course we know that the politicians, and the bankers, and the Wall Street investors are to blame for the crisis, but this scholar added another category of persons at fault. She said preachers must bear part of the blame. Yes, preachers! She argued that there were many people who committed themselves financially way beyond any realistic possibility for themselves, because they kept hearing those preachers who preach what’s called The Prosperity Gospel, telling them every Sunday, “God wants you to have a bigger house; God wants you to have an in-ground swimming pool; live right with the Lord, and support my ministry, and all these material blessings shall come to you.” Many people got in way over their heads financially, because someone told them that going deeply into debt is an act of faith. God will pay the mortgage!

I want… I want… I want…. For me…. Me….. Me…. And Jesus said, “Follow me and you can have anything you want.” That’s not what it says in my Gospel.

…they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking…..You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve…

How would you respond if you suddenly had to take care of a sick relative – a totally dependent person – a parent, child, spouse, or partner? Would your ego be able to handle it? For many of you this is not an abstract question. Would you be able to move your life into servant mode – would your ego be able to handle the transition? If you believe the messages of our consumer culture that the meaning of life lies in the consumption and enjoyment of products, you will be crushed by the challenge of living in a way that is focused on service to another. But if you are steeped in the message of Jesus – I am among you as one who serves – whoever would be great among you must be your servant – then you will have at least some preparation, if you are called upon to set aside your pleasure for the sake of another.

Today an infant was baptized. The baptism of a child is a happy time in the church. We would love to have a baptism every Sunday. The baptism of a child is also an opportunity for clarity. If it were not for children, if it were not for that deep-in-the-gut, passionate, all-out love we have for our children and grandchildren, then we could simply live for ourselves, our own satisfaction, our own pleasure. It would not matter so much what shape the world is in 50 or 100 years from now.

Our children – and I don’t just mean our biological children – we may or may not have biological children, but in the church we all have lots of children – and our children are our anchors in the future. They link us beyond the lifetime of our material bodies; they link us beyond our personal mortal life spans and our own personal wants and desires in this moment.

A few years ago an ecologist spoke at this church on Earth Day. He is an engineer and a scientist, but his core message was that the future of the planet Earth for us humans now depends upon whether we can actually live out the spiritual principles we have professed for millennia. Material and scientific achievements alone will not save us, he said. It will take those old spiritual principles of compassion, service, and community spirit. It will require a spiritual vision, because the great challenge facing humanity is not where the stock market will be the end of 2009 or what my retirement account will look like twenty years from now; our great challenge is to address the question, “What kind of world will we leave for our children’s children’s children’s children’s children?”

Shalom, Salaam, Geace and Peace to you

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

Matthew 28:16-20

In the United Methodist Church it is customary for baptisms to take place during the Sunday worship service. There are two reasons for this. The first is theological. In the sacrament of baptism we are celebrating a child as God’s gift to the universe. In the act of baptism the parents and the congregation together are committing themselves to surround the child with love and wisdom and faith. It is a sacrament that involves parents and children, and it is a sacrament that involves a whole community. That is the theological reason that we baptize children in a worship service in the presence of the congregation.

The second reason that we baptize children during the worship service is that we like to look at babies. This is a purely selfish reason. It is so pleasant to look into their faces; doing so touches our hearts.

In his teachings Jesus gave particular importance to children. He said that when we welcome a child in love into our community, we are welcoming God, and he went beyond that to say that to an adult must become a child in order enter into the presence of God. So the baptism of infants is for us a very sacred moment and a very pleasant moment as well.

When a mother and father look into the face of their infant they see a perfect being. We do not know exactly what goes on in the brain of an infant, but we suspect that when an infant gazes into mother’s face or father’s face they are seeing those perfect beings who have brought them forth into the world. So the infant and the parents are locked in a trance of love; joined in a mutual admiration society; totally smitten with one another.

This is a situation that cannot last.

There are no perfect human beings. In time babies and mothers and fathers will awaken from their trance and face the challenge of relating to one another as the imperfect beings that they are. It is like the biblical story of the Garden of Eden.

According to this ancient Hebrew story there was once a woman and a man, Eve and Adam, in blissful ignorance, enjoying the fruits of the garden that God had planted. They were without a care in the world. The birds sang sweetly. The rivers flowed gently. Everything was just perfect. But this was a situation that could not last. In the whole long Bible the amount of time that human beings spent in the garden of paradise consists of less than two chapters. By the end of the third chapter of the first book of the Bible human beings are no longer living carefree in the garden of Eden. After about the second page of the Bible, human beings are living squarely in the real world with all its pressures and struggles and demands, this world of love and passion and sorrow.

The presence of an infant in our worship in the sacrament of baptism is like a flashback to the Garden of Eden, a place and time of innocence and wonder, before the real world and all its troubles crashed upon our heads.

