There are a lot of people talking about scarcity today.  The shortage of oil is crippling our economy.  The lack of clean water is putting nations at risk.  We do not have the resources necessary to give proper health care to everyone.  There are not enough jobs to employ everyone who wants a job.  The government does not have enough money to fund our schools, take care of our infrastructure, or feed our citizens.  Farmers do not have enough land and cannot earn enough for them to be able to produce the food we need to sustain our selves.  It would seem most of the things we need to sustain life are in short supply.

I believe these are all legitimate issues.  What is in question is how we respond to these issues.  It may seem natural to respond with worry but our God challenges us not to worry.  Our God is an abundant god.  Jesus tells us we should not worry about what we will eat or what we will wear.  God provides for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field and we are much more to God than birds or flowers.  Does this mean we don’t have to work and we don’t have to purchase food or clothing?  I don’t believe that is what Jesus is telling us at all.  Jesus is pointing out that the birds and the flowers are living in God’s will for them and they have the food they need and they are adorned in great beauty.  The birds don’t worry about accumulating vast quantities of seeds or having a closet full of feathers in case the ones they have wear out or go out of fashion.  The flowers of the field aren’t fretting about stocking up on rainwater or gathering rich soil in a bank account to take care of them in their old age.  They just are what they were intended to be, they live out the life they are given, whether it is counted in days or in years.  Jesus is telling us that worrying about shortages will not change our circumstances in any way.  No amount of worrying will increase the amount of money we have, or increase our supply of water or oil.  Worrying doesn’t increase farm production or create employment.  The truth is that worrying is more apt to decrease these things.  When we worry about having enough money, we stop spending and we stop giving and the economy slumps and charitable organizations lace resources.  When we worry about having enough oil or water, we start hording what we have and we seek to control the sources of these essentials and the world becomes less just and less peaceful.  If we worry about having a job, we may continue working at something that is not right for us and the result may well be that we lose our job anyway.  Worrying farm production and having enough may cause us to horde food causing the price to go up and making it harder for us to be able to afford the food in the future.  Worrying means we do not trust in God’s abundant love.

God tells us to come out of our fear and worry and trust in God to provide what we need to be who God has called us to be.  Fear and worry causes us to horde and to mistrust those around us and we cannot be what God has called us to be if we are hording for our own needs and distrusting those we are called to love.  I believe what Jesus and God are saying to us is it is only in our faith and willingness to trust in God’s love that we can be all God has called us to be.  One way to understand the miracle of the feeding of five thousand is to believe that when the people saw the generosity of the child with his lunch of loaves and fishes that they brought out their own lunches and combined them to the point there was abundance.  I don’t know whether the people produced the abundance or Jesus produced the abundance, either way it was a miracle and it confirmed God is a god of abundance.  There wasn’t just enough to feed the people, there was twelve baskets full of food left over.  When we trust in God, we are given an abundance.

We are challenged to stop worrying about the shortages and start working to produce God’s abundance.  I believe we can have enough clean water for everyone if we are good stewards of what has given us, if we allow the world to heal the water as God designed it to do.  We should stop worrying and work to stop the pollution.  I believe the world can produce the food we need if we are good stewards of the land and we stop the waste of the food it produces.  I believe we can have abundant energy to sustain our industry if we seek practical ways to use the variety of energy resources God has provided us.  We can have the abundance if we stop hording and stop worrying about being able to control energy as a way to control the world.  I believe we can have full employment if we are willing to pay a living wage to people to provide us with what we need.  When we abuse labor in developing countries and use children for labor, we deny a living wage to employees and people without a living wage do not consume goods and services and stimulate more jobs.  If we are hording great wealth for our future, we take that wealth out of the economy.  Worrying never solves a problem.  Only when we work for God honoring solutions is there hope for anything to change.  We, as people of faith, should never worry because we believe in God’s abundant love.  Amen.

I don’t know a great deal about farming but you don’t have to know much to know that the crops that grow are a result of the seeds the farmer planted.  I am pretty sure no farmer just throws a bunch of seeds out on his or her fields and then sits back waiting to see what comes up.  I did throw wild flower seed on a patch of earth in my yard and waited to see what flowers I would get, but I did know I would get flowers.  When it comes to planting seeds that will grow fruit, more planning is necessary.  You have to have the right soil, the right amount of sun, the right moisture, and the right distance between seeds if you want maximum productivity from your seeds.  Even with no till farming, some consideration goes into what you plant where.

