Figure out how your behavior is contributing to the suffering of others, and stop it. Just stop it! And, what if we acknowledged the errors of our ways? What if we learned from our mistakes, and behaved differently? Then what?
I suspect that blind beggars and others who hover at the margins and the bottom of our society would say that we were healed of our blindness.
Read MoreSome years ago I enrolled in and completed a certificate program in organizational development offered by the Business School at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois.
The program was interesting and helpful for the work I was engaged in at the national offices, where I worked on executive recruitment and leadership development for our 475 UCC-related health and human service agencies. Many of the lessons that I learned in that program and during that job have been helpful to me in serving as your pastor.
That said, as I read and studied today’s gospel lesson, I could not help but notice how different Jesus’ approach to leadership development was and is compared with the best-practices approaches to leadership development that are taught in today’s most revered business schools.
Jesus' approach to leadership development was not only out of step with modern business approaches, it was contrary to the normative approaches subscribed to in the first century.
Read MoreThere are, however, a few things I don’t like about this Bible story but they all boil down to how it’s been misinterpreted over time and the way bits and pieces of it are used to limit, rather than celebrate, God’s creative power and God’s intent to see and respond to human need.
For example, many have, over time and still today, decided that God wanted man to have a subordinate rather than what the text says which is a “helper as his partner.” The underlying Hebrew word (ezer) does not imply a subordinate. In fact, the word is used later in the Bible to refer to God as a helper of humans. Ideas about subordination also flow from the taking of man’s rib to make woman. But for many Bible scholars, neither the words used or the method of creation are evidence that hierarchy between women and men was intended or that God thought that the help man needed was to have someone to boss around. It was we humans who brought the power dynamic to the story ages ago and it's proven difficult to remove.
The First-Century Jewish Pharisees and Nero’s loyal legion were eager to trap Jesus in a debate that would divide his followers and conquer his reform movement, but they were never successful in doing so; because Jesus knew their laws better than they did, and he understood and offered divine grace, which the world couldn’t give or take away.
Most importantly, Jesus taught that the key to salvation was not by way of judgy doctrine, but through a spiritual disposition that was humble, and vulnerable enough to receive God’s grace and blessings.
Read MoreNews flash everyone: Jesus did not define his “in crowd” by how long they had followed him around or claimed that he was the Christ. No, instead, Jesus demonstrated with his words and his deeds that his people were those who affiliated with the least, the last, and the lost.
Jesus didn’t just make this claim with his words. He gave the disciples an object lesson. He spotted a child in their vicinity, he walked up to her, and wrapped his arms around her, saying: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
St. Francis of Assisi (whose feast day is Oct 4, 2021) famously said, “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”
This is what Jesus was doing in Mark 9:36 when he took the child into his arms. He was providing his disciples with an object lesson. He was showing them--not just telling them--that if they wanted to be greatest in God’s kindom, they had to welcome the least, the last, and the lost.
Read MoreJesus affirms: Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last and the servant of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.
Through this teaching, Jesus showed his disciples that serving others implies building horizontal relationships by dignifying each other in a humble spirit.
Dear friends, the Son of God is the perfect example of diakonia. Christian service requires to acknowledge that before God, there is no rule to measure who is better. We all are stewards of the grace of God. Faithful service emerges from a grateful heart that doesn't require praise or glory.
Read MoreGod is not glorified by our silence. People outside this nation will never know that Christianity is not aligned with US imperialism if we do not open our mouths and counter that message.
People outside of our faith tradition will never know that there are Christians who follow Jesus, and who know that he is not the only way. As the Chinese proverb goes, “There are many paths up the same mountain.”
Our own children will not know that Jesus’ life and ministry mattered, and what it was all about unless we show and we TELL them.
To do that, we will have to come out Christian closets and dare to follow Christ’s example--no matter how queer we look to the larger culture--we will have to work through our anxiety and our religious baggages, because the alternative is not an option. Here that: the closet is not an option for us if we want this pandemic to end, the gap between rich and poor to narrow, and global climate change to reverse. It’s just that simple, and it’s just that hard.
Read MoreLike other humans, Jesus had to be challenged to think outside of the box that he had grown up in. He had to be challenged to try the food, speak the language, and imagine that the ways of his people might not be the only ways to believe or to do things.
In short, Jesus had to be healed of his parochialism, before he could expand and fulfill God’s calling to be the hope and healer of all nations.