We don’t live in the Garden of Eden. We live in the real world. Parents must raise their children in the real world. In the real world it takes great effort and sacrifice and much worry to raise a child.

We have focused on a single precious infant today, a single child who has been baptized. At the same time this is World Communion Sunday, and on this day we expand our vision to encompass the whole world.

Long ago the first followers of Jesus were mostly ordinary people. Very few of them would have been able to read. They were drawn to Jesus, to his teaching and his healing. In his movement they found a sense of belonging and purpose. It’s safe to say that they were not concerned with the “world,” or that they had any idea of ‘the world” beyond their towns and villages. The Church began as a band of ordinary people drawn by the power of Jesus to heal and comfort and teach – but it quickly became a people with a global vision.

In the last verses of the Gospel of Matthew, a Gospel that was written about fifty years after Jesus’ lifetime, Jesus sends out his disciples to all the world, to make disciples and to baptize. Baptism is a most personal and intimate blessing upon a single human being. As I’ve said today it is also a whole community circling around the child and representing all those who will nurture this child over time. But baptism is also a Christian sign of God’s universal love. It is a sign that we are part of a global community. “Go forth into all the world baptizing in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.”

It was wonderful to hear about the dedication of the Dorcas Clinic (the new clinic in rural Ghana that our congregation has helped to establish) three weeks ago. On the scale of the world’s needs, it is a minuscule project. But on a human scale, it is a huge blessing to the thousands of people living in that region with no medical services previously available to them. And it is one small way that our congregation has a spiritual and a material link to the world.

One of the most immediate benefits of a clinic such as the one established in Yipala is that it can provide prenatal and postnatal care. Imagine the last serious medical problem you had or that someone you love had. Now imagine how things would be if you had not had medical attention. Most of us cannot imagine what it would be like to face illness, pregnancy and childbirth, childhood diseases, and to have to do these things without any skilled medical care. It is a staggering thought.

If we truly care for any individual child, we must care for the whole earth, because the issues that are shaping our world will impact every individual child. Unless we can achieve greater peace; unless we can address the vast disparities of poverty and wealth in our own country and the world, and unless we can reverse the ecological degradation of our planet, harm will come to every child.

We are a congregation that cannot ignore the world. Disaster has struck in the Philippines in recent weeks and days, and some of us have parents and sisters and brothers and nephews and nieces in the Philippines.

We are at war as a nation; we have had members of our congregation sent to war – in earlier times, and in our own time as well. We cannot ignore what happens in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Among us there are refugees from dreadful conflicts in other parts of the world.

From Finland to Jamaica, from the Philippines to France, from Liberia to the Netherlands, from Ireland to India, from Germany to Mexico; we are global microcosm. A thousand invisible strings connect us across this planet to the global human family. Every child baptized in this church is truly a child of planet Earth.

Each child baptized in this church reminds us why it matters that each of us participate in Jesus’ ministry of healing and reconciliation and justice, on behalf of our universal home, our precious planet Earth.

Mark 9:30-37:

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

In the Buddhist tradition there is a famous story of the time that the Buddha was gathered with his disciples beside a lake on Mount on Mount Grdhakuta. On this occasion the Buddha’s disciples were expecting him to speak. They were eager to hear his voice. But on that day he said nothing. He simply picked a flower and held it up. He held that flower and silently looked around into the eyes of his followers. (Some say it was his best sermon.) In the Buddhist tradition this is referred to as the Buddha’s Flower Sermon. Not bad, just pick a flower and hold it up, and you don’t have to go to all the trouble of writing a sermon. In Buddhist teaching, the most important truths cannot be expressed in words. This is a part of Christian understanding as well: the greatest truths lie beyond description in human language and concepts.

In the Gospels, Jesus sometimes teaches with words. Usually he uses just a few words or vivid phrases to proclaim a message and to prompt people to think. He was not long-winded. The longer sermons we have in our gospels are undoubtedly actually compilations of his shorter teachings.

In one of Jesus most important sermons, a child was brought to Jesus. He held that child in his arms. Because children are typically seen as either cute or as a nuisance, that is probably what the disciples thought. Probably some of them thought “How sweet.” Others probably found the presence of children to be distracting from important business. But the way Jesus took the child into his arms and spoke made it clear that from Jesus’ perspective that child was not a distraction and the child was not a cute little bundle of joy to smile over; the child was the key to understanding the gospel, the key to understanding Jesus, and the key to understanding the nature of God.

The child in Jesus’ arms says nothing, but says everything.

It is a common thing as young people grow up for their to brains start questioning things. They may decide that science explains the world perfectly well, and who needs old books to teach you truth, and “Where is God, anyway?” because look at the condition the world is in. This is a common and quite natural progression in life and attitude on the part of the inquisitive young.