If we are aware that growing fruits and vegetables requires some thought and planning, why do we not give more thought to the seeds we are planting in our lives.  The seeds we plant in our thoughts, words, actions, and beliefs will determine the fruits we produce in our lives.  Jesus says if you have hated you have killed, if you have lusted you have committed adultery, if you have insulted you have assaulted.  It is because when you allow hatred, lust, contempt, envy, revenge or any other hostile though toward another a place to grow in your life you have made it possible for those seeds to grow and produce hostile actions.  We tell ourselves it is ok to have those thoughts as long as we don’t express them out loud or act on them but that is like saying it is okay to let the crabgrass grow in the lawn as long as we cut it short no one will know.  The truth is the crabgrass will choke out the good grass if we don’t work to weed it out of the yard.  We may even begin to believe the crabgrass is what our lawn is supposed to look like.

We all have emotional reactions to others and that is good.  The problem comes when we cease to see that person as an equal to us and as a person with their own needs that are as important as our needs.  Being angry at what another person has done is a normal response.  However, when we use our anger at what happened as an excuse to demean the person and ascribe to them all sorts of evil intent we have planted the seeds to treat that person in rude and hurtful ways.  Finding another person to be attractive is a good thing.  We may believe looking at another person as an object with the potential to satisfy a need in us is harmless but if we allow the thought to remain unchecked, the person will cease to be a person and will become in our mind an object and we will treat them as an object without concern for their dignity and value as a human being.  Lust is not the same as attraction, lust is when we think only of ourselves without care for the other.   Giving another person constructive criticism can be one of the greatest gifts we can give them.  Insulting a person by attacking the very core of who they are and speaking words intended to wound is as bad as physically attacking them, in some ways it is worse because physical wounds will heal faster than emotional wounds.  Anytime we let our own needs blind us to the personhood of another, we have planted the seeds that will grow into demeaning, hateful, exploitive fruits.  And these fruits don’t just affect our relationship with one person, they take over our garden just like crabgrass will take over our lawn.

Planting good seeds in our life, like planting good seeds in our garden, requires thought and work.  I can assure you if you don’t think about the seeds falling on the ground of your garden, you are more likely to produce weeds than fruits and vegetables.  You have to look for the seeds you want to produce the fruit and vegetables in your garden.  You have to seek out the behaviors and words you want in your life too.  You can search the sacred texts to find the seeds and you can look at the lives of people you see producing the fruits you want and get your seeds from them.  I think a good seed to start with for your garden is, “do to other people what you would want them to do to you.”  When you start to talk about another person, think how you would feel is someone was saying this about you.  When you are ready to tell someone else off, think about how you would respond if you were spoken to in this way.  When you think about another person as a object, think about how it feels to be treated as an object.  Once you have found some seeds you want to plant in your garden, you have to remember they do nothing until you plant them in fertile soil.  Having the golden rule hanging prominently in your house, having the Bible on your book self will grow nothing in your life unless you apply them.  It is also a good idea to make sure your seeds get adequate light and water if you want them to grow.  I believe the seeds of our life get light when you take them out share them with others, examine how they are making a difference in the way we live.  I think we water and feed our life seeds by celebrating them.  Our seeds of faith grow when we gather together to worship with others.  We water them when we go back to the source and refresh ourselves from the words or actions we found in the sacred texts or the life of a person we admire.

I think most people who plant a garden take great pleasure in visiting it regularly and checking on the progress of their crops.  They linger in the garden looking for weeds that are sprouting up and plucking them out before they can choke out the good plants and before they can produce bad fruit and spread its seeds further in the garden.  The gardener senses all is well as good fruits and vegetables ripen in their garden.  We too should regularly examine the garden that is our life to see what is growing there, to look for hostile thoughts that have sprouted there and pluck them out before they can produce fruit or spread their seeds.  We should look to see what our garden is producing in us.  Are we feeling contentment, are we at peace, are we in loving relationships with those around us?  Planting a good garden will feed us for the rest of our lives.  Amen.

 My response to the warnings that we were in for a severe winter storm was to go out and buy the ingredients to make up winter storm survival food.  I can live without lights, and cable, and even heat, but I don’t do well without food.  I figured I would have gas since it was unlikely that anything would interfere with gas supply.  I decided on soup and chili as good winter storm food.  It was important to have the meat and vegetables to make the soup and chili but it was just as important to have the seasonings to enhance the flavor of the other ingredients.  It is the seasoning that moves the meal from just meeting our requirement for daily intake of calories and nutrients to an experience that brings us great enjoyment.  I once made spaghetti sauce for a group meal and I must have skimped on the seasoning because one of my friends stormed into the kitchen and demanded to know if I had ever heard of seasonings.  If we want food to taste special, we must add the right seasonings to bring out the flavor.

The New International Version of the Bible translates Matthew 5:13 this way, “You are the salt of the earth.  But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men and women.”  It is clear to me, after our experience this last week that Jesus was speaking to people who lived in a warm, arid climate.  Here we understand the value of salt that is spread out for us to walk on.  Jesus wasn’t speaking of the ice melting qualities of salt.  Jesus was speaking of how salt brings out the flavor of the food it is applied to.  We are to be the salt of the earth.  We are to bring out the flavor of the rest of creation.  If we fail to do that, then we are useless.

