Christmas Is Not the End of the World

In the years after WWII, civil rights leader Clarence Jordan translated the gospels into what he called, The Cotton Patch Gospels.  With a profound knowledge of both New Testament Greek and the human spirit, Jordan set the familiar stories of Jesus into his own Jim Crow South to give people a flavor of what the original hearers might have experienced.  For today’s Gospel Lesson, I use it – along with Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message – to help us hear the familiar story of Mary and Elizabeth anew and afresh.

Luke 1:39-45 (The Cotton Patch Gospels)  Soon after this, Mary quickly packed up and went to a town in the hills of north Georgia. She arrived at the home of Zack Harris and greeted Elizabeth. And do you know what happened? When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby in her womb gave a kick. And Elizabeth bubbled over with Holy Spirit and shouted as loud as she could, “Praise the Lord for a woman like you! And praise the Lord for your baby! How did a thing like this ever happen to me—the mother of my Lord coming to me? Because listen here, when the sound of your greeting entered my ears, the baby in my womb kicked for joy. It’s a wonderful woman who has believed that the words spoken to her from the Lord will become a reality.”

Luke 1:46-55 (The Message) And Mary said,
   I’m bursting with God-news;
      I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
      God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
      I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
   What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
      the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
   His mercy flows in wave after wave
      on those who are in awe before him.
   He bared his arm and showed his strength,
      scattered the bluffing braggarts.
   He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
      pulled victims out of the mud.
   The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
      the callous rich were left out in the cold.
   He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
      he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
   It’s exactly what he promised,
      beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

Our text this morning gives us back-story on the Hollywood version of Christ’s birth.  Before there were shepherds in the fields abiding; before an angel of the Lord appeared and they were sore afraid; before there was a star or wise men or a wicked, old king; before there was any of that, there were just two women –  two mothers-to-be.  One of them was young and unwed, the other well past the age of child-bearing.  These things made them marginal, if not downright scandalous.  They were the kind of people most societies, including our own, tend to ignore out-of-hand.  And yet, in one of those delicious ironies salted throughout the Bible, these two women raise up the two persons who end up turning their world upside-down.

The younger one, Mary, has just received word from an angel that she will be the mother of God’s special agent, the Christ.  She decides to go visit the home of her cousin, Elizabeth, up in the foothills of Judea, some 80 miles away.  Elizabeth’s husband, Zachariah, was a worker at the temple in Jerusalem.  Not too long before, it was his turn to go into the spookiest part of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, to offer a blood sacrifice that would turn God’s wrath away from the people for another year.  When Zachariah came out again, he could no longer speak; he had seen an angel of the Lord in the Holy of Holies, but doubted its word, so the angel struck him dumb until what that messenger of God said would happen – that his wife would have a son – happened.  Shortly after that, Elizabeth discovered she was going to have a baby at an age when such things just don’t happen to a woman.  So Mary decided to visit her cousin, to share her own news and to encourage Elizabeth.

The scene opens with Mary’s arrival.  She greets Elizabeth and, suddenly, the whole thing turns into a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.  Everyone stops what they’re doing while the two main characters let loose with a couple of songs.  First comes Elizabeth’s song, kick-started – quite literally – by the new life inside her doing gymnastics on her bladder.  That somehow clued Elizabeth in to what Mary hadn’t even had a chance to tell her yet.   There was definitely a connection between her baby, who grew up to be John the Baptizer, and Mary’s baby who, as we all know, was born on Christmas day.  Elizabeth’s song, then, starts with a spontaneous “Woo Hoo!” for cousin Mary and the child she would bear.  Of course the implication of what she’d been singing must’ve sunk in pretty quickly because her next line went something like this: “Holy Hannah… you’re gonna be the mother of God’s special agent…  OMG!  And I know you!”  I can just imagine a few squeals between the two of them at that point that would’ve been right at home in the movie, Legally Blonde.  By the way, there’s a subtle dig at Elizabeth’s hapless husband in the last line of her song.  “Thank God, you believed the angel, Mary.”  What went unsaid was, “Unlike certain other people around here!”

Now we get to the set piece, the song that gives the whole scene its meaning.  We call this the Magnificat.  “Magnificat” does not mean a huge pet of the species Felis silvestris, but rather it means “expand” as in, “Let me expand on just how great God is.”  Just as the baby within would soon start expanding, Mary swelled up with song that God is both great and good.  She sang:

      I’m bursting with God-news;
      I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.

