Jeremiah 1:4-10

⁴ Now the word of the sovereign came to me saying, ⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”  ⁶ Then I said, “Ah, Sovereign God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” ⁷ But the Sovereign said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.  ⁸ Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you, says the Sovereign.”  ⁹ Then the Sovereign put out a hand and touched my mouth; and the Sovereign said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.  ¹⁰ See, today I appoint you over nations and over dominions, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Hebrews 12:18-29

¹⁸ You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, ¹⁹ and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.  ²⁰ (For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.”  ²¹ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”) ²² But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, ²³ and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴ and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. ²⁵ See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking; for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! ²⁶ At that time God’s voice shook the earth; but now God has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” ²⁷ This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. ²⁸ Therefore, since we are receiving a dominion that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; ²⁹ for indeed our God is a consuming fire.

Luke 13:10-17

¹⁰ Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. ¹¹ And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. ¹² When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” ¹³ When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. ¹⁴ But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” ¹⁵ But the Master answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? ¹⁶ And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” ¹⁷ When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

I find it very interesting to compare the biblical accounts of people coming into the presence of God.  The depictions range from intense fear and trembling to a casual affinity with God.  Some characters have even evolved in their response to finding themselves in the presence of God.  Abraham always seemed comfortable with God and followed God with blind faith but reached a place where he was willing to argue with God about the destruction of Sodom.  Sarah trusted God and yet laughed when God said she would bear a child.  Moses was frightened and intimidated when he found himself to be in the presence of God in the burning bush but evolved to being quite comfortable sitting in God’s presence.  Adam and Eve evolved in the other direction, they were very comfortable being with God in the Garden of Eden until they became frightened and hid themselves from God.  Isaiah is dismayed when he is transported into the presence of God for he was a man of unclean lips.  Jeremiah in today’s reading seems quite comfortable being summoned by God but still tries to buy himself some slack by claiming to be a mere youth unprepared to speak for God.  The people, as congregations of God followers have certainly varied in their response to being in God’s presence.  The people of Israel vacillated between praising God for their deliverance and griping and complaining that God had brought them into the desert to perish.  When God showed some anger with the people of Israel, they made it very clear they wanted Moses doing their talking for them.  It seems the people became quite casual with being in the close proximity of God, being in God’s temple was considered very safe.  In fact, it seems from the stories that very few people actually encountered God when they were in the temple.  I think the same may be sadly true for current day God followers.  I love the quote of Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk, “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”

These stories provide us with some insight into how others have understood their God encounters and perhaps they can guide us into understanding our own God encounters and how we react.  This isn’t about when we come into God’s presence, our faith tells us we are always in God’s presence.  There is no where we can go that God is not there.  We do not go to the temple or the church so we can be in God’s presence, we go to have an encounter with God, or, as Annie Dillard suggests, maybe not.  An encounter is not just a coming into the same space, we can be in the presence of another person but it isn’t an encounter until something is exchanged between us and the other.  Just like encounters with others vary by the depth of the intimacy of the exchange, so our encounter with God varies by how much of ourselves we reveal and how open we are to plunging into the depth of God.  The sacred stories confirm what might seem obvious, our encounter with God is shaped by how we understand God and how we understand ourselves.  Adam and Eve were comfortable encountering God until the new they had disobeyed and they feared God’s wrath.  Abraham and Sarah have encountered God in their journey to the new land, the promised land, and they know they can trust God, so even when they fall short of God’s expectations, they do not fear encountering God.  Moses is frightened when he encounters God as a burning bush until he discovers how much God loves him and loves the people of Israel.  Even later in his life when he disobeys God and he knows God is disappointed in him, Moses does not fear to come to God and petition God for a different outcome.  The people of God are shown over and over again that they can trust God to be just and to be loving toward them.  God in fact does not give them or us what we deserve, God gives us grace.  The people however always want to return to depending on themselves, and only seeking an encounter with God when all else has failed. 

Jesus came to the world to show us once again that we do not need to fear God, even when we know we have disobeyed God, or failed to trust God.  God is not waiting for the opportunity to zap us, God is not setting up tests for us, so God can correct us.  God loves us; God loves us more than we love ourselves, and certainly more than we love each other.  I believe we do not seek a deeper, more vulnerable encounter with God because we fear losing control, losing all our preconceived notions of who we are and how we are to live, and what it means to be beloved community.  We are afraid to tap into that powerful force that is God.  Someone said, many people use religion like a vaccine, they get just enough to keep them from catching the real thing.  We want a superficial encounter with God.  We don’t go to church expecting to have an life altering encounter with God.  We go to wave and say hi to God but not to set down and expect to have a deep conversation with God or to bare our souls to God for examination and cleansing.  We are not expecting God to do a healing in us.  Like the priests in the story from Luke, we don’t want that kind of thing going on during sabbath in the temple.  How often when we hear the stories of Christ healing, do we think or ourselves as the one who needs to be healed, the ones who need to come to Christ and seek that we be set free from those things that keep us from being whole?  Being liberated is both a relief and a challenge.  When animals that have been raised in captivity are released they very often have no concept of what it means to be free.  I watched a video of lab beagles that had never been out of their cages being released into a yard.  They are frightened of the grass and want to return to their cages.  We are so like that.  An encounter with God that frees us, heals us, also challenges to go out into the world differently.  I have heard speculation on what the blind person, the crippled person, and the maniac did after Jesus healed them.  They have no skills, they have never had any way of supporting themselves and relied on the compassion of others who saw their challenges.  How did they support themselves without their disabilities that made them sympathetic?  Are we also afraid of an encounter with God that takes away our excuses for not doing more, for not living differently, or for not loving others as we love ourselves?  The depth of our encounter with God is dependent upon how willing we are to be profoundly changed.  Amen.

Sacred texts:

Isaiah 5:1-7

Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning a vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
² My beloved dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines;
built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it;
my beloved expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

³ And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
⁴ What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

⁵ And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
⁶ I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed,
    and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷ For the vineyard of the sovereign of hosts is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah are God’s pleasant planting;
God expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!

Hebrews 11:29-12:2

²⁹ By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. ³⁰ By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days. ³¹ By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.

³² And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— ³³ who through faith conquered monarchies, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, ³⁴ quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. ³⁵ Bereaved received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. ³⁶ Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. ³⁷ They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— ³⁸ of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

³⁹ Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, ⁴⁰ since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.

12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, ² looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Luke 12:49-56

⁴⁹ “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰ I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! ⁵¹ Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! ⁵² From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; ⁵³ they will be divided:

parent against child, and in-laws against children and parents.”

⁵⁴ He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. ⁵⁵ And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. ⁵⁶ You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

End of source texts.