Enhancing the flavor of something does not mean overpowering the original.  We salt our food in moderation, or we should, just enough to bring out the flavor but not so much that we can’t taste the ingredients.  As salt to the world, we are to help those around us to bring out their talents, to find their voice, and to encourage them to serve with others for a greater good.  We salt each other with encouraging words and with teaching, and with constructive criticism.  Salt is not supposed to stifle the food and we are not supposed to stifle the people we associate with in our daily interactions.  We are not the primary ingredient and we are not supposed to call attention to ourselves.  We can best season the world around us when we mix in with the world while largely going unnoticed.

It is critical for seasoning to get out of its container to be effective.  Having a large assortment of seasonings will not enhance your cooking if you never mix them in with the other ingredients.  When we don’t use the gifts and talents God has given us, then we are like salt left in the box and we become stale and useless.  We must be willing to mix into the world and use our talents if we are to improve the flavor of the world.  I think too often we are afraid to use our talents for fear we will exhaust them and then we will be left with nothing.  You will pardon the mixed metaphor but there is a saying that it is better to wear out than to rust out.  We are happier when we use our talents than when we horde them for some future occasion that may never come.  My grandmother made beautiful crochet bedspreads and she gave them to my mother and my aunt and both of them thought they were too nice to use for everyday so they folded them up and put them away for a special occasion.  When my parents died and we cleaned out their home, I found one of the bed spreads and I unpacked it and it fell apart.  It had rotted in the box, no one ever got to enjoy its beauty because it was being saved for a special occasion.  We need to get our talents out and use them for everyday, if they wear out then it will be because they were used and not because they were never used.

The other important thing about being salt to the world is that the value of seasoning is in what it encourages not what it diminishes.  We don’t season food to eliminate the flavor of the food.  As salt in the world our task is not to go around telling others what they shouldn’t do.  Salt doesn’t try to change beef into fish or corn into a green bean.  We aren’t asked by God to go into the world and tell others what they should be so the world will be better.  We go into the world doing what we can with what we have to enhance the world and encouraging others to bring out their best to make the world a better place.  Jesus says we are to be salt and light.  Similar to salt, light doesn’t really change things, it just makes them visible.  The same things are present in the light that present in the dark, the light just makes them clearer and more useable.  Our function as salt and light is not to change the world but to be used by God to change the world.  Isaiah in the passage we read today tells us to stop blaming the victims, stop gossiping about other people and get on about the business of doing what we can to make the world better.  Being seasoning and light is about doing something, about enhancing the world around us being the catalyst for the best to be achieved by others, by making it easier to see what needs to be done.  Being effective seasoning and effective light is about mixing in the world and shining brightly; it is not about what we leave out or about hiding our light under a basket.  Amen.

When I was in undergraduate school learning to be a social worker, they required us to take classes on how to do research.  They were not my favorite classes because they required exact answers based on data and provable formulas.  I much preferred classes that allowed for answers that were less exact and more philosophical, fuzzy answers so to speak.  One part of the research classes I do remember was the belief that it was important to remove researcher bias from the data collected.  We learned how to do blind surveys and how to have control groups and other methods to validate that the surveyor or survey did not affect the results of the research.  The effort that went into removing researcher bias was impressive.  However, by the time I made it to graduate school, to learn how to be an even better social worker, the new buzz was all about how it is impossible to remove researcher bias due to the fact that the researcher views the data through their own lens of understanding.  We all understand the data life gives us from our own lens of understanding.

Our perception of what is going on around us is largely based on our previous experiences, our education, and our core beliefs.  Two of us can see and hear what is happening in Egypt and have very different understandings of what it means.  Based on our past experience with unrest in the Middle East we may see it as a liberating force destined only to improve the world or the precursor to World War III.  Based on our life situation we can hear the news of significant cuts in government spending and see it as a prudent response to deficit spending or as a threat to our employment.  One of us can hear the diagnosis of cancer and respond with the assumption it will be treatable and manageable while another hears the same diagnosis as a death notice.  Our wisdom is based on what we have been taught, what we have experienced, and what we have been taught to believe.  Most of us have been taught good behavior will be rewarded and bad behavior will be punished.  Most of us have also experienced that that good behavior not only isn’t always rewarded but is sometimes punished and bad behavior is sometimes rewarded rather than being punished and this conflict between what we have been taught and what we have experienced sends us to our belief system and asks why do bad things happen to good people?

We take our question to the courts of God to demand to know why what we experience is not the way we have been taught things should be.  My belief is that God responds that what we have been taught is out or our human wisdom if how things ought to be.  We trust in an external system of rewards and punishment while God works from a system of internal rewards and punishments.  The reward for doing what is right is not in a life without difficulty or suffering but a life of knowing we have done what was right regardless of whether the outside world recognized our good behavior.  The punishment for doing what we know is wrong is feeling a distance from our moral center and being disappointed in ourselves.  Doing what is right when we don’t have to or when it would be to our benefit not to seems foolish to the world but is wisdom for those who understands what God requires of us and those who understand the contentment that comes from being in right relationship with God.