It is also quite common that when a woman gives birth or when a man becomes a father, they turn back to their religious roots or experience a reawakening of religious interest. This is partly cultural: you may want to have your child baptized or to participate in other religious rituals. Or a parent may feel a sense of duty: “It’s my responsibility to provide my child was some kind of religious education.” But at a deeper level in the experience of pregnancy and birth and in the new parents’ unfolding relationship with their child, they are having a powerful experience of the holy. The holy is hitting them right between the eyes. The encounter of parent and child is an awesome encounter.

We may have heard this story a thousand times, “Jesus took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’” We may think that this is a lovely story. It is lovely; certainly the tenderness of Jesus with children strikes us deeply. But the teaching of Jesus takes us beyond that place. He takes us to a place of awesome encounter with the holy. Just as Moses received his call from the burning bush and was told to take off the shoes from his feet because he was standing on holy ground, Jesus is declaring that the place where the child encounters us is holy ground.

The child’s presence is not a distraction. And the point is not that child is cute. The point is that in right awareness of the child we encounter the awesome God. The encounter of the adult with the child is nothing less than the meeting place of the human and the holy; in this encounter we are encountering God. This is our Scripture; this is our teaching. When we speak of the relationship of adult to child – any child – rich or poor, hungry or well fed, we are standing on holy ground. Christ has explicitly blessed this ground.

The National Center for Children in Poverty at the Mailman School of Public Health at Colombia University reports that nearly 40% of the children in the United States of America live in low income families. They report that 43 percent of children under age six live in low-income families, compared to 37 percent of children over age six.

Our minds are dulled by statistics. But we are talking about millions, – millions – of children, living in poverty with all the associated risks and injuries that apply to being poor and young. I included in the bulletin this morning a page from the report, “Setting a Goal to Eliminate Hunger and Poverty in the United States,” from The Bread for the World Institute. Bread for the World is a Christian citizens lobby that works in a bipartisan effort to encourage national policies that address hunger and poverty globally and in the United States. This report cites data from the U.S. Census Bureau and for the National Center for Children in Poverty, to describe the scandal of childhood poverty in the United States.

The Census Bureau sets what it calls a “poverty line,” but the National Center for Children in Poverty and other advocates for the poor state that families with children must earn approximately twice the official “poverty line” to provide adequately for their children.

This is a political issue. This is an ethical issue. And for Christians it is a theological issue. It is a sacred issue, because we understand that what is happening in lives of children in poverty is happening on holy ground.

There is no big one-shot program that is going to eliminate poverty in this nation or resolve the plight of millions of poor children. The issues are complex and vexing. But if there is no sustained focused national commitment to reducing poverty, then we will see it increase and deepen. Already we have seen the phenomenon of working families who are living in poverty despite the fact that they are earning wages. Millions of individuals are affected by bankruptcy as a result catastrophic medical expenses, with direct consequences for the well-being of their children, while we await reform of our health care system.

There are proven steps to reduce poverty and its devastating effects, such things as universal healthcare for children, the food stamp program, school meal programs, priority housing for homeless families with children. Such measures are all part of the solution. Like the exploration of outer space, this is a complex challenge that requires thoughtfulness and vision, long-term dedication, research and experiment, and the commitment of significant resources.

If we were to randomly pick ten children to represent our nation, two of them would be officially poor, and one or two more would be unofficially poor. Can we be okay with that? Can Christians be okay with that?

I know that our congregation right now is taking a lot of joy in having the presence of so many young children among us. Those of us who don’t have to change the diapers or get up in the middle of the night or break up the fights between little brothers and sisters can just sit back and take pleasure in these children, and love them, and watch them grow.

But if we are students of the Gospel, we will know that the pleasure we take in seeing these children opens a door into holy ground, into the awesomeness of God, it into the acceptance of our responsibilities as followers of Jesus Christ to commit ourselves to being advocates for children, and in a special to being advocates for those who are most vulnerable.

Every pastor has some funny story of a little child confusing them with God.
When your name is “Scott,” it’s even easier for a child to get you mixed up with “God.” A few years ago there was a little girl in church with her daddy. As the clergy and the choir were processing in at the beginning of the service, her father heard her say quietly, “Hi, God.” Her father said, “Who were you talking to?” She pointed me and said, “Jesus Christ.”

It is deep in our faith that the human and the divine come together – the holy in the human and the human in the holy.

Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Grace and peace to you.

This is the tenth September that Mary Ellen and I have been at Asbury Church; thus it is the tenth Sunday School picnic we have attended, and as far as we can recall the picnic has never been rained out in all those years. Not bad. A few years ago at the picnic, I took a photograph of the whole congregation. After a bit of arm twisting I managed to drag just about everybody into the outdoor chapel area to get a group photo. I had a new camera at the time. I used one of the advanced features of this camera to get a panoramic view of the entire group. I published the picture, and I even framed some copies and given them the people. Then someone said to me, “How is it that you have so many twins in your congregation?” I said “What do you mean; I was not aware that we had any twins.” They said, “There were a lot of twins in that picture you gave me.” So I went back and looked at the picture, and sure enough a number of individuals were in the same photograph twice. I had not used the advanced features of the camera correctly, so parts of the photograph were duplicated. It is certainly one way to make your congregation look larger.