It has been my experience that some people believe that those who follow Christ should always be nice.  Some of these people are Christ followers and some are not.  The general impression is that Jesus came to make us all play well together and get along.  I have encountered people within the church who firmly believe that the most important characteristic a congregation must have is unity.  We must strive to show the world that we are one big happy family.  The congregations I have served know that I am not a fan of the family metaphor for congregations.  Families are not easy to gain entry to, you must born, adopted, or married into a family.  All of these require a decision by the family head to allow your entry and once in, you are expected to conform to family identity or you will find yourself on the outside.  The honest truth is there are very few big happy families.  There are always persons who are not welcome in the family and people who wish they weren’t in the family, and people who aren’t sure they are a member of the family.

The other major problem with the big happy family image is that it is rarely an honest portrayal of the congregation.  Where two or three are gathered, there will be an argument about something.  We aren’t designed to be in total agreement with others; we rarely are in total agreement with ourselves.  I know I have some pretty fierce arguments with myself.  The wisdom of organizations has proposed that once a decision is made everyone in the organization is to come on board and deny any disagreement.  I suppose there is some value to organizations that require a unified effort to succeed at their purpose.  However, social organizations suffer with forced unity of thought.  People who are considering joining a social organization may decide to opt out if they believe everyone in the organization thinks, acts, and believes the same.  What if they don’t agree with some action or tenant of the organization?  I know I am more comfortable joining an organization where a variety of ideas and positions are expressed and encouraged.  Certainly the organization must decide to take one course or action or hold some beliefs in common but that shouldn’t require that those who think differently must be silenced.  Also lost when we silence the opposition for the appearance of unity is that we lose the voices we need when we see our chosen course is not taking us where we want to go.  I am a firm believer that living in beloved community does not require us to surrender our individuality or silence our dissent.

My position is supported by the texts for today.  Isaiah was a member of the nation of Israel and had great love for the people of God and yet he spoke a harsh message to them that they were off course, that they had lost sight of God’s plan for them to be a people of justice and righteousness.  I am secure in believing that Isaiah would not have been seen as a team player in his time.  He was not playing well with others but he was speaking truth to power.  He was pointing out to the people that their peace and prosperity were not based on God principles and it would surely fail.  They were producing fruits but they were sour fruits and their garden would be destroyed so it could be replaced with others that would produce sweet fruits.  Being a God follower requires us to speak honestly to power when power is being used in exploitive or hurtful ways.

Jesus clearly tells us that his mission was not to produce big happy families of people who never argued.  I am a member of a clergy group and someone posted that this was a hard lesson to preach and several agreed that they would be going to the other texts for this week.  I think this is a hard lesson if you want to insist that being Christian is about playing nice with others.  On the other hand, this lesson can be quite comforting if you have ever found yourself having to disagree with family members you love.  Love of family must never silence us when those family members say, do, or believe things that demean or harm others.  There is a family intervention concept called tough love.  The concept expresses the belief that sometimes love requires us to confront the one we love with the realities of their behaviors and the consequences.  Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is to tell someone that we think they are wrong.  I know that some of my most treasured moments of friendship were times when another person loved me enough to confront me with the implications or consequences of my words or actions.  If no one tells us, we will not know when we have acted from privilege or selfishness.

That said, it is important to say that not playing well with others will have its own consequences.  While the most loving thing we can do may be to disagree and confront, it does not follow that this loving act will reap us great love.  One of the hardest lessons we must learn about following Christ is that sometimes Christ will lead us into tough spots, painful spots, even deadly spots.  The promise of our faith is not that we will have a life of ease, that we will be loved by everyone, or even that we will see the fruits of our faith in this life.  As the letter to the Hebrews declares, those who have lived lives of faith have suffered all sorts of hardship.  Our faith is not a promise of a good life but a promise of a better world and a life that matters.  One of the clearest truths I have gained from my life as an interim minister is that it is much more important to be honest with the congregation than to be liked by the congregation.  I firmly believe this is the way every pastor should be with their congregation, the way every congregation should be with their pastor, the way every congregation should be with their visitors, the way every family should be with each other, and the way each of us should be with each other.  Playing well with others should mean being honest not pretending to agree for the sake of keeping the peace.  We will only achieve true peace when we love each other honestly and just as they are and just as we are.  Amen.

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20

The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

¹⁰ Hear the word of the Sovereign, you rulers of Sodom!  Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!  ¹¹ What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?  says the Sovereign; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

¹² When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand?  Trample my courts no more;
¹³ bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me.  New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.  ¹⁴ Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.
¹⁵ When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers,
    I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.  ¹⁶ Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;     remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

¹⁸ Come now, let us argue it out, says the Sovereign:  though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.  ¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; ²⁰ but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Sovereign has spoken.

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ² Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. ³ By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

⁸ By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰ For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. ¹¹ By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old—and Sarah herself was barren—because he considered the one faithful who had promised. ¹² Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

¹³ All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, ¹⁴ for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, God has prepared a city for them.

Luke 12:32-40

Fear not little flock, for it has pleased your heavenly parent to give you the monarchy.

Sell what you own and give the money to poorer people.  Make purses for yourselves that don’t wear out—treasures that won’t fail you in heaven, where thieves can’t steal and moths don’t destroy.  For wherever your treasure is, that is where your heart will be.

Be dressed and ready, and keep your lamps lit.  Be like the household staff awaiting the owner’s return from a wedding, so that when the owner arrives and knocks, you’ll open the door without delay.  It will  go well with those staff members whom the owner finds wide awake upon returning.  I tell you the absolute truth, the owner will put on an apron, seat them at table and proceed to wait on them.  Should the owner happen to come at midnight, or before sunrise, and find them prepared, it will go well with them.

Understand this: no homeowner who knew when a thief was coming would have let the thief break in!  So be on guard—the Promised One will come when least expected.

 End of sacred texts

Why do we tithe?  Why do we give anything to the church or to God?  God has everything; God surely doesn’t wait anxiously each week to see if enough will come in to cover expenses.  I have heard stewardship sermons that seem to suggest this is exactly what God does.  That God is waiting to see if God’s people will give enough so God’s work can be done on earth.  I have similarly heard it preached that God has no hands but our hands, and God has no feet but our feet.  The image, if taken literally is of a Divine quadriplegic sitting helplessly waiting for someone to act in behalf of God.  I find these images at best troubling and at worst blasphemous.  God is not destitute and God is not helpless.  When we suggest our giving or our service is required by God, we elevate ourselves to equality or even superiority to God.  No, God does not need anything from us.

Why then do we give?  Why did God put such emphasis on tithing?  To understand why God commands us to tithe, we need to consider what we believe about any of God’s commands.  Some believe God is a tyrant bent on blind obedience from us.  For these folks, the reason God demands a tithe is because God can.  Others believe God is the ultimate wet blanket and God’s rules are meant to take all joy out of our lives.  For them, the tithe is just a way to make sure we don’t have enough income to have any fun.  And others believe God is all about rewards and punishments and tithing is a system by which those rewarded give back to keep the rewards coming and those who are punished are punished even more by taking from what little they have.  I believe God is all about love, justice, and peace and therefore I believe God’s commands are intended to guide us lovingly toward lives of justice and peace.