The Beatitudes found in today’s Gospel reading make no sense to us when we read them using our world wisdom lens.  Being poor in spirit, mourning, meekness, hunger and thirst, and persecution are not seen by the world as blessings but God says they are.  Poverty of spirit brings us to desire more spirit, mourning means we have loved and been loved, meekness means we understand our place in the universe, hunger and thirst means we know what it is like to have had access to righteousness and miss it when it is gone, and persecution means we have stood up for something important to us regardless of the cost.  The blessing comes from gaining a better understanding of ourselves rather than being rewarded by the world.  Mother Teresa put it this way, “People are often unreasonable and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.  If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.  The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway.  For, you see, in the end, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.”

If we are to find wisdom, if we are to find contentment, we must find it from inside.  God’s wisdom is from the inside out not the outside in.  We are challenged as people of faith to examine what we think to be the wise thing to do based on our experience and education using God’s wisdom that sees well beyond our limited understanding of rewards and punishments.  God understands eternal consequences.  God guides us toward rewards that will last us long after this mortal life has ended.  God cares about rewarding, feeding, nurturing, and caring for our souls.  Reaping rewards in this lifetime, seeking a life free of stress and suffering in this lifetime, working to get ahead in this lifetime at the expense of gaining rewards for eternity, learning how to trust in God for an eternity, and working toward finding our contentment in God, is a very shortsighted wisdom.  I would say it is no wisdom at all.  Amen.

I was thinking of starting this sermon with a game of follow the leader of Simon says.  But I didn’t much like those games when I was young so I decided it was a bad plan.  The problem with follow the leader was the leader usually thought of things to do that most of the rest of us couldn’t do just to make us feel left out.  And Simon says was based on the premise that you could get people to follow your command if you got them used to you speaking in behalf to Simon.  Like most childhood games there is something to be learned from these games based on following someone else.  It is important who you choose to be leader if you are going to play the game.  If we are honest, we all have leaders, people whose lives we seek to mimic.  Some people remain our leaders for a lifetime and some leaders we follow only for a season. 

Sometimes we try to follow someone who is not at all like us, they have different gifts, talents, body shapes, and we still try to be like them.  All we end up doing is embarrassing ourselves and feeling bad about ourselves.  We cannot be anything other than what we were created to be.  I had coworkers who decided their daughter was going to be an Olympic caliber gymnast.  They were both short, large boned people.  There was a pretty good chance their daughter was going to be a short, large boned person also.  They enrolled her in tumbling classes about the same time she was learning to walk and had in gymnastics classes as soon as she was old enough to be admitted.  She always struggled with the classes and never seemed to me to be enjoying them much.  Her parents couldn’t give up on the dream and kept pushing her to keep working on being a gymnast.  Finally, one of the instructors they hired for her sat them all down and told the girl, if she enjoyed the activity, she should continue but she would never be a competitive gymnast.  The parents were angry and the girl was so relieved.  No amount of work was going to change her basic body structure into that of a gymnast.  In her case it was her parents’ dream, but sometimes we desire to be something we cannot be also.  Picking the wrong leader only frustrates us and causes us to appear foolish.  Picking the right leader allows us to use the gifts, talents, and positive qualities that are ours.  We need to be very aware and honest about what our gifts, talents, and positive qualities are if we are to pick the right leader.  We want to find the leader that will show us how to make the most of who we are and what we have.  If we want to win the game we need to choose a leader that will challenge us without defeating or humiliating us.

The game of Simon says also has a great lesson for us in choosing our leader.  I don’t know how Simon got to be the one who tells everyone what to do.  My research says the origins are in ancient Rome and the original Simon was Cicero, an influential philosopher and government leader and somehow Cicero became Simon.  I suppose it doesn’t matter why the person in charge is called Simon but I do find it curious since it is not a name associated with power as far as I know.  The person who leads the group isn’t Simon; they just channel Simon for the group.  They yell out commands and the group is only supposed to do the commands that begin with “Simon says…”  The point of the game is to trick people into doing the commands the leader shouts out that aren’t from Simon or to trick the people into not following the commands that do come from Simon.  The leader will usually call out several commands authored by Simon and then shout out a command of their own.  People get so used to following the command of the leader that they just do whatever is called out.  Or, the leader makes lots of commands of their own and then slips in a command from Simon.  The people get so used to ignoring the commands of the leader that they miss the command from Simon.  We do this same thing with our spiritual leaders today.  Only the spiritual leader isn’t channeling Simon, they are channeling God.  The people get so used to the spiritual leader telling them what God wants them to do that they miss when the leader is no longer speaking for God and have started telling the people what they want them to do.  The people have lost track of what God is telling them to do and are now letting the spiritual leader tell them what to do.  We need to listen carefully so we can be sure we are following God and not the leader.  It is also true there are some spiritual leaders we rarely here say anything from God and then we miss when they do say something God would tell us to do.  We don’t do what God would have us to do because we ignored someone we have dismissed as not ever speaking for God.