Mary’s song, the Magnificat, begins on the theme of undeserved favor, of how mind-blowing it is to be chosen by God.  Elizabeth had touched on that, too: How did a thing like this ever happen to me—the mother of my Lord coming to me?  But if Elizabeth was awed that she had a front-row seat, Mary was absolutely overwhelmed to be the person actually up there on stage.  “Can you imagine it?  God is bringing deliverance… through me, a young person in a society that values age; through me, a woman in a culture where men are the only ones who really count; through me, a single person in a world where marriage is the expectation for adult life.”   

Notice the tone of this Magnificat, this “expanding.”  Like so many of the songs sung by women in scripture, it presents a view of life from the underside, expressing the hope and faith of persons who live at the margins and on the edges of society, always just a hair’s breadth away from total and complete powerlessness.  Mary sang this as a young, unwed mother-to-be, someone whose prospects were not exactly what you would call bright, whose only hope was in the faithfulness of One who delivers the oppressed. 

    What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
      the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
   His mercy flows in wave after wave
      on those who are in awe before him.
   He bared his arm and showed his strength,
      scattered the bluffing braggarts.
   He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
      pulled victims out of the mud.
   The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
      the callous rich were left out in the cold.
   He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
      he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.

Does it strike you as odd that Mary went straight from happiness to vindictiveness in her Magnificat?  She goes from what God has done for me will never be forgotten, straight to [God] scattered the bluffing braggarts [and] knocked tyrants off their high horses.  I suspect it sounds odd to us because we’ve all grown up with a view of ourselves as individuals.  We like to think we are in society voluntarily under a sort of “social compact,” as Voltaire put it.  Yet Mary sensed a deeper truth that what was happening to her was, in some way, actually happening to her people and, indeed, to all people.  Mary may not have been, as we say today, “politically aware,” but she knew that the undeserved favor she had received as a marginal person was a sign of undeserved favor for all marginalized people.  She knew that being chosen to bear the Christ child wasn’t so much a mark of distinction for her as it was a sign of God’s intention for all.

So… what about those oppressors?  Whatever else it may be, the Magnificat is the song of a prophetess, a woman who looked at the world, with all its hurt,  and said, “This is not acceptable;” a woman who, nevertheless, saw God already at work in that world not only knocking tyrants off their high horses, but pulling victims out of the mud.  She saw that God will seat the starving poor when, at the end of the world, everyone comes to the banquet, but that God will leave the callous rich out in the cold.  This is Mary’s God-news and it becomes our good news only so long as we’re not one of the callous rich. 

So I have to ask – I don’t want to, but I have to ask – which of the two must we not be: callous or rich?  You see, I am keenly aware, as are many of you, that compared with most of the 6.8 billion people alive today, I am rich, even though I never feel like it.  And another thing I realize is that being callous can be as simple as not paying attention to what is going on with those other six billion plus lives.  And whenever I consider my situation, whether as a “rich” or as a “callous” person, it comes to my mind that, according to Mary’s song, Christmas may just be the end of the world for me, or at least the end of the world as I have known it. 

For example, I read somewhere that, given our current technology and population, it will not be possible for everyone in the world to have the same standard of living you and I currently enjoy.  The resources for it are simply not there.  That puts us in the position of either choosing to live simply so others may simply live or choosing to turn a blind eye to the misery of people for whom Christ died.  Either way, Christmas spells the end of the world for us, but… and here is the good news for all… Christmas isn’t just the end of the world for anyone.

 Christmas is the beginning of a whole new world, a better world, a Magnificat world in which “God will dwell with us and be our God, and we shall be God’s people.”  Christmas is the beginning of a world where “God will wipe away our tears, dispel our doubt, remove our fears, and lead us out[; where] God will heal the broken-hearted, open the eyes of the blind, release the captives, preach the good news to the poor, and usher in the acceptable year of the Lord.”  This Christmas let us work and pray for a world in which “God will bulldoze the mountains and fill the valleys, … make the rough places smooth and the crooked ways straight [and] stand all people [up] on their feet so that all humankind may see God’s glory together.”[1]  Amen and amen.

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[1] Clarence Jordan, “A Spirit of Partnership” from Essential Writings as reprinted in Koinonia Farm Chronicle (Fall 2009), 6.

She Gave All She Had – A Homily on Mark 12:38-44

Mark 12:38-44

³⁸As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, ³⁹and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! ⁴⁰They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

⁴¹He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. ⁴²A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. ⁴³Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. ⁴⁴For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

two thin slivers of coin

from anyone else’s hand would be an insult

but when all she had were onion skins to make a soup

those two thin slices of life were a gift beyond compare

An older woman approaches one of the thirteen receptacles scattered along the wall and quietly allows two farthings to slide down its trumpet-bell inner surface, then shuffles on.  No one notices.  No one pays attention.  The rabbi, though, did not miss a thing.  He saw by her dress that she was a widow.  He recognized the signs that showed she had fallen on hard times.  He knew such women were often scammed, sometimes even by scribes in the Office for Temple Development.  Some widows had lost their houses to men with scruples conspicuously absent when it came to money for God.  Yet, here was a faithful daughter of Zion showing her respect for God – and her deep trust in God’s goodwill toward her – by giving what appeared to be the very last pennies she possessed to support the work of worship.  Is this not why Jesus called his students over and pointed her out in the courtyard of the Temple?  Is this not why we point her out, to be an example of sacrificial giving to the church’s ministry?  Maybe… maybe not.