God commands us to tithe because God knows how important it is for us to give.  Giving has actually been demonstrated to raise a person’s sense of well-being and self-image.  Persons with depression are less depressed if they give to or do something for another.  God wants us to feel the joy that comes from giving to improve the world.  We give to the church because it is about the tasks doing justice and seeking peace.  We give to the church so the church survives to tell others about God’s plan for this earth and for all that inhabit it.  We should give out of the real expectation that the church is making a difference, a positive difference in the community and the world.  If we give out of a sense of obligation, or in an attempt to purchase God’s favor, our giving is not only futile, God does not honor it.  Isaiah shares with us God’s rant about those who come to the temple and make their sacrifices and then go out in the world and exploit the poor and the aliens.  Their sacrifice is rejected by God because it does not come out of an understanding of God or any desire to please God.  God desire from us a surrendered spirit seeking ways to serve God to bring about God’s dominion on earth.  Obedience is greater than sacrifice. 1 Samuel 15:22

The mark of the faithful is their willingness to follow God’s guidance without knowing how it will come out.  The reading from Hebrews tells us that many have died without seeing the outcome of their faithfulness to God.  Faith means we don’t demand proof, faith means we trust even when the evidence suggests we cannot succeed.  It is easy for us to weary in giving and working for a world of justice and peace, but our faith requires that we do not weary in doing good.  Jesus tells us we are to be about the business of God our Sovereign because we never know when God will call us into account.  I have heard witty persons translate this passage into, ”Jesus is coming, look busy!”  I do not believe this passage is meant to relate to the second coming of the Christ, or even the day of our death or rapture.  I read the passage as a simple comparison to those who work for another and how pleased the employer is when he or she learns they can trust the employee to do the work without constant supervision.  God wants our faith and our commitment to God’s purposes to become so strong that we labor for them not because we know God is watching, but because we want to bring about a world of justice and peace.  We work not even to gain our pay or earn a better mansion in glory, we work because we believe in the work we are doing.  We give to the church not out of obligation but because we believe in what the church is doing.

What do I give to a God who has everything?  I give faithful service and a surrendered will.  Amen.

Hosea 11:1-11

When Israel was young, I loved the child, and out of Egypt I called my child.
² The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
    and offering incense to idols.

³ Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms;
    but they did not know that I healed them.  ⁴ I led them with cords of human kindness,
    with bands of love.
I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.  I bent down to them and fed them.

⁵ They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king,
    because they have refused to return to me.
⁶ The sword rages in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests,and devours because of their schemes.
⁷ My people are bent on turning away from me.  To the Most High they call,
    but they will not be raised up at all.

⁸ How can I give you up, Ephraim?  How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?  How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.
⁹ I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

¹⁰ They shall go after the Sovereign, who roars like a lion; when God roars, God’s children shall come trembling from the west.
¹¹ They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria;
    and I will return them to their homes, says God

Colossians 3:1-11

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, ³ for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Christ in glory.

⁵ Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). ⁶ On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. ⁷ These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. ⁸ But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. ⁹ Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. ¹¹ In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

.

Luke 12:13-21

¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” ¹⁴ But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” ¹⁵ And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” ¹⁶ Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. ¹⁷ And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ ¹⁸ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ ²⁰ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ ²¹ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

End of sacred texts.

This past week Pope Francis caused quite a stir by responding to a question regarding gay priests by saying “Who am I to judge?”  While not a particularly novel concept, it is an amazing statement from a person who holds the title Pope.  The church, not just the Roman Catholic Church, has throughout the ages judged.  The Hebrew Testament is full of stories like the one in Hosea for today that describe God’s judgment of humankind and in particular the people of Israel.  I believe judgment is clearly a God appropriate activity.  However, the church leaders have a long history of assuming responsibility to judge humankind when God seems to be silent.

The prophets of Israel did not see themselves as judges of the people, they saw themselves as oracles of God.  They passed along what God had revealed to them regarding God’s judgment of the people.  There were leaders in Israel who judged the people based on their understanding of God’s law.  They were called judges, and later kings, there are no recorded queens in Israel’s political dynasties.  These political leaders relied heavily on the rabbis to interpret the law of God.  The rabbis interpretations of law are contained in the Talmud along with rabbinical insights on other aspects of Jewish society.  The rabbis attempted to take broad God laws and apply them to minutia of daily life.  The commandment to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy generated volumes concerning what activities could be performed on the Sabbath and which could not.  These rules and interpretations gave immense power to the monarchs and priests who enforced them.  These leaders were able to control and impoverish the people by enforcing the rules and levying fines.

Jesus came to earth so that the Word may become flesh and God’s laws could be explained in human terms.  Core to the teachings of Jesus is that God has not abdicated the responsibility to judge and God has not asked the spiritual leaders to judge for God.  Despite the clarity and frequent repetition of Jesus’ teaching on judging, the church of Jesus followers could not wait to take over the role of judge or humankind.  Even the apostles quickly fell into the role of judging.  God revealed to some of them that it was not their job to judge.  Paul realized that Gentiles should not be judged based on how well they kept Jewish law but should be accepted just as they are.  Peter was confronted by God on the rooftop not to call anything unclean that God has declared clean.  I would go so far as to say God told Peter, if God created it, it is clean.  Despite this, those who claim the authority of Peter have for hundreds of years claimed authority to judge the world because Jesus said on this rock, Peter, I will build my church.

What is particularly baffling when we consider the Christian leaders, Popes, bishops, elders, televangelists, and most other ordained persons is that they claim to be in the tradition of Jesus, their sovereign and they example.  We cannot find any example where Jesus says, you have behaved badly and you are being punished for your bad behavior.  Jesus never claimed authority to judge others.  Jesus does say there will be a judgment day, but he says it is God who will be doing the judging.  Even in the story of God dividing the sheep and the goats, the dividing criteria is said to be the way we treated even the least of these.  There isn’t any talk of our sexual behavior, or our position of the sanctity of life, or whether we have given our ten percent to God.  None of the hot topics of the church are in the sheep and goat story.  Even when the person comes to Jesus and asks him to tell his sibling what to do with the inheritance, Jesus says who am I to judge. 

Jesus was unconcerned about the equity of the distribution of the family wealth, Jesus cared about why the person wanted more of the inheritance.  Jesus teaches us over and over again, the fairness of what we get for our work is not a moral issue, the moral issue is whether we receive a sustainable wage and how do we use what we have been given  to bring about the dominion of God.  I do believe being a follower of Jesus requires us to evaluate situations and come to conclusions about the rightness of the actions.  We are to seek justice, we are to work for every person to be able to earn enough to sustain themselves and those dependent upon them.  We should be concerned about accessibility to health care and healthy food, clean water, and breathable air.  These are issues connected to how we use the resources God has given us to bring about God’s dominion on earth.  I do not believe I am in a position to judge another person’s  salvation or relationship with God.  It is not for me to judge who is worthy to come into God’s house of worship or to receive the elements of communion.  It is not for me to judge the sincerity of another’s profession of faith.  It is my job, and a pretty difficult job at that, to judge myself.  It is for me to examine my own actions, my own motives, and my own relationship with God.  I am hopeful the comment of Pope Francis reflects a move away from a judging church, and I hope and pray other spiritual leaders will also ask the question, who am I to judge.  Amen.