Who you follow is critically to getting where we want to go.  Do not follow someone who does not recognize your gifts and talents nor someone who is going to confuse you about who they are speaking for when they lead.  It is clear to me, we want to follow God because God gave us our gifts and talents and God only speaks for God and never tries to deceive us.  Amen.

What does it mean to be chosen?  Most of us have painful memories of what it meant to not be chosen.  Some of us weren’t picked or were picked last to be on a team because we lacked any talent for playing the game or we had lots of talent but we were considered to be the wrong gender to be good at the game.  We weren’t chosen to go to parties or we weren’t chosen by the person we wanted to ask us on a date.  Not being chosen can be painful.  Being chosen can also be painful, I grew up during the time when young men were still be drafted/chosen to serve in the military and many of us didn’t want to be chosen to serve in an unpopular war.  Some are not thrilled when they are chosen to serve on a jury.  Our society depends on people who are willing to serve in our military and to serve the justice system, we would just prefer it not be us because it interferes with our life plans.

Isaiah tells us how God chose one to be the savior of the nation of Israel and the rest of the earth.  God calls this person in utero and takes the child by the hand at the moment of birth.  Isaiah makes it very clear this person is chosen by God for great things. This passage is called the second servant poem of Isaiah.  The servant poems tell of God’s plan to send a savior, messiah, to Israel and to the world.  God has chosen this person to love, teach, heal, and serve the people of earth and this person will suffer as a result of being chosen of God.  Paul also shares how he is called of God through the risen Christ and shares how all are called by God and God provides them with all they need to do what God has called them to do.  This is the same Paul who will be scourged, beaten, spit upon, and imprisoned as a result of being chosen by God.  The final text for today describes how two of John’s disciples come to Jesus and he asks them, what do you want, what do you seek, or what are you after depending on what translation you read.  This seems such a profound question from someone you have been told is the Lamb of God but their answer is to inquire where he is staying.  I wonder, if Jesus were to ask today what you or I wanted, sought, or were after, how would each of us respond?  I also think it is interesting that, when the disciples of John asked where Jesus was staying, he took them to where he was staying and they stayed with him.  While, when the teacher of the law told Jesus he would follow him anywhere, Jesus responded that foxes have dens and birds have nests but the son of humankind has nowhere to rest his head.  The disciples were prepared to follow Jesus and he took them with him but the teacher of the law was conflicted about the demands of following Jesus and Jesus told him the choice would be hard.   God never deceives us about what it means to be chosen by God.

The danger is that we may think God chooses a select few into a special relationship with God.  We talk about those who are called into some particular ministry which is accurate but not limiting.  We are all called into a special relationship with God and into a ministry.  God is not like the people of our past who made us feel less than by not choosing us.  God chooses all of us and God gifts all of us with particular skills and talents we are to use in the service of God and each other.  The problem is not being chosen, the problem is being willing to be chosen.  St. Teresa of Avila put it this way in Come Close, “God desired me so I came close.  No one can come near God unless God has prepared a bed for you.  A thousand souls hear God’s call every second, but most every one then looks into their life’s mirror and says, I am not worthy to leave this sadness.”  We may feel we have not been chosen by God when the truth is we are afraid to be chosen.  Like military service or jury duty, being chosen by God is likely to disrupt our life plans.

Those who accepted Jesus’ call to be his disciples had their lives radically changed.  Saul and Simon were changed so much they got new names.  It is a tradition in some faith communities to give a new name to a person when they are ordained and to people when they are baptized.  This tradition recognizes the radical change in us when we accept God’s call.  God has given us a name and called us by that name from the time of our conception, maybe even before, that name is beloved child of God.  There are no favorites among the children of God; God loves each one of us in abundance.  God’s love is limitless and so God’s love for us is not diminished by God’s love for others.  It is not necessary for us to believe God does not love some so God can love us more.  It is not even important for us to decide what behaviors will increase God’s love.  We can do nothing in ourselves to increase God’s love.  And we certainly can do nothing to make others more or less loveable to God.  What we can do is to live into our choseness, fully embrace that we are chosen by God, gifted by God with skills and talents, and given all that we need to accomplish all that God has chosen us to do.  If we can do that, we will use less time and energy worrying about whether we are adequate for the tasks ahead of us so we can be about accomplishing the tasks.  We are all God’s chosen, get on with it!  Amen.