The great irony of this story is that the tables are turned twice. Instead of Jesus instantly fulfilling the Syrophonecian’s request that he heal her daughter from the unclean spirit, Jesus has to be healed of his parochialism.
He couldn’t heal himself. He needed the help of a foreign-born, non-native speaker, from a different faith tradition. So in the end, four miracles unfold in Mark 7. . .
Read MoreI’m not going to sugarcoat it. We have before us a long way to go, as did the Israelites before they made it to the Promised Land. Neither venomous snakes nor rambunctious neighbors were eradicated- despite what they would like us to think. They learned to co-exist with chaos, and so too must we. The very next verse in our reading this morning, Numbers 21:10 begins with, “The Israelites moved on.” May we learn to do so too, but not too fast, not too fast- taking as many with us and endeavoring to leave no one behind, no matter how young, how old, how same, how different. All deserve to receive good, healing news.
For just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him…
Read MoreThis scripture reminds me that rivers have historically been used to create borders; an example is the Rio Grande known also as Bravo River, which divides Mexico and the United States. Even if we don’t use the expression people from the other side anymore the concept the others is present even among people from the same race and language but with different nationalities. For example, this happens between people of Mexico and Guatemala.
The scholars Hopenhayn and Bello, analyze the denial of the other as a historical root of discrimination, based on race and ethnicity and they conclude that denying the others implies separation and hierarchization: the other racial or ethnic is judged as different, and at the same time as inferior in hierarchy, qualities, possibilities, and Rights.
Read MoreWisdom has built her school house. She has prepared her banquet. She has gone into the highways and hedges to invite you and everyone else to her table, and she is serving up more than a middle eastern wedding banquet. Wisdom was, and is, serving up a banquet for the brain, and a smorgasbord for the soul.
She was, and is, striving to entice students of all ages to come to her banquet. Wisdom wants everyone to feast on her words--not just words in a grade school primer, but more importantly, she offers us wisdom for life.
The Divine Femine, Sophia, the Holy Spirit--she has many names here in the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Bible--teaches us that God wants us to not only be book smart, but world wise. She’s encouraging us to learn our lessons well, and to remember that we can get all A’s in school and still flunk life. Because life requires the application of theory to practice, and life circumstances extract moral decisions from us whether we like it or not. So it’s good to hit the books, it’s helpful to earn good grades, but it’s even more important to develop a strong moral compass and to use it wisely.
Read MoreUnless a person has experienced doubt, can they claim to have faith? Unless a person has felt despair, can they really know joy? Unless a person has gone without, can they truly be thankful? I don’t think so.
That’s why Psalm 34 is so powerful. It’s tried and true. It’s been taste-tested by our ancestors in the faith.
As a consequence, we can trust the veracity of these verses, and hold onto the hope that they exude, even when we may not yet be able to proclaim the words of Psalm 34 with our whole hearts.
Read MoreRemember too, how Jesus routinely broke bread with the disciples, how he celebrated the Last Supper with his followers and gave them a New Commandment--that they love one another, and how all of these stories are integral to our holy history.
It’s hard to overstate the significance of bread (and other starches) as an essential element of the human diet, or the centrality of bread to the holy histories of Jews and Christians. But that is not all there is to say about bread and the Christian faith--at least not for John.
John takes one step further in the fourth gospel in that John invites us into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. John invites us to encounter and embrace--not simply the historical Jesus--but the spiritual essence of Jesus that transcends time and place--and that can nourish and satisfy our hunger in this life--in a way that no earthly mixture of water and wheat, and leven and lard can ever provide.
No wonder Jesus’ disciples said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” (John 6: 34) Amen.
Jesus compelled his followers to trust that there would be enough for them and everyone else, by daylighting the child’s generosity, and inspiring the grownups to share what they had with others, rather than squirreling away the food that they had brought for themselves.
Notice how when the disciples ask Jesus to work a miracle, he did not pull out a wand and say, abra cadabra. Instead, he said: “You give them something to eat.”
The disciples replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and a couple of fish.”
The child might have said, “Liars, liars, pants on fire!” But he didn’t. Instead, the child offered all the food he had brought to share with others.
That child’s act of generosity, reminded everyone in the crowd that they had something to bring to the table, and they were moved to share what they had with others. And they did, everyone in attendance ate their fill and there were 12 baskets of food leftover.