You see, the Master knew her gift went to support a morally bankrupt institution housed in a condemned building.  Upon leaving the temple mount that day, he would tell his students, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (Mark 13:2).  How, then, could he commend such sacrifice when it would turn out to be such a waste?  How could he praise sacrificial giving to such unworthy recipients?  Maybe he was thinking of his own impending sacrifice, not for an institution, but for all who had ever – or would ever – live.  Maybe he was thinking what the Apostle Paul later wrote in a letter to believers: ⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:6-8).

Maybe he was pointing her out because of his warning against scribes, particularly the scribe that lives in each of our hearts.  Maybe he was warning them: institutions that cause destitution constitute an offense before God.  Always put people before programs of ministry and programs of ministry before mortar and brick.  As the Apostle Peter would later write: ⁵like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (I Peter 2:4-5).  What are these “spiritual sacrifices?”    They are the things we do every day to carve meaning out of the chaos of life.  “Spiritual sacrifice” sounds so heroic, but it really isn’t.  It’s more like what  Mother Theresa meant when she said, “There are no great acts of love.  There are only small acts done with great love.” 

A man was walking along the beach one evening and saw a little boy throwing starfish into the sea that had been washed ashore by the tide.  The man walked over to the boy and asked him why he was trying to save the starfish.

“You see, sir, the starfish would die if they are left on the shore. They need to be in the sea in order to live,” answered the boy.

“But son, how are you going to save all of them? Every time you put one back, another would be washed up. It doesn’t matter to them, son.”

The boy picked up a starfish, looked at the man and said, “But sir, it matters to this one.” Then he threw the starfish back into the sea.[1]

And so today, like the widow Jesus pointed out to his disciples, we offer God sacrifices that are meaningful to ourselves, even if others consider them too small or a waste, even if they are given to unworthy recipients.  We have no idea why the widow gave her last two coins, but you can be certain of this: it was a meaningful sacrifice to her – and to God.  Amen.

 

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[1] Adapted from Story of the Starfish at http://starfishfoundationforwomen.org/story_of_starfish

The Power of Vow: A Midrash on I Samuel 1:1-20

In the time before there was a king in the land, when people still considered the LORD God who led them out of bondage in Egypt to be their king and protector, charismatic leaders would emerge at moments of critical need.  The last and greatest of these was Samuel.  Samuel shepherded the loose confederation of tribes – known collectively as Israel – through a time of religious corruption and military threat.  It was Samuel who anointed, however reluctantly, the first two kings of Israel and it was Samuel who established the legitimacy of this new form of leadership.  In the process, he laid the groundwork for our understanding of the Messiah.  Samuel’s story takes up two complete scrolls in the Hebrew Scriptures, what today we call 1^st and 2^nd Samuel, but before the story of this extraordinary man could start, there had to be the story of an extraordinary woman.  Her name was Hannah.

Hannah’s household arrangement was, as we might say, complicated.  She shared her husband, Elkanah, with another woman.  The overriding concern of men in that culture to have male offspring, to “be fruitful and multiply,” often dictated this arrangement.  It also set the tone for relationships among the wives.  Having children was a form of counting coup, and to be childless or “barren,” as scripture calls it, was to be considered worthless, even in the eyes of God.  Elkanah’s other wife had children aplenty, but Hannah had none because, as verses five and six repeat: the Lord had closed her womb.

Every year the household would make its way to Shiloh to worship near the symbol of God’s presence, namely, the Ark of the Covenant, the holy box that held two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were carved.  I can imagine Hannah dreaded that trip as much as some people today dread going home for Thanksgiving.  In many ways it was a similar occasion.  It’s not that we don’t love our families, but that we know there will be some pain waiting for us in the gathering, pain magnified by the expectation of intimacy family brings.  For Hannah, the grief she took all year long for being childless focused down to an excruciating point when the family arrived at Shiloh.

There would be a sacrificial meal, much like what we have on Thanksgiving, and a family prayer of appreciation for the year’s bounty.  Then the patriarch would stand at the head of the table to apportion the whole burnt offering.  The other side of the family received most of the meat because they were so numerous, but Elkanah truly did love Hannah, so he gave her twice as much as she otherwise would receive.  Yet it never made up for the emptiness on her side of the table nor in her heart.  It never eased the sense that she was somehow being excluded year after year from an experience of God.