There is a popular expression, “It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.”  I have used more times than I would want to admit.  The concept is to go ahead and do what you think needs to get done rather than take the time to get permission and risk that you will be told no.  The plan only works if what you want to do is really the best thing and does not result in harm.  Too often we act without knowing the potential consequences of what we do and then we try to put things right.  Forgiveness may be easier to get than permission but making things right is rarely possible.

The consequences of our actions are not easily repaired.  We cannot easily regain the trust that is lost when we share something we did not have the right to share.  We cannot easily repair the intimacy that is lost when we hurt someone we love.  We cannot easily repair the damage to our reputation when do something illegal or unethical.  Saying, I am sorry, goes a long way toward obtaining forgiveness but it is our words and actions over time that will bring about the repairs required to put things right.  A week from tomorrow we will celebrate the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.  This nation has come a long way in moving from being a country that accepted the enslavement of human beings based upon their racial identity.  We should celebrate the changes in our laws as important steps toward being forgiven for our past actions.  We are, however, a long way from having put things right.  Too many racial minorities live below the poverty level, too large a percentage of our prison population and persons on death row are racial minorities, too few of our elected leaders and corporate heads are racial minorities.  The same can be said for our efforts to achieve gender equality and certainly much needs to be done to put things right for those who have been marginalized for their gender affection or gender expression.  It will take much more than ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, passing Equal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or even marriage equality for this nation to put things right.  We must change the way we think and behave if we hope to make things right for those we have discriminated against and demeaned.

Putting things right for this congregation is going to take more than saying we are sorry for the way we have treated people in the past.  Saying we sorry is a very good start to gaining forgiveness but the way we treat each other, the way we behave in the community, they way we see ourselves must change if we hope to put things right.  The work we are doing now is to find our common vision, to identify what is the mission of this church so we can know how to live into that vision and accomplish that mission.  If we hope to get it right, we must be open to God’s leading as to what God desires of us here and now.  How are we to bind ourselves to God?  How are we to be a lighthouse to others seeking safe passage in the rough seas of life and guiding them to God?  How are we opening blind eyes of prejudice and ignorance?  How are we bringing release to those imprisoned by fear and hate?  Are we sharing the Good News that God does not have favorites and all are loved by God?  How are we following the example of Jesus and lifting up those beaten down by life and healing those wounded and diseased?  It is clear to me that putting things right requires us to do something and not just believe something.  It is good and important that we come and celebrate our God but it is also important that we serve our God, that we do something the rest of the week after we have been fed and encouraged in worship of God.  We need to do the hard work if we want to put things right.

It is hard work to put things right and we must not be afraid of doing the hard work.  Jesus taught us by example that putting things right is hard work and we cannot expect our efforts to result in our being loved and adored by everyone, not even the people we seek to serve.  We are to do the things necessary to put things right because it is the right thing to do not because it will make us popular.  It is only when we chose to live out our understanding of God’s love can we hope to put things right.  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we ...shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation,"  We must be light, love, and be gentle if we are to put things right.

Last week I suggested we were in the season of planning, planning for the holidays and planning for the new year.  This week I suggest we are also coming out of the season of parties, all sorts of parties on our pressing social calendars.  Holiday parties with co-workers, friends, and family.  For some people it  is almost impossible to make it to all the parties and events we are invited to attend.  The invitations almost become burden; people have to decide which invitations to accept and which to decline; some people have to decide which family group they will celebrate Christmas with this year.  And all of this pressure pales in comparison to the pressure of New Year’s Eve parties, there is only one evening to celebrate New Year’s eve.  Many times we make are decisions about which parties to attend based on who is hosting the party and who else will be present at the party.  Then there are some who avoid all the stress and potential disasters associated with holiday parties by simply choosing to stay home.

We are told in our texts for today that God has planned a party for us.  In fact, God has been planning this party from the time of creation.  It is up to us to chose whether will attend God’s party or not.  We might be tempted to assume everyone wants to go to a party hosted by God but I don’t know that our assumption would hold up under examination.  We have been taught we should enter into God’s presence with fear and we have been taught that God is a strict judge and we cannot enter into God’s presence until we are worthy.  If we accept these statements as true, most of us would want to decline God’s invitation to come to a party God is throwing.  I do not believe these statements are true, I believe they come from a misinterpretation and misunderstanding of God as portrayed in the sacred writings. 

Where we are told to fear God, the meaning is not that we should be afraid of God.  The words were meant to suggest we should approach God with great respect and awe.  We are to fear God not because of God’s wrath or desire to harm us.  We approach God with respect and awe because God is God, all knowing, all powerful, and present everywhere.  We tremble before God because we recognize that God created all that is, that God created us, and God knows everything about us.  God expects our respect and awe but God does not desire us to fear for our well being in God’s presence.  Each time God sends a messenger to speak to the people, they start with the words, “fear not.”  We should not be afraid to come to God’s party.  God is a strict judge when it comes to what is good for us to do and what is disobedient.  God does not struggle with the gray areas we struggle with when identifying what is just, true, or loving.  God knows because God is the creator of justice, truth, and love.  However, God is also a forgiving and compassionate judge.  God desires that none should be lost.  God, in planning our party, provided as way for each of us to receive God’s mercy and grace so we might come to the party and not worry about being judged as being unworthy.  God’s party is a come as you are party and we should never fear to come to the party God invites us to attend.