Hosea 1:2-10

² When God first spoke through Hosea, God said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking God.” ³ So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

⁴ And God said to him, “Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the monarchy of the house of Israel. ⁵ On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.”

⁶ She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. ⁷ But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by God their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.”

⁸ When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. ⁹ Then God said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not my people and I am not your God.”

¹⁰  Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.”

Colossians 2:6-15

⁶ As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Sovereign, continue to live your lives in Christ, ⁷ rooted and built up in Christ and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

⁸ See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. ⁹ For in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, ¹⁰ and you have come to fullness in Christ, who is the head of every ruler and authority. ¹¹ In Christ also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; ¹² when you were buried with Jesus in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. ¹³ And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. God set this aside, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ God disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.

Luke 11:1-13

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” ² He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.
    Your kingdom come.
³     Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴     And forgive us our sins,
        for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
    And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

Perseverance in Prayer

⁵ And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ ⁷ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

⁹ “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹ Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? ¹² Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Parent give the Holy Spirit to those who ask God!”

End of sacred texts:

Naming just doesn’t have the same flare in contemporary times as it did in ancient Israel.  Names had great significance as is demonstrated in the reading from Hosea.  We can get all caught up in the details of the story and dismiss it because it is so outside our culture.  God encouraging a prophet to marry a prostitute so they can produce children so the children’s names can reflect God’s anger with the people of Israel, well it just seems silly to us.  However, in the culture of Hosea, names were very important.  Being labeled a prostitute was to be put outside acceptable society.  And a person’s given name was believed to set the person’s fate.  Even YHWH, the Jewish name for God was believed to be so sacred and so powerful that it was never to be spoken out loud and, if written, it could never be erased or discarded.  Any item with God’s name written on it was stored in a sacred place until it could receive a proper burial in a Jewish cemetery.  In contemporary society, the naming of a child is important, the whole world seemed to wait with great anticipation for Prince William and Catherine to name their son, but the name isn’t expected to change the child or the course of history.  But that doesn’t mean naming isn’t important.

We name all sorts of things, naming simplifies communication and understanding.  We name things as cats or dogs, birds or fish, fruits or vegetables, or male or female.  The trouble with communication and understanding happens when things don’t fit well in these categories.  We can feel anxious, a little hostile, and maybe even frightened when we can’t put things into compartments and label them.  We want people to fall into the binary of male/female; we don’t like it when we aren’t sure and when we have to ask.  We like it even less when the person refuses to identify as one gender or the other.  Too often our discomfort grows into rejection or even hostility.  Even LGBT organizations have been faulted for their desire to hide transgender persons.  Persons who identify as bi-sexual are also often the target of those who accept persons who have same gender attraction and those with opposite gender attraction but can’t accept that someone could be attracted to both, in their world it has to be one or the other.  The real importance of being able to name someone or something is that it simplifies our lives.  We can put them in the box of male or female, straight or gay, black or white, citizen or alien, conservative or liberal, rich or poor and the list goes on and on.  Once we have assigned the name, then we don’t really have to get to know the person because the person is like other women or men we have known, or we know how the person will behave because we know how straight or gay people behave, we know how black people think, we know that aliens can’t be trusted, we know that conservatives are mean spirited, and we know the poor are unable to care for themselves.  We don’t even think about how the names assigned to others control our understanding of them.  Even more tragic is the fact that we don’t understand how the names that have been assigned to us control how we understand ourselves.

There is an ongoing struggle within religious conversations about the name we give God.  Not so much whether we call God, God, Allah, YHWH, All Glorious, or Divine but what gender we assign to God.  We struggle with how to refer to God if we aren’t going to use gender pronouns.  It is seen as offensive to refer to God with the gender neutral it, but it seems contrived to alternate between the pronouns of he and she.  When Christians gather, we used to find comfort and cohesiveness in all reciting The Lord’s Prayer together.  Then some rejected the male language of “Our Father”.  Even some of the strongest feminists in the Christian church held on to the language because it is what Jesus prayed.  I received a post this past week that included what is purported to be a more accurate translation of the prayer Jesus taught us from Aramaic.  It goes as follows: 

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!

Release a space to plant your Presence here.

Imagine your possibilities now.

Embody your desire in every light and form.

Grow through us this moment’s bread and wisdom.

Untie the knots of failure binding us,

As we release the strands we hold of other’s faults.

Help us not forget our Source,

Yet free us from not being in the Present.

From you arises every Vision, Power, and Song

From every gathering to gathering.

Amen

May our future actions grow from here.

I do not have any knowledge of Aramaic and cannot verify the accuracy of this translation but I can say, I like it.  I particularly appreciate that the prayer starts with a non-gender specific salutation to God, “O Breathing Life” is so poetic.  I believe it draws us to seeing God as parent as in the concept of that which gave us life rather than the donor of sperm that united with an egg to bring us into being.  This is a relationship to God that can be comforting and comprehensible to everyone regardless of their relationship with their male parent or males in general.  What we call God has great power in how we understand God and how we understand ourselves.

Naming ourselves as child of God, should be a liberating name.  As God’s child, we are empowered to live as God has designed us to live.  As child of God, we are open to going where God guides us to go without the limitations the world would put on us with the names world gives us.  This is what Paul is saying to the church as Colossi and to us.  Do not let the world control us with its labels and restrictions as to what we can do and who we can be.  We have been freed by Jesus who taught us there is nothing the world can do to us that God cannot overcome, not even killing us.  When we no longer fear the world, we no longer have to accept the names the world throws at us.  There is a horrible rhyme that says, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”  We all know that words can wound us more severely and for a longer time than sticks and stones ever can but the rhyme can be true when we deny others the power for their words to wound.  I have heard it said, it doesn’t matter what others call you, what matters is what you answer to.  Don’t let the world name you.  Let God name you “beloved child.”  Amen.

Amos 8:1-12

My Sovereign God showed me this vision: A bowl of fresh fruit.  ² God said, “What do you see, Amos?”  I said, “A bowl of fresh, ripe fruit.”  God said, “Right. So, I’m calling it quits with my people Israel. I’m no longer acting as if everything is just fine.”

³ “The royal singers will wail when it happens.”
    My Sovereign God said so.
“Corpses will be strewn here, there, and everywhere.      Hush!”

^4-6 Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,     you who treat poor people as less than nothing, Who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming     so I can go out and live it up?
How long till the weekend     when I can go out and have a good time?”
who give little and take much,     and never do an honest day’s work.
You exploit the poor, using them—    and then, when they’re used up, you discard them.