One year it became simply too much for her to handle.  Barely containing her grief, Hannah rose from the family table with all the dignity she could muster and left the room.  Not knowing what she would do or where she would go, Hannah found herself outside the Tent of Meeting with its holy box and its holy presence.  Tears and the extremity of her need blinded her to anyone else who might have been there, but she was totally convinced that God was.  When she realized where she was standing, an idea was born in Hannah’s heart.  “I will not seek the mediation of husband or priest, for they have both failed me.  I will make my appeal directly to Yahweh Sabaoth, the LORD of hosts.”  And she began to pray.

Verse 11 says she made this vow: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.”

This kind of vow was not uncommon.  It was called the nazirite vow from the Hebrew word meaning  separated or set apart.[1]  As the Law of Moses describes it in Numbers 6:1-21, someone would undertake this vow for a specific period of time during which he or she observed certain restrictions, such as not getting a haircut and not drinking wine.  What was the purpose of such a vow?  It was something one did to attain spiritual focus and freedom. 

In Numbers 6:5 we read, He shall be holy until the days are fulfilled for which he separated himself to the LORD; and again in v. 8, All the days of his separation he is holy to the LORD.  During the period of a nazirite vow, a person focused on pursuing spiritual matters to the exclusion of all else.  This would not be possible without the support and understanding of the community.  Thus, it also released a person from the demands of daily life.  Focus and the freedom to pursue a spiritual journey for a period of time was the purpose for taking a nazirite vow.

 It’s important to note that Hannah was not entering into a commercial transaction with God.  This is no Rumpelstiltskin story where a peasant girl promises her firstborn male child in exchange for spinning straw into gold.  This is no quid pro quo arrangement with God.  What was it Hannah wanted?  Her prayer was that if God would “look on the misery of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant” (v. 11), meaning grant her the power to bear a son, she would set that son apart to a life of focus and freedom. 

Hannah was miserable because she thought, as a childless woman, that she could not fully participate in the life of the covenant community.  She was praying for full inclusion in God’s purpose among God’s people.  She was offering to be a part of that purpose the only way she knew how: by dedicating the sign of her absolute and utter dependence on God to God.  Her prayer, in effect, said, “I am absolutely and utterly dependent on you: God, please accept and include me!”

This language of absolute dependence comes to us from a nineteenth-century German pastor, Friedrich Schleiermacher, who helped his people to see that we are all guests in existence.  We are all recipients of God’s extravagant welcome.  And our awareness of that, stripped of all particulars, is the same as our awareness of God.  Faced on the one hand by those who felt they had to defend God’s existence and on the other hand by those who claimed there can be no such defense, Schleiermacher affirmed that we are always already aware of God – and of God’s acceptance – in being aware that we are not the cause of our own existence.  He called this awareness “God-consciousness.”

 When Hannah decided to step outside of the normal religious channels, she  experienced her God-consciousness; she experienced a valid spiritual connection, in spite of what her community had told her.  In praying for acceptance, Hannah came to know that she was already accepted.  This gave her the power to push back when the old priest, Eli, implied that she was somehow worthless in the eyes of God.  The story continues:

¹²As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. ¹³Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. ¹⁴So Eli said to her, “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.” ¹⁵But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. ¹⁶Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.” 

Her great need for inclusion drove Hannah into the presence of God.  There she experienced the unconditional acceptance of God.  Because of that acceptance, Hannah offered herself to be a part of God’s plan in the only way she knew how: as the mother of a man dedicated to God’s service for life.  As one commentator on the passage has written,

Hannah at once embodies both the patriarchal constructions of her worth and a deep assumption that God is concerned about her.  She “pours out her soul” to God from an interior awareness of her connection to God’s concern – she has a God-consciousness all her own.[2]

The old priest must have recognized this in her when she spoke, because he answered, “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.”  From that point on, even before she had the external validation she prayed for, Hannah was at peace.  Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer.

It is Hannah’s humility and honesty that seem to get her somewhere, not her station in life.  In order to exert power, she draws only on her relationship with God.  This relationship allows her to unburden herself from her “anxiety and vexation” (v. 16).  And she is “sad no longer” (v. 18).  Her connection to God transforms her even before she conceives.[3]

Hannah had found the power of vow: the focus and freedom that come from making a vow.  We’ll never know what might have happened if that vow had been rejected.  We’ll never know if she would have continued to have peace in her heart without bearing a child.  She certainly could have, even in the face of her society’s biases, because the particulars of someone’s life do not determine one’s acceptance by God.  Only God’s sovereign choice to accept us unconditionally can determine that.  We do know, however, that God honored Hannah’s desire to be included in the on-going story of the people of Israel, a people trying to live in covenant with God and with one another.  And so today God honors our desire to be included in the on-going story of this community’s faith-journey as we find the focus and freedom of making our baptismal – and other – vows in this place.  