Some of us are reluctant to attend God’s party because we either don’t know who else will be there, or we think we know who will be at the party and we don’t want to party with them.  While God, the host of the party, is very welcoming and accepting of all of us, the other invited guests are often not so accepting of each other.  The purpose of religion for many people is to control the guest list to God’s party.  They want to make sure that only people who think and act like them feel welcome at the party.  They want to control who they are going to party with.  We do this in our churches also.  We establish dogmas, traditions, and social norms and let everyone who attends know what is expected of them if they want to be included in the party.  We even say such things as, “if so and so is going to the church function, then I am not going,” or, “if this person is participating in worship, then I won’t be there.”  It isn’t God, but those who want to use God to restrict the party guest list that keep some people from knowing the joy of attending God’s party.  We are all invited to God’s party and God has such joy in anticipating the party that it is wrong for us not to agree to attend and to encourage everyone else to attend the party.

The other great thing about God’s party is that it is always going on, it doesn’t have a starting time and it has no ending time.  We must never believe that God’s party doesn’t start until we die.  God wants us at the party now and always.  God planned the party at the same time God was creating the universe and everything in it.  God has always had a plan for creation to sing and dance together, and for all of us to come to the banquet table and eat and drink all we need.  The best part is we are not required to pay anything to attend the party, it does not have a cover charge and it is not a carry-in dinner.  God has provided it all as a gift to us.  We may want to earn our way into God’s party to prove we are better guests than the others but our attempts to prove our right to be at the party are an insult to our Host who has provided the finest of everything and is not in need of our contributions.  God is not pleased when we want to believe we have earned our place at the party, but God is pleased when we invite others to the party and when we share with others what a great party God provides, and when we live out the joy of being at God’s party for others to see.  If you are having a good time at a party, it isn’t necessary to tell others you are having a good time, they can see what a good time you are having.  Our lives should reflect that we are at the best party ever.  Not just when we are at worship, or not when we are trying to talk someone into coming to church with us.  We should reflect that we are at God’s party at all times and when life is the hardest for us, we should still show that we know we are at God’s party.

We have all been invited to the party, we are all welcome to come to the party as we are, and we should not worry about who else will be at the party.  How will you RSVP to God’s invitation to the party?   Amen.

Christmas is over for this year.  It is the culmination of a lot of planning for many of us.  Some of you may already be planning for next Christmas.  If we aren’t planning for Christmas a year for now, many of us are planning for the coming year.  Some will make resolutions for the new year, and some will plan for what they want to accomplish in the coming year; a new career or the ending of a current career; perhaps an addition to their family unit; or a plan for how we will get healthy, wealthy, or wise in the next year.  Some of us are compulsive planners, I like to have a plan for the possibility that my back-up plan will fail.  I continue to plan despite my clear knowledge that when Bob plans, God laughs.

The problem really isn’t with planning.  I continue to plan; I think it makes life easier if I have a plan for what I am going to do today, tomorrow, for the week, month, next six months, and year.  Jesus tells us in Luke, Chapter 14 to consider the cost of discipleship.  We should be prudent like a person building a tower considers the cost, or the way a ruler will consider the cost of war and chances of success before starting one.  We are to plan based on what we anticipate and what resources we have at our disposal.  It is also clear the disciples planned their missionary journeys.  I believe God honors our planning and we must realize is that it is our plan and not God’s plan.  We cannot expect God to carry out our plan.  What makes surrendering my plan easier is that I have come to accept that I am happier when I let it be God’s plan and not my plan.  C. S. Lewis says there are basically two ways we can relate to God when it comes to our plans and expectations, “those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right then, have it your way’”. 

We should make our plans with the understanding that we do not know everything and we must be prepared for our situation and our plans to change.  God does not give us the plan for more than just the present moment because we are not promised any more than this moment.  We must plan knowing everything can change in a moment and all of our plans will be meaningless.  The purpose of faith is to assure us that even though we do not know everything, God does.  Nothing comes as a surprise to God.  I cannot imagine God saying, “I never saw that coming!”  We place our faith and our plans into God’s hands and trust that God loves us and what unfolds God will use to our good.  Not everything that happens is good, but God can work it around to good.  I don’t believe we will always understand how God’s plan is unfolding or what good will come of it.  I can’t imagine that Joseph and Mary thought that traveling to Egypt with a new born baby was a good plan.  I am sure the mothers of the slaughtered innocents thought it was a good plan.  I don’t know that I understand today how that was a good plan.  What I do know is that I am asked to have faith in God and trust in God’s plan.