I hope that today we can get another congregational photograph, so don’t be shy. Don’t stay away from the picnic because you’re afraid of posing for a picture. No one will force you to. It is good that we open the season with a picnic. These are serious times. Our country is wrestling with so many profound issues: many of our fellow citizens are far from home at war, living under extreme and extraordinarily stressful conditions. Daily some of them die. Millions of people are out of work. Millions of people don’t have access to proper health care, and the whole health care system is under enormous stress. These are serious times.

And this is a particularly solemn week. There seemed to be something particularly intense this year about remembrance of 9/11. Sometimes things happen and as time goes on they are forgotten or they seem less significant. In the case of 9/11, I have a sense that the experience was so horrible and overwhelming that we could not entirely take it in at the time, and that as the years go by in some ways we come to realize and appreciate the depths of the suffering and the loss and the extraordinary depth of commitment and sacrifice on the part of many people on the day of 9/11 and in the months afterward.

It may seem odd or counterintuitive in such a time as this, but I want to talk for a little while today about playing. Yes, playing. Human beings are the only creatures that we know of that are able to construct machines, program computers, and write books. We have some rather unique abilities. But we are not the only creatures who play. I once saw a remarkable film clip of ravens rolling down a hill in the snow. There was no practical benefit for the birds in rolling down the hill in the snow. The birds were simply having fun going down the hill.

Creatures of all sorts play together, at least in their childhood. Human beings as well as a whole lot of other creatures need to play. When we play we get a physical release; we get an emotional release; and we strengthen relationships with other people. I like to think of our church as a place where people pray together and serve God together and play together. Each of these things is necessary.

Worship is the core of our life as a community. It is the crucial place for the renewing of our spiritual energy and the deepening of our spiritual connection to God and to one another. Without worship, we are a club or a society. In our worship we establish and reestablish the spiritual nature of our community. Out of this spiritual connection comes our commitment to put our hands and hearts and our treasure to the tasks of being a church. Out of sacred worship come sacred commitments to sacred work. Out of the love of God and the love of the sisters and brothers of the congregation there arises each of our individual commitments to serve and to live out the Gospel. The worship of God and doing the works of God go hand-in-hand.

But today I went to emphasize that there is a third component: we are a community that prays together and plays together. Work and play are not opposites. Good work requires play. It always amazes me when we do our annual work project weekend at Camp Olmsted. When the work is done, I collapse exhausted. But there are plenty of people who get the work done, and then they climb the mountain or run around the field playing soccer or frisbee for another four hours, or sit at tables late into the night playing games, chatting and laughing their brains out. Work and play, play and work, serving together and playing together – that is how communities are formed and how they thrive.

I had the pleasure of attending the annual September picnic of AST (Asbury Summer Theater) on Friday. As most of you are aware AST put together the most amazing musical shows year in and year out for more than three decades. It was a tour de force. It was a rare example of volunteer community theater of the highest caliber. It took some remarkable people and some remarkable commitments to make that happen, but one of the reasons that project was so successful for so long is that they knew how to play, and the leadership had the wisdom to know that people who work the hardest and who work the best together are people who also play together.

I may have told you the following story, forgive me if I repeat myself. This took place fifteen or sixteen years ago when we were still serving the Methodist Church in Bay Ridge Brooklyn. The church experienced a sudden and dramatic financial calamity. The trustees gathered one evening in the church office which was downstairs in the parsonage. After the meeting was over I came upstairs and Mary Ellen looked at me with bewilderment. She said, “What in the world was all that laughing down there? I thought we were in a terrible mess?” It was a mess. And it took a long time and a lot of aggravation in order to sort things out, but the trustees were a group of people who played together. They had come to enjoy one another’s company. They were personally supportive of one another. And no matter how tough things got, they could laugh together. I don’t know whether they could have held things together as they did without that capacity to play and to laugh together.

The most effective church meetings are the ones where there is a lot of laughter. I’m not exaggerating. The more serious a meeting is, the less it probably accomplishes. Meetings that accomplish the most are marked by much laughter.

So enjoy the picnic today. Get your face in the picture. Who knows, you may even discover your long lost identical twin! And whatever work God is calling you to, do it with your whole heart and soul. Don’t do it half way. Live as if you believe in God’s lavish love and as though your life matters, because it does.

And don’t be too serious about yourself and your projects, because it’s not the most serious people who get the most done.

Treasure this time, this precious time God has given us to pray together, to work together and to play together.

Shalom.