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.