^7-8 God swears against the arrogance of Jacob:     “I’m keeping track of their every last sin.”
God’s oath will shake earth’s foundations,     dissolve the whole world into tears.
God’s oath will sweep in like a river that rises,  flooding houses and lands, and then recedes,
    leaving behind a sea of mud.  ^9-10 “On Judgment Day, watch out!” 

These are the words of God, my Sovereign.
“I’ll turn off the sun at noon.      In the middle of the day the earth will go black.
I’ll turn your parties into funerals and make every song you sing a dirge.
Everyone will walk around in rags, with sunken eyes and bald heads.
Think of the worst that could happen—your only child, say, murdered.
That’s a hint of Judgment Day—that and much more.

^11-12 “Oh yes, Judgment Day is coming!”
    These are the words of my Sovereign God.
“I’ll send a famine through the whole country.  It won’t be food or water that’s lacking, but my Word.
People will drift from one end of the country to the other, roam to the north, wander to the east.
They’ll go anywhere, listen to anyone, hoping to hear God’s Word—but they won’t hear it.

Luke 10:38-42

³⁸ As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

What are we to make of God’s attitude toward work?  Amos tells us that God is not pleased with the Israelites and part of the reason is that they think only of the weekend and never do an honest day’s work but Jesus tells us that Mary has chosen the better way than Martha who is working so hard.  Paul tells us the one who will not work should not eat.  Even Jesus makes the case for a strong work ethic.  He says anyone who puts his or her hand to the plow and looks back is not worthy of the dominion of God.  I have heard it said,”Jesus is coming!  Look busy!”  So, are we supposed to be busy doing work or are we supposed to quiet and listening for God to teach us?  The answer is yes. 

Not all work is created equal.  There is the work of the devil, there is busy work, and there is Holy work.  Amos is referring to the work of the devil.  The people whose work is to exploit others, to gain from the labor and misfortune of others have offended God of justice and compassion.  We have heard a great deal in the last months and years about the 1% and the 99%.  I believe the critical issue isn’t how much one has but how one got it and what one does with it.  Just as in the time of Amos and in the time of Jesus there are those who have gained their wealth and their power by exploiting others, by not paying fair wages, by overcharging for loans or for food or rent.  Some people gain their wealth by capitalizing on the misery and the fears of others.  They charge excessive amounts for medical care and medicines.  They create fear in people and then charge high fees for protection or a sense of security.  Some even in the name of God will demand high tribute in exchange for God’s blessing or protection.  Work that impoverishes others, work that marginalizes others or forces others to the margins is the devil’s handiwork because it causes people to feel less than, it causes people to believe they are outside of God’s love, it causes people to despair and loose hope.  God wants us to know that all of creation is precious in God’s sight and that we are never without hope.

The next type of work is busy work.  This was the work of Martha, so busy that she could not stop to listen to Jesus.  Martha thought the work was very important and that she was serving Jesus.  We tend to think of busy work as work that accomplishes nothing and is performed just so we can look busy.  But busy work is really the work we do when we don’t want to do the work that is important.  How often do we tell ourselves and anyone else who will listen how busy we are?  I have heard it referred to as the idol of business.  We look at all the appointments on our calendar; we speak of our extensive to do list.  We seem to believe that idle time means we are not important and we are lazy.  We use all of these demands upon us to explain why we really can’t spend time in prayer and reading of sacred texts.  We just don’t have time to sit and talk with the beggar on the street.  It is easier to dismiss them or hand them money than to speak to them, to show them respect, and to seek ways to actually improve his or her situation.  We are just too busy to talk to someone about God’s love for them and our love for them.  We don’t have time to listen for God to speak to us about ways in which we can be bringing about God’s dominion here on earth.  Even if we had time to listen, we just don’t have time to actually make a difference.  For some of us, we may believe we are busy serving God just as Martha thought she was serving Jesus when in fact she was keeping Jesus at a distance.  We may be busy with church committees, or church maintenance, or with teaching, or preaching and our service isn’t bringing us closer to God, it is our way of keeping God at a distance.  God can’t you see how busy I am?  You can’t possibly expect me to do more.  The truth is God may not expect more, God may expect less and different.  Jesus is coming and he doesn’t care if you are busy, he cares if you are surrendered and available to serve.

Holy work is what happens when we refuse to do the devil’s handiwork and when we stop the busy work and surrender ourselves to be available to do God’s service.  The point of Mary’s choice to listen to Jesus wasn’t to get out of work.  She wanted to learn as much as she could from Jesus while she could.  The point of those who do not work should not eat isn’t an indictment of the unemployed and a reason for us not to provide them with food and shelter.  The point is that if you have the ability to do something to make the world a better place then you should do it.  You should not expect to live in a just and peaceful world if you are not willing to do the work to bring it about.  Paul was referring to the busybodies that weren’t contributing to the community and living lives of idleness.  He wasn’t talking about those who could not find work or did not have skills, as it is applied today.  He was clearly talking about using our gifts and talents to contribute to the community we live in and to produce good fruits so that all might be nourished in body, mind, and spirit.  We are all equipped to be able to do Holy work and it takes all of us doing what we are equipped to do for us to bring about the reign of God on earth.  If we are busy doing Holy work, then God surely will be present and God will be pleased.  Amen.

Sacred texts:

Amos 77-17 

⁷ This is what I was shown: The Sovereign was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in hand. ⁸ And the Sovereign asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”

“A plumb line,” I replied.  Then the Sovereign said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.  ⁹ “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”

¹⁰ Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. ¹¹ For this is what Amos is saying:  “‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”  ¹² Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. ¹³ Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

¹⁴ Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. ¹⁵ But the sovereign took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ¹⁶ Now then, hear the word of the sovereign. You say, “‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’  ¹⁷ “Therefore this is what the Lord says: “‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.  Your land will be measured and divided up, and you yourself will die in a pagan country.  And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”

Colossians 1:1-14

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

² To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ:

Grace and peace to you from God our Creator.

³ We always thank God, the Parent of our Sovereign Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, ⁴ because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— ⁵ the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel ⁶ that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. ⁷ You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, ⁸ and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

⁹ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of God’s will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, ¹⁰ so that you may live a life worthy of the Sovereign and please the Sovereign in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to God’s glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, ¹² and giving joyful thanks to the Creator, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of God’s holy people in the realm of light. ¹³ For God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the realm of the Son God loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Luke 10:25-37 ²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Sovereign your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

³⁰ In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹ A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³² So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

³⁶ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”  ³⁷ The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

End of the sacred readings.

I have been doing projects around my house.  Currently I am building wood frames to make screens for my windows.  I am not a person who does well with precision.  I majored in social sciences to avoid those only one right answer expectations.  As I have been making these frames, one of my father’s expressions kept repeating in my head, “Measure twice and cut once.”  My father was a person with deep appreciation for precision.  Unfortunately, this was not something he was able to pass on to me.  I do find it a bit curious that my late in life hobbies, home repair, sewing, and baking all require at least a passing knowledge of measuring.  These hobbies and my success with them have taught me something about measuring.  It is not sufficient to just measure.  You have to know what to measure, what you want the measurement to tell you, and are there any conditions that will affect the accuracy of the measurement.