So it is today.  So it will always be, world without end.  Amen.

 

 

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazirite

[2] Marcia Mount Shoop, “Theological Perspective on I Samuel 1:4-20” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Volume 4, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Lousiville, KY: WJK, 2009) 292.

[3] Shoop, 294.

Doing What Has to Be Done: A Midrash on Ruth 3:1-5 and 4:13-17

Situations change.  You do all the right things – fill all the requirements – meet all the expectations for personal and professional competence.  You get a job that allows you to support yourself and your loved ones.  Then one day the company goes bankrupt or downsizes or outsources your job and suddenly you find yourself back on the job market facing the prospect of having to move.  Maybe the work you trained for is no longer being done in this country.  Maybe your skill set is no longer even in demand because the way people do business has changed so radically.  You did everything right and through no fault of your own you are now between a rock and a hard place.

Our bodies change.  One day you’re young and healthy; you blink and suddenly there’s an old person staring out of the mirror at you.  Maybe you’re physically fit.  You take care of yourself – eat right, exercise, get enough rest – and one morning you wake up with a debilitating disease like lupus or MS.  It’s not like you did anything wrong and are now suffering the consequences: debilitation from age or disease, not to mention injury, happen to people all the time.  Any of us, at any time, could find ourselves sidelined by life.

Our families change.  We plan carefully, live responsibly, build a secure world for ourselves and our loved ones, try to pass on good values to our children, and suddenly the roof falls in.  Someone we love makes a bad decision and gets caught, swept away by the judicial system – or worse, doesn’t get caught and is swept away by self-destruction.  Children grow up and make their own lives.  Parents pass on.  Spouses die – always too soon – and we find ourselves “awash in absence.”[1]  We did not do anything wrong, and yet our lives are now devastated emotionally, financially, socially and spiritually.  We no longer feel “normal.”

Yet, we go on living.  We discover that people can adapt – that we can adapt – to almost any change, even the ones that slam into us without warning and leave us gasping for air.  What people say when they go through this is, “You do what you have to do.”   You do what you have to do.  They say it without drama, without self-pity, as if it were just the natural course of things – which of course it is, but what a remarkable resiliency – one not to be taken for granted – lies within those few words.  Not everyone learns them.  Without strong adults around to model how it’s done, young people do not know to look for this capacity deep within themselves and often end up bogged down in despair.   What a grace gift it is to grow up around strong people such as the people we encounter this morning in the story of Ruth.  

There once was a young couple, Elimelech and Naomi, who lived in the village of Bethlehem.  They worked hard to make a life for themselves.  They had two boys, vigorous and healthy, with big appetites. One season the rains failed to come; the next season it was the same.  By the third year of the drought, Bethlehem which means “house of bread” could no longer provide bread for this family, so Elimelech and Naomi did what they had to do.  They moved across the border into unfriendly territory, into Moab where there was work for them, even though as strangers they would be at a disadvantage.   

The young couple adapted and thrived and it appeared things were going to work out for them after all.  Then tragedy struck again.  Elimelech died unexpectedly.  Naomi, alone in a foreign land, had to make do for herself and her boys until they were old enough to work and bring income into the family. 

Somehow she managed it.  She did what she had to do.  Both boys grew up and found gainful employment.  They married a couple of local girls, Orpah and Ruth, and it looked like the widow, Naomi, would be well cared for and enjoy grandchildren in her old age, but that was not to be. 

Sometimes it seems God goes too far.  I wonder if that’s how the old widow felt when she limped back to the land of her birth, to Bethlehem, and told the old people there not to call her Naomi, the name that meant “pleasant,” but rather Mara: “bitter.”  All her life she had been able to do what she knew had to be done, sustained by a pride in making her life’s circumstances match that lovely name, Pleasant.  Now her pride was broken and she admitted to all that her life was bitter.

The one thing that cheered her up was the faithfulness of her daughter-in-law, Ruth.  Ruth’s family had been one of the first to welcome Naomi and Elimelech when they made their way into Moab.  Over the years, these families from two different cultures had learned to respect and even admire one another.  When Ruth married into the family, Naomi treated her and her other daughter-in-law, Orpah, like the daughters she’d never had.  During that nightmare year when both sons, both husbands, died, Naomi helped the girls grieve as she herself had done so many years before.  And when their time of mourning was over, she once again did what had to be done:  though it broke her heart, she tried to drive them away from her and back to their own families where, by the rules of that society, they would be respectable young widows, eligible to remarry and raise families of their own.  Orpah resisted Naomi at first, but then obediently embraced the wisdom of this woman who had been like another mother to her. 