As I consider where the new year will take me, I try to do so without drawing and lines in the sand telling God what I won’t do.  It is just so humbling when I have to do what I said I wouldn’t do.  I encourage you, as you make your plans, to also do so with a sense of surrender that says to God, “Your will be done.”  As you make your personal plans, leave room for God to do something unexpected in your life.  Approach adversity and struggle with a sense there is something to be learned and gained in the experience.  Be open to the possibility that what you planned was not what was best for you and/or for others.  Simply put make your plans with humility recognizing the limits of your knowledge and foresight. 

I would encourage you as a church to make your plans for the church with the same humility.  It is certainly important for you to plan, to spend time considering who you are and what resources you have, for you to consider the cost of what you propose to do and the likelihood of success.  Together you need to make a plan as to how you will be church and what are the essential ministries of the church.  You will make plans for being church without a spiritual leader, and how you will call a spiritual leader.  The important consideration in all of this planning is for you not to lose sight of your limitations of knowledge and foresight.  You must include in your planning the possibility that God will reveal a different plan for this church.  If you are too wedded to your plan, God may just say, “Have it your way” and that is not a good thing.

God does have a plan but God does not force the plan on us.  God has blessed or cursed us, depending on how we use it, with free will.  We can insist on following our plan and God doesn’t stop us.  God waits patiently until we realize how poorly our plan is turning out and, when we ask God to show us God’s plan, God will work things around to bring us back into the plan that is right for us.  It seems to me the most critical knowledge we need to know and to use when we plan is to remember God has a plan.  God’s will be done.  Amen.

I am not much of one for signs and omens.  I am not talking about road signs, I like road signs because they tend to be clear and descriptive.  I was very frustrated when my travels took me through Quebec to get to Halifax.  I couldn’t read the road signs because they were all in French.  I like clear and concise signs.  The kind of signs I am talking about not liking are the subtle signs that people use to discern what they should or shouldn’t do.  I am not good at dating because I am not good at reading the signals other people use to let others know they are interested.  I have found out numerous times that someone thought me stuck up or rude because I didn’t respond to their signals of interest.  I just don’t read subtle signs well.

This is an even greater challenge for me as a spiritual leader since many people will come to me and share something that has happened and they want to know if I think it is a sign from God.  I really don’t know.  I do think God speaks to us in various ways and I think God will speak to us in ways we will understand.  We shouldn’t have to guess at what God is telling us.  Julie told me about a friend who was dating a man and he was also seeing another woman.  Julie’s friend told that God had come to the second woman warning that the man would go to hell if he continued to see Julie’s friend.  This sounds like a pretty clear message from God but it also sounds pretty suspect to me.  Wouldn’t God be more apt to tell the man he was risking his immortal soul by dating Julie’s friend then to trust the message to her friend’s rival?  One of my core beliefs about communication from God is that God comes to us with messages meant for us rather than messages about how God wants other people to behave.  I have mentioned before how my time of sermon preparation is generally about God speaking to me about things I need to hear and that might also have value for those who hear or read the sermon. 

According to our scriptures lessons today, God spoke to Isaiah about seven hundred and fifty years before the birth of Jesus predicting the birth of a son to an unmarried maiden.  The purpose of this prediction was to strengthen the faith of Ahaz in the power of the God of Israel.  Scholars have suggested this prediction may have referred to a woman not yet married who would marry and bear a son.  They have suggested Isaiah may have been referring to a woman he was betrothed to at the time of the encounter with Ahaz who would marry Isaiah and give him a son.  The language of the time did not have past, present, and future tense so it is possible to read the prediction as meaning a woman who is now a virgin or unmarried maiden will bear a child in the future after marrying and having intercourse.  Does all of this explanation do anything to change the circumstances of Jesus’ birth?  It doesn’t for me.  The prediction of Isaiah can mean God had a plan for the time of Isaiah to strengthen Ahaz and a sign for hundreds of years later to strengthen the faith of a people, and a sign to strengthen the faith of people for thousands of years.  The thing about God signs is they can mean different things at different times and for different people.  We get in trouble when we expect the revelation of God to always be the same and to be the same for all people.

The challenge for us, as a people of faith, is to be open to receive God’s signs and to be open to understand them in ways perhaps different from what we expected or hoped for when we asked.  Too often we as God for a sign to confirm what we have already decided to do and then see anything as a confirmation from God to proceed.  We ask if God wants us to have a new tool or new shirt and when money comes to us we see it as a sign God approves of our purchase when the truth is we needed that money to put food on the table or pay a bill.  We ask God to send us a mate and we think the next person who asks us out is an answer to prayer when they may actually be a nightmare.  The important thing about any sign is that we read it correctly.  Like the signs in Quebec, signs from God that we cannot comprehend are not helpful and I doubt God is in the business of sending us signs we cannot comprehend.