Amos has an encounter with God and God reveals to Amos that Israel has been measured and the people have been found wanting.  I am told by my study Bible that the words “plumb line” are a guess because the expression is not found elsewhere.  It doesn’t really matter what tool was used to measure Israel, what matters is they have not performed as God expected and God is angry.  God as understood by those who told the stories of the Hebrew Testament is often angry.  It may be more balanced to say God is disappointed and God is pointing out there are consequences when you go off and live in the way that suits you rather than living true to the standard God has set for you.  God has established the standard of behavior not as some arbitrary test to rule some people in and other people out or as a justification for God to punish individuals or nations.  God’s standards are there to guide us to the outcome of a world of peace, justice, and abundance for all.  When I measure a piece of trim, the point is to create a piece that will fit together with other pieces, if I measure accurately but the piece doesn’t fit the measurement might be good but the outcome is bad.  I measured the distance between two pieces of trim and cut the piece to go between them but it didn’t fit.  There was an obstacle and the trim had to be longer than the apparent distance to accommodate the obstacle.  God’s standards are like this, we can’t just take them at face value, we need to understand how those standards bring about the hoped for outcome.

Jesus speaks to this need to understand the standards in terms of achieving the right outcome in the story today about the Good Samaritan.  The story begins with a discussion with an expert in the law, a legalist.  The legalist wants to pin Jesus down as to what are the rules.  Jesus turns the question back to the inquirer.  The legalist knows the primary laws are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  But he wants a definition of neighbor.  Jesus tells the story of a person beaten and robbed and left for dead.  The story includes a priest and a Levite.  These are not random identities.  Jesus chose them because they, like to law scholar, would know the letter of the law.  It is very likely they avoided the man lying beside the road out of fear that touching him would make them ceremonially unclean.  They were concerned about violating purity laws found in the Book of Numbers.  Jesus raised the distinction between obeying a standard for the standard’s sake and following the law for the sake of bringing about God’s reign on earth.  We are challenged to go beyond the specifics of the law and find the spirit of the law.

We have witnessed the trial of George Zimmerman for the death of Trayvon Martin.  The legal system has said there was sufficient doubt that Zimmerman intended to kill Trayvon and that it was possible he was defending himself.  I question the self-defense argument because Zimmerman was the one stalking Trayvon not the other way around.  Regardless of the legal verdict, it is clear to me the event was a failure to meet God’s standard of how we treat each other.  There are two simple rules for us to measure our behavior.  Does our behavior reflect our love for God and does it reflect love for the other and for ourselves.  Everything else hinges on these rules.  It doesn’t matter how faithfully we keep the Ten Commandments, or whether we have memorized Leviticus.  If we are not acting out of love for God, others, and our self then we have failed the standard and the outcome will not be what we or God desires.  Amen.

Sacred texts:

2 Kings 5:1-14 

Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him God had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.  ² Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. ³ She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”

⁴ Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. ⁵ “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. ⁶ The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”

⁷ As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”

⁸ When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” ⁹ So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰ Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

¹¹ But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Mighty One his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. ¹² Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.

¹³ Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” ¹⁴ So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

Galatians 6:1-16 

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. ² Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. ³ If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. ⁴ Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, ⁵ for each one should carry their own load. ⁶ Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.  ⁷ Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A person reaps what she or he sows. ⁸ Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. ⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

¹¹ See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!

 ¹² Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. ¹³ Not even those who are circumcised keep the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your circumcision in the flesh. ¹⁴ May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. ¹⁵ Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. ¹⁶ Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule—to the Israel of God.

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. ² He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask God of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the harvest field. ³ Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. ⁴ Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.  ⁵ “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ ⁶ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. ⁷ Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves wages. Do not move around from house to house.  ⁸ “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. ⁹ Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The dominion of God has come near to you.’ ¹⁰ But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ¹¹ ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The dominion of God has come near.’

¹⁶ “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects the One who sent me.”  ¹⁷ The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”  ¹⁸ He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹ I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. ²⁰ However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

End sacred texts

This is one of those oh too frequent times when my message is really a conversation between God and I that I share with you on the off chance you might learn without having to go through the life lesson.

I am a rule based compliant child.  I was raised to understand there are rules and those rules are violated only with a clear understanding that there will be consequences.  The other side of this is the belief that if you obeyed the rules then there would be no consequences.  This leads to a belief that life will be fair.  I maintained this core belief despite frequent reminders from my mother that no one is ever promised that life will be fair.  I found my way into secular ministry in the role of social worker.  I suspect the reason for this career choice was an abiding desire to make the world fair.  Eventually my career moved me even more directly into the whole rule based system by working in the area of regulating adult foster care homes.  My role was to determine compliance with the rules and meet out consequences for those who failed to keep the rules.  Because we were social workers, our sense of enforcing the rules include a high level of desire to explain the rules and help the operator with coming into compliance with the rules.  We didn’t see the rules as being there for the rule’s sake but because the rule made life safer and better for those in care.

The readings for today have a great deal to say about rules and why we should follow the rules.  Naaman has leprosy and wants to be made well.  When he is instructed as to what he must do to be made well, he thinks the requirements are foolish and he is unwilling to do what he is told.  How often do we petition God for something in our lives and then when the answer comes to us we think the requirements are foolish or too hard.  We want to win the game but we don’t want to play by the rules unless they make sense to us.  It is when Naaman is reminded that he asked to be healed and he would do anything to be healed so why not do what the prophet told him.  Sometimes we need to be reminded that to win the game we have to play by the rules even when we don’t like them or they don’t make sense. 

However, in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he tells them they shouldn’t make others play by the rules.  He says it isn’t the rules that are important, it is our relationship with God that matters.  So much of the history of religion has been about the creation of rules.  Obeying the rules defines you in and violating the rules defines you out.  The rules became the important concern of religious leaders and of those who wanted to win the game.

So which is it?  Is the most important thing in life following the rules or is it in doing what seems right to us?  I think the answer is in for what sake are you acting and what does it mean to win the game.  Following the rules for the rule’s sake is to play the game with the goal of controlling our own destiny, winning the game means that we are able to get what we have earned through our diligent efforts to keep the rules.  Following the rules for God’s sake is to play the game knowing we control nothing and everything, even the outcome of the game is in God’s control.  I don’t know why God wanted Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordon River, perhaps God was testing Naaman’s humility to be willing to do something foolish.  Or maybe, God wanted Naaman to think about what he was doing, why he was doing it, and to surrender to the direction of God.  For whatever reason, following the rules was essential for Naaman to be healed of leprosy.  It is surprising to me that there did not arise a ritual requirement for persons with leprosy to bathe in the Jordon River seven times to be healed.  New rules could have been written about when this would be effective and how long each dip in the water must last, etc.  Clearly dipping in the Jordon was not God’s only way of healing leprosy as Jesus healed lepers without Jordon immersion.  The rules cannot be generalize to all people in the same situation.  It isn’t the rules that heal.  Following the rules for God’s sake means we must be open to hear the rules God has for us and know that it is only in God’s wisdom and guidance that we win the game of life.