Ruth, on the other hand, didn’t even register Naomi’s not-so-subtle attempt to drive her away.  For Ruth, it wasn’t even a matter of choice; she had cast her lot with her other mother so completely, she could not leave without ceasing to be who she was.  In the gorgeous language of the King James translation, Ruth said,

Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:  Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

Now it was Ruth’s turn to do what had to be done, to cross the border into unfriendly territory and find a way to feed and shelter herself and her other mother.  She went into the fields, following behind the harvesters to pick up whatever they had left behind.  When the owner of the fields showed her special favor, she endured the cruel jealousies and spite of the local women without saying a word.  Which brings us to the first part of our text, Ruth 3:1-5.  In the New American Standard version we read:

¹Then Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, shall I not seek security for you, that it may be well with you?   ²Now is not Boaz our kinsman, with whose maids you were? Behold, he winnows barley at the threshing floor tonight.  ³Wash yourself therefore, and anoint yourself and put on your best clothes, and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking.  ⁴It shall be when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies, and you shall go and uncover his feet and lie down; then he will tell you what you shall do.”  ⁵She said to her, “All that you say I will do.”

Naomi, even bearing the name of Mara, was committed to Ruth’s well-being.  She looked beyond the time when she herself would die and leave the young foreigner without any social protection in a hostile culture.  There were no options for an independent young woman in that world except those that would destroy anyone’s self-respect, so she told Ruth how, in so many words, to get a man.  Once again, Ruth did what had to be done.  And now, as Paul Harvey would say, page 2. 

¹³So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went in to her. And the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.  ¹⁴Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed is the LORD who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel.  ¹⁵May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.”  ¹⁶Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her lap, and became his nurse.  ¹⁷The neighbor women gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi!” So they named him Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Mara had faithfully done whatever had to be done, past the point of a broken heart and a broken pride.  Rechristened Naomi by her neighbors, she discovered what it meant to be named “Pleasant” not in the absence of, but in spite of life’s bitterness.  She and Ruth received the blessing of a secure place in society, fully aware that the need to do what has to be done might yet come again, but still able to celebrate a pleasant moment in spite of that.  So they celebrated the birth of Obed who would grandsire a mashiach), an “‘anointed’” one, and not just any mashiach, but David, the once and future king.  Centuries hence, their courage and resilience earned them a signal honor in the story of another messiah.  In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 1, we read:

 ¹The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham: [a list of Abraham's descendents down to Salmon is given in verses 2 through 4]

⁵Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse. ⁶Jesse was the father of David the king.  [the geneology continues to Joseph, betrothed of Mary who bore Jesus]…

¹⁷So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.

May we ever do what has to be done, that our courage and resilience might bring Christ to the world.  Amen.

 

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[1] My thanks to Westerly_2 at http://teebeedee.ning.com/group/tierii/forum/topics/four-linestimes-four?page=62&commentId=1991841%3AComment%3A532700&x=1#1991841Comment532700 for this felicitous phrase.

November Sunshine

November sunshine is kind to old wood:

it circumscribes the garden tree with dignity,

reclothing it for eyes unused to naked truth;

it drapes the shame of sycamores whose apron leaves have fallen.

 

It glints from fence posts where barbed wire –

snapped, recoiled and rusted – dangles down to rocky ground

(to stones that keep the posts upright), and

lies gently as a veil across each deeply grooved face.

 

It shines off creosoted poles along our streets and

hangs a doubled shadow on crossbeams from

insulated wires firing glyphs across short distances:

mouth to ear, fingertip to eye, heart to mind.

 

November sunshine is kind to old wood;

it falls as mote-filled beams among dishes –

half-emptied now – and lifts the smell of time

off well-used planks, a communion of sweet savors.

 

Poem of the Month for November 2009

Mosaic
by Katherine Brennan
So often the world appears as chaos, jagged and disparate
elements defying harmony—but this morning as the sun
rose it all looked different: a mosaic, grand and orderly,
ancient and still forming—glowing, flowing and perfect—

the private school boys in their starched blue shirts and ties,
giggling behind the headmaster’s back…the skittering short-legged
mutts squatting at every tree…the wizened Chinese woman with
her clanking cans and bottles, the broken souls asleep on the pavement—

there are natural periods of disharmony, unrest and upheaval
but the mosaic tolerates this, its pieces shift, the colors mute
and blaze again, and the world rights itself,
the world rights itself—

when you look beneath the surface we are the same, bound to this
life by whatever our circumstances—but the design with its various
and inevitable imperfections: is perfect—we are all simply
pieces in a great mosaic.