So then, the miracle that occurred that day at the shores of the Sea of Galilee, wasn’t the result of some first-century side show, but rather the miracle of generosity that Jesus inspired in the boy with five loaves and two fishes, and the cast of thousands who had come to taste and see what God was doing in the world…
Read MoreDear friends, today’s Scripture challenges us to examine our hearts. The psalmist wrote: Search me, God, and know my heart (Psalm 139:23) Create in me a pure heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)
Jesus models a compassionate heart willing to stand in solidarity with the oppressed. Eduardo Galeano affirms that "Unlike solidarity, which is horizontal and is exercised as equals, charity is practiced from top to bottom, it humiliates the recipient and never alters the power relations one bit.”
Jesus not only feed the crowd, but he also spent time teaching them, demonstrating that he saw the people as equal and affirming their dignity.
Read MoreToday we are celebrating the 26th Anniversary of our Open & Affirming recognition by the UCC Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Concerns--aka “the Coalition.”
Eden Church is out and proud to be on the forefront of the LGBTQQI justice movement, and part of the fastest growing welcoming church movement in the world!
In 1995 we received this honor in recognition of the year-long study and decision-making process that our church participated in, which included the adoption of our ONA declaration. We were the 159th congregation out of about 6,000 congregations in the United Church of Christ to complete this process and to be recognized in this way.
Read MoreAs we celebrate the 245th anniversary of our nation’s independence today, and reflect on our gospel lesson, the thought occurs to me that all but 1% of Americans either come from humble beginnings and somewhere else, or they are the descendants of people who were of humble beginnings and from somewhere else. This fact is part of the narrative that we tell ourselves as a nation, and that we depict in our artifacts.
Consider the Statue of Liberty as an example. . .
Read MoreOne was a man named Jairus, whose twelve-year old daughter, Tabitha, was near death. The other was an unnamed woman, who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years.
On the face of it, these two people were polar opposites. Jairus was a man of wealth and privilege whose family carried Platinum-level health care coverage. The unnamed woman, meanwhile, was penniless and had no healthcare coverage and no advocate but herself.
As Americans, I suspect that we either have or know someone who has Platinum-level health care coverage, so we can imagine what such health care coverage affords. The experience of the unnamed woman may be less familiar to some of us, so let’s try to imagine what it was like to be her. Let’s start by trying to imagine why we don't know her name.
I venture that the reason we don’t know her name is because she had been living in quarantine for 12 years on account of her health and her lack of access to quality care.
In the ancient world, quarantine was one of the few medical interventions available to treat disease and infirmity.
Most ailments were deemed contagious until proven otherwise. So even if the woman’s malady wasn’t contagious, she would have been subject to quarantine for medical reasons. But that is not all.
This woman was a Jew, and was subject to the Levite purity codes, which required sick persons to quarantine, wear masks, remove their head covering, and when approached shout “Unclean!” so that everyone around her knew to physically distance themselves from her.
Read MoreThe way that Mark tells the story, Jesus and his twelve disciples had been hunkered down, working their tails off for months in and around his hometown, and finally, he declared the need for a day off. So he declared a holiday and directed his team to jump in their boat and go to the other side of the sea for a rest.
The disciples were all for a vacation. They jumped in the boat, dropped the rudder, hoisted the sail, and headed for the opposite side of the Sea of Galilee.
Even though it was night, the crew was undaunted. They knew the way. They were lifelong fishermen who were familiar with their rig, the water, and the weather conditions. They could cross the sea in their sleep.
Jesus knew that he was in good hands and he was tired, so he lay down in the stern of the boat to rest, and quickly fell asleep.
As it turned out, there would be no rest for the weary. Soon after the crew embarked on their trip, a storm came up. Waves crashed against the hull of the boat and water rushed over the bow. The boat was swamped. But Jesus didn’t notice. He was sound asleep.
In a panic, the disciples roused him saying, “Jesus, don’t you care that we are about to drown?”
Jesus awoke with a start, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And all was calm.
Then Jesus asked the disciples, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"
Crickets. The disciples did not reply. Instead, they asked each other, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Read MoreWhat do you think of when you think of King David? Perhaps a small boy by a babbling brook? A young harpist? Like Conan the he-man who slayed ten thousands? A renegade commander of a rebel army in pursuit of a king? A runaway seeking refuge from a mad king? An older adulterer who abused his privilege and power to force his wishes? Or a contrite psalmist after God’s own heart?
If your answer was close to one or any of these, you’re probably right. The book of Samuel and Kings is full of stories of David, and they don’t paint quite a singular picture of his life. In our reading this morning we heard of a David that was, in stark contrast to his older brothers, not tall nor broad and built out, but younger, shorter, and pretty.
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