This is where the message is mostly for me.  I have been experiencing a difficult time with the person in my denomination who appoints interim pastors.  Some hurtful comments were made about how I did interim ministry and suggested I had been working only for my own benefit and with disregard for the rules.  I have been trying to resolve this by direct dealing and sharing how from my point of view I had done nothing wrong.  I was confident that as long as I demonstrated how I had played by the rules then I would be vindicated and life would be fair.  I was even more frustrated when I went to our General Conference expecting to have a chance face to face to resolve this issue and return to being sued by the denomination to continue interim ministry.  Just before conference the person I hoped to meet to resolve this abruptly resigned.  Far from resolving the situation, the resignation only complicated it.  There was no place to be vindicated, to prove the rightness of my actions and the purity of my motives.  I found myself in an almost constant, why me, this isn’t fair mantra. 

On my way home from conference, I started working with this week’s lectionary texts.  And this is where God started to speak to me.  God confronted me with my feelings about what is right and fair.  God asked me why did you play by the rules?  Were you expecting to be rewarded because you served and did what I called you to do?  If you were playing by the rules out of the expectation that you would be rewarded with continuing ministry, if you worked hard at being a good interim minister so you would gain praise from others, then you were playing by the rules for the rule’s sake.  You were trying to purchase the outcome you desired rather than wanting to do what I called you to do.  It was not the most pleasant train ride home from conference as I struggled with just what was my motivation, what did I expect from playing by the rules?

I don’t have all the answers yet, this is new to me.  But what I do know is that I want to play by the rules for God’s sake and not for the rule’s sake, or even for my sake.  If I am playing by the rules to gain the praise of others, to feel in control of my life, or to buy certain outcomes, then all of the benefit of my work is only for the here and now.  I sincerely want my work to be for God’s glory and to bring about God’s dominion in this world.  I do not want to rejoice in what I have done, I want to rejoice that my name is written down in heaven.  Amen and let it be so.

Sacred texts:

Deuteronomy 25:5-10

⁵ If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. ⁶ The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.  ⁷ However, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to carry on his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.” ⁸ Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her,” ⁹ his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.” ¹⁰ That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and women or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Matthew 22:23-40

²³ That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. ²⁴ “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. ²⁵ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. ²⁶ The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. ²⁷ Finally, the woman died. ²⁸ Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”²⁹ Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. ³⁰ At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. ³¹ But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ³² ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?  YWYH is not the God of the dead but of the living.”  ³³ When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.

³⁴ Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. ³⁵ One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”  ³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Sovereign your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

End of sacred texts.

This last week the news has been full of commentary on marriage, well the commentary has been going on much longer than just last week but it reached a fever pitch with the Supreme Court rulings on Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act and the court’s decision not to intervene in Prop 8 decision in California.  The basic impact of these decisions, and forgive my simplistic understanding, is that the Supreme Court ruled the congress could not make a law that singled out persons based on gender for special treatment, specifically a law that said two persons of the same gender may not enter into a contract that is available to two persons of opposite gender.  Secondly, the court ruled that the petitioners in the Prop 8 case did not have standing to appeal to the Supreme Court and therefore the court would not rule on the merits of their appeal returning the case to the state courts that had already ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional.  The impact of these decisions was tremendous for those persons in California who had been banned from getting married and for those persons in states and the District of Columbia where same gender marriage is legal.  The rulings validated their marriages and made Federal benefits available to them.  What the rulings did not do was declare that marriage is a constitutional right to all adults regardless of gender attraction.  The rulings avoided the questions as to whether there is a constitutional right for each adult to marry the person of their choosing regardless of the genders expressed or assigned to the persons involved.  Marriage has always been a matter for states to determine and this battle will have to be fought state by state.  People on all sides of the issue have stated that marriage has been forever redefined but I do not believe that is true, great progress has been made but the battle is far from won.  Despite that, some of the religious fundamentalists are certain that we have offended God.  Michael Huckabee declared that Jesus wept at the decision.  It is possible in my theology that this is true, but they would have been tears of joy that humankind was moving toward loving instead of judging each other.  Pat Robertson declared we should be prepared for God to deal with America as God dealt with Sodom and Gomorrah as a result of the decision.  Once again I can agree God has the foundation to deal with us like Sodom and Gomorrah but not for the reason poor demented Pat suggests.  According to Ezekiel 16:49 “"'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”  I think our present political climate would support that America has some arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned individuals in positions of power who are working to the detriment of the poor and needy.  I am not personally investing is fire and brimstone protective gear as I do not believe God visits punishments in this way anymore if God ever did.  The point is I don’t think anyone is dealing with the clear issue as to what is the foundation of marriage and how do we defend it?

The fundamentalists insist the foundation of marriage is the cleaving of a man to a woman for the purpose of procreation.  The passage from Deuteronomy would seem to support this concept.  Men married women so they could produce offspring and if they didn’t before the man died, then the brothers were obligated to produce an heir for their brother.  This seems to make procreation critical but it doesn’t do much to support the one man one woman requirement.  There is no clear indication that each brother must refrain from marrying until the older brother has produced an heir so it is possible this brotherly obligation did not preclude the brother having another wife, in fact, there are many examples of men having multiple partners in the stories of the Bible and God seems to bless this or at least not condemn it.  There is also the illusion to the Samaritan woman with several husbands and a man she lives with without benefit of marriage, which Jesus does not condemn.  It is just not clear what the correct composition of marriage is and we cannot clearly say what is a traditional marriage.  What is clear is that marriage has not always been about romance and everlasting love.  The romantic notion of marriage is relatively new.  Marriages were most often about finances and power.  Wealthy households arranged the marriage of their children to preserve and increase the wealth.  Sovereigns arranged marriages to expand their territories or consolidate their power.  Common folk didn’t generally have elaborate marriages, or any kind of ceremony at all.  They would simply unite their lives and register their marriage with the parish priest.  For the majority of recorded history, marriage was seen as a property transfer, the woman was the property of her father or eldest brother until she was given in marriage to a man to be her husband.  There was no expectation that either party to this contract would be attracted to the other or even enjoy their company, that wasn’t the point, the point was to create children to carry on the family business whether it was commerce or power.  It was very common during this time for both men and women to have emotional connections with persons outside the marriage.  Only in the last few hundred years did people start selecting their own mate and doing so for romantic reasons.