The Rain Rain Rain Came Down Down Down

The Rain Rain Rain Came Down Down Down

 

From:  Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
Written by: Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman

[Chorus:]
The rain rain rain came down down down
in rushing rising rivlets
Till the river crept out of its bed
and crept right into Piglet’s
For Piglet he was frightened with quite a rightful fright

[Men:]
And so in desparation a message he did write

[PIGLET]  
Help!
P-P-Piglet
Me!

[Women:]
He placed it in a bottle and it floated out of sight

[Chorus:]
And the rain rain rain came down down down
so Piglet started bailing

[Men:]
He was unaware atop his chair
while bailing he was sailing

[Women:]
And the rain rain rain came down down down
and the flood rose up-up-upper

[Chorus:]
Pooh too was caught and so he thought

[Pooh:]
I must rescue my supper

[Chorus:]
Ten honey pots he rescued enough to see him through
But as he sopped up his supper
The river sopped up Pooh

[Men:]
And the water twirled and tossed him
In a honey pot

[Chorus:]
… rain rain rain came down down down
when the rain rain rain came down down down … (fade)

 

 

Take Heart – Sermon for October 25, 2009

 

Mark 10:46-52

46 They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. ⁴⁷When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ ⁴⁸Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ ⁴⁹Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ ⁵⁰So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. ⁵¹Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ ⁵²Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

“Take Heart”

“Lord, let me see again!”  Can you imagine how often blind Bartimaeus must have prayed that prayer, especially in the days and weeks immediately after losing his sight?  How earnestly he must have prayed this every time he went to synagogue!  The prayer would have been on his tongue every morning upon waking and every night when he fell to sleep.  “Lord, let me see again.  Lord, make me whole!”  Yet over months and years of seeming to fall on deaf ears, even the most ardent prayer loses steam; even the most buoyant hope loses altitude as time leaks from our lives and we fall inward on ourselves – deflated, dejected, despairing.  Who knows how long Bartimaeus had lived without hope before encountering Jesus?  Who knows how long he’d simply gone through the motions of life, simply doing whatever he had to do to make it through another day?  How long had it been since he’d last drawn a deep breath and allowed himself to hope; how long since he’d had the courage to pray as he once did, “Lord, let me see again!”   

 Recently, Bartimaeus had heard the people of Jericho talking about a wonder-worker from Galilee.  They said this rabbi healed the lame and caused the blind to see.  They talked about it all around him as if Bartimaeus, unable to see, was also unable to hear what they were saying or to feel yet again that miracles are what happen to other people.  The crowd was often cruel in this impersonal, unthinking way.  For weeks they had speculated whether the wonder-worker would go up to Jerusalem to observe the Passover – which of course meant he would pass right through Jericho.  Why, he would walk right past the spot where that blind beggar sat!  Would they get to see him?  “I won’t,” thought Bartimaeus.  And the crowd babbled on.  “Do you think this is the One to deliver Israel out of bondage to the Romans?”  None of them dared use the politically dangerous title, “Son of David.” Bartimaeus thought it probable, but didn’t want to antagonize people on whom his life and livelihood depended, so he kept quiet.

Then one morning the city was abuzz.  Another crowd of pilgrims was passing through on their way up the road to celebrate Passover atop Mount Zion.  The beggar made sure his cloak, which was blanket by night and shade by day, had a corner smoothed on the ground in front of him to receive whatever alms the religious tourists might be moved to give.  He put on his most piteous look and prepared to make the traditional cry for mercy, the music of all who must live on the largesse of others for undeserved help, but just then he heard a name:  Yeshua.  Jesus.  Wasn’t that the name everyone had been talking about for weeks?  Were they still talking about him or was this group actually his entourage?  Bartimaeus blindly asked aloud and the reply came back, curt as usual, “Yes, of course, it’s the rabbi Yeshua and his followers, now shut up.” 

Right then something happened within the son of Timaeus, the blind timorous beggar who knew his place and had always yielded meekly at every rebuke.  He took a breath.  He let in a little air, and then a little more, until his lungs and his heart were full and he began to shout, “Son of David… Son of David, mercy me!”  There were gasps all around as those with sight suddenly looked around to see if any Romans might have heard the seditious cry.  “SSSSSS!  Hush, you old fool.  You wanna get us all killed?”