I do not believe there is one right foundation for marriage.  Certainly God is in the love business but loving comes in a wide array of expressions.  Some people love the person who makes them laugh, or they love the person who enjoys what they enjoy, or even loving the person who can provide them with security, or security for their children.  None of these reasons for loving and marrying another person would seem inherently wrong to me, or outside what God ordains.  I believe God is not concerned about the reasons we wish to marry, much less what the gender expressions of the participants are.  I believe God cares about the honesty of our commitments, the sincerity of our pledges to each other, and the integrity with which we live out the promises we have made to each other.  The foundation for marriage that we need to defend is the commitment the parties make to each other and doing everything possible for them to keep those commitments.  Marriage should no longer be the concern of others to protect wealth, control power, or support religious traditions.  Earthly marriages aren’t related to eternal matters, at least if Jesus is to be believed.  Earthly marriages are about finding the one that will support you becoming all God intends you to be, the one who completes you, not your better or worse half, not your superior or your inferior, not a trophy or a project, but a mate, a partner, a spouse committed to you as much as he or she is committed to themselves.  That is what the whole love chapter is about.  That is what marriage is all about, and that is what we should all be fighting to defend.  Amen.

Sacred texts:

Exodus 19:2-8

² After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain.

³ Then Moses went up to God, and God called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ⁴ ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. ⁵ Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, ⁶ you will be for me a monarchy of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”

⁷ So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words God had commanded him to speak. ⁸ The people all responded together, “We will do everything God has said.” So Moses brought their answer back to God.

Matthew 8:5-13

⁵ When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ⁶ “Lord,” he said, “my house-boy lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

⁷ Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

⁸ The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my house-boy will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. ¹¹ I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the monarchy of heaven. ¹² But the subjects of the monarchy will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

¹³ Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his house-boy was healed at that moment.

John 4:4-30, 39-42

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his children and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Creator neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Creator in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Creator seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and worshipers of God must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When the Messiah comes, Christ will explain everything to us.”

²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am the Christ.”

²⁷ Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.³⁹ Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹ And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴² They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

End of sacred texts.

Everything comes down to relationships; our relationship with others, our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with the rest of creation, and our relationship with God.  Relationships are foundational to the function of religion.  The obvious relationship with an external force believed to have the power to control our circumstances.  Every society as far as we can know has some form of religion, meaning an organized method of relating to the forces around us.  Societies developed ritual practices in an attempt to either please or control the force and most likely a little bit of both.  These religious practices quickly developed rules to control the relationship between people and to define the relationship between humankind and the rest of creation.  It is not always clear to us how the desire to be in relationship with the Divine force evolved into controlling each other.  It is clear that most religions have changed radically when they went from being persecuted by societies and governments to being the agents of society and government.

Political leaders have always sought to claim connection to the Divine as a way of maintaining control and punishing those who behaved outside the rules of the religion.  During the time of the Original Testament nations had their own god and the gods of different nations and societies were expected to enter into the battles that were the result of human disputes.  The power of a god was measured by the success of those who claimed that god as their own.  Conquered people were subjugated to the authority of the god of the conquering people and they were forced to adopt that religion.  One of the challenges for people of faith is to reconcile the stories of a national god with our understanding of the one God.  The struggle is made more difficult by the vested interest of political authorities to claim God as being on their side.  Abraham Lincoln is reported as having been asked if God was on the side of the Union and he replied the more important question was whether the Union was on God’s side.  Similarly some have said it is more important the America blesses God than to ask God to bless America.  If we seek to understand our relationship with God as one of our seeking to know and follow God then our religion and its impact will be very different than if we think of God as a source of giving us particular blessings withheld from others.   The Exodus passage for today comes from the Hebrew tradition of being God’s chosen people, a treasure among the nations.  Today, Christians read this passage as not a national treasure but as the treasured status of Christians over other faith traditions.  I would suggest the passage teaches us about God’s love for one who hears God and seeks to obey God’s commandments regardless of what faith tradition has introduced one to God.

The word used in the oldest version of this passage we have today refers to the eagle using the feminine form.  God is described as a mother eagle who teaches her young to fly by carrying them  on her wings until they could soar as eagles themselves.  God is portrayed as teaching us how to fly by example, by giving us commandments on how to live together in harmony, not as superior or inferior to each other or to creation but as one creation.  It is only in finding this harmony with the rest of creation that we can find our harmony with God the Creator.  We are challenged to give up the need to control others or the environment in our sense of superiority but to understand it is only when we live in harmony with each other and with the environment that we can live a truly peaceful and safe existence.

The two stories from the Gospels also talk about relationships.  The first is the relationship of the Centurion and his companion.  The original Greek words translated as servant were a combination of boy and servant and are best translated as house-boy because the words imply a greater level of intimacy than one would have with a servant.  We cannot know if this companion was actually a sexual partner for the Centurion, they may have had a father/son type of relationship but they were clearly very close.  Jesus honors this relationship without question.  Jesus is impressed by the faith of the Centurion and his compassion for his house-boy.  Jesus feels no need to clarify the relationship or judge whether the Centurion should have a house-boy or whether it was appropriate for there to be love between these two persons.  Clearly to follow Jesus we need to be less concerned about whether we approve of a relationship and more concerned about bringing the power of God’s healing to the relationship.

This concept is even clearer in the story of the Samaritan women.  On the surface, Jesus challenges the concept that Samaritans and women are outside of God’s compassion.  If God were the God of the Jews, then Jesus would have nothing to do with a Samaritan.  If God believes women are inferior to men, Jesus would not have brought the news of Messiah to a woman in a Samaritan village.  Have you ever notice how often God has used women to announce God doing a new thing.  The Samaritan women tells the village the Messiah is at the well and Mary tells the disciples that Jesus has risen.  God clearly has a very trusting relationship with women and women are clearly open to hearing God tell them good news.  This person is an outcast in an outcast community.  The Samaritans are outcasts and she has had five husbands and is living with a man who is not her husband which would have made her outcast in the Samaritan culture of the day.  I have been told the reason she came to the well at noon is because it would have been unsafe for her to come at other times when it would be cooler and others would be present.  I can believe Jesus stopped at the well at this time knowing this woman needed to hear the good news of God’s love for her.  Jesus did not condemn her for being a Samaritan nor did he condemn the fact that she had been in numerous intimate relationships.  How often we miss the fact that Jesus does not tell her to get herself into a committed monogamous relationship so she can receive life giving water of God’s love.  He doesn’t even tell her to go and sin no more.  Jesus does not see this as an opportunity to tell us about the evils of intimacy with more than one person or the evil of living in a relationship not recognized or condoned by the moral or legal authorities of the day.  Instead he uses this as an opportunity to share with her and through her with the rest of us God’s desire to satisfy our thirst.  Maybe there is a couse and effect between her numerous relationships and the thirst Jesus seeks to quench.  Maybe that is another sermon topic but for today it is only important that we recognize that Jesus accepts her and her relationships without judgment.

How does God view relationships?  God views them as critical to our survival in this world as God created it.  God has not created us to put us in dominion over each other and the environment.  God has instead created us to be in relationship with the Creator and through that relationship to find our harmony with all of creation so we may live in peace and safety.  Amen.