“Son of David… Son of David, help me!”  Bartimaeus cried all the louder, for having once allowed himself to remember what hope tastes like, he was determined to get full on it that day.  The crowd ragged on him and he brayed all the louder, “Son of David, help me!”  Bartimaeus brayed so loudly, he didn’t hear when a quiet word dropped into the cacophony, smoothing and soothing it into a circle of calm.  “Call him here.”  He was still shouting full-bore when it finally got through to him that the crowd’s words had changed: “Take heart!  Get up, he’s calling you.”

“Hey!  Hey, old man!  Listen!  You have his attention.  He’s looking right at you.  He wants you to go to him.”  What was this?  A trick?  Another cruel game of blind man’s buff where he’d try to find the person calling him, offering him alms, while the rest tripped him and tipped him and generally made it impossible for him to get there?  Would he come back bruised and humiliated to find his meager bit of alms scattered in the road?  And as quickly as the wind of hope had risen within him, clouds of fear now darkened his soul.  What if this Rabbi was a sham who couldn’t heal him?  Would he blame Bartimaeus when the expected “miracle” failed to happen; would he shame Bartimaeus for not having faith?  Or worse, what if this man was a holy prophet who refused to help when he saw how much sin was in the old beggar’s heart?  Bartimaeus thought, “What if he knew just how unworthy I am?”  Fear gripped him and kept him from moving.

Then the words came again: “Take heart.  Have courage.  Get up and go to him.”  Maybe the tone of voice was truly encouraging or maybe the message itself simply touched a memory of faith, a memory of the time when he could still believe that God cared enough to hear the simple prayer, “Lord, let me see again.”  Bartimaeus didn’t stop to consider why; he just acted.  Throwing aside his cloak with complete disregard for the alms that lay upon it, the blind man leapt to his feet and began to walk.  Hands reached out to guide him, to point him in the right direction, and he trusted their kind intent.  Had he been able, he would have seen a path opening before him in the crowd, he would have seen Jesus standing, waiting for him in the center.  Instead he walked forward until he heard a voice in front of him ask, “What do you want me to do for you.”

Just like that.  The genie pops out of the bottle and says, “Name your wish.”  No conditions.  No exclusions.  Just, “What do you want me to do for you.”  And the prayer he had prayed so long ago for so long came unbidden to his lips, “Lord, let me see again.”  For Bartimaeus sight was the one thing needful, for with sight the whole world was his.  He would no longer have to beg.  He could walk unassisted down the street and hold his head high, knowing that he worked for a living.  He could find someone to share his life with, maybe even have children.  And best of all, he could read!  He could read Torah aloud to the congregation in synagogue.  Sight was all he needed to be whole.  “Lord, let me see again.” 

He heard the words, “Your faith has made you whole.”  And suddenly, the world of depth and distance,  light and dark, bright color and soft hues was real to him again, and his vision filled with the face before him.  Such a face it was, not for any physical beauty, but for the way it opened onto the Rabbi’s soul.  This face was less a face than a window, completely transparent to a reality deeper than the one in which they both stood.  As that face filled his vision, as he looked at it and saw through it the love of God for one such as himself and, indeed, for all sinners, Bartimaeus knew that sight alone was not enough.  The former beggar who had wanted so badly to see again, now understood that seeing only mattered if he could look upon a human face and see the presence of God within.  Jesus smiled, confirming both sight and insight, and as he turned to continue on the way, Bartimaeus fell into step beside him.  Every so often, the new disciple would steal another glance at the Rabbi’s face and then look at the other faces around him.  None were as clear as the Master’s, but all showed traces of transparency; all showed that they had been with the Lord and knew at least something of that deeper reality.  And the words continued to ring in his ears, “Your faith has made you whole.”

The word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

It’s Not All About Us – Sermon for October 18, 2009

This morning’s Old Testament scripture lesson comes from the climax of the story of Job.  Job was someone who had had it all.  The Bible calls him a blameless and upright man who honored God and had integrity, so we know he had a good relationship with God, himself and others.  Moreover he was a wealthy person in good health with a loving family around him.  Who could ask for anything more?   Then one day, all his businesses collapsed at once, and even the building where his children had gathered for a birthday party collapsed, killing them all.  After that Job lost his health; Job himself got sick and then his wife got sick of hearing him complain.  Three friends showed up to comfort Job and they sat with him in silence for seven days out of respect for his suffering.  At last even they got tired of hearing him complain about the way God was treating him and they urged him to confess whatever it was he’d done to bring God’s wrath down upon him this way. 

According to some people’s theology, then and now, Job surely must have offended God to have all those bad things happen to him.  I call this “bargain theology” because it believes we have a bargain with God that goes like this: “I keep your commandments; you keep me safe, if not happy.”  While there are many covenants in scripture – the most cogent of which is “I shall be your God and you shall be my people” [1] – there are no bargains.[2]  This was Job’s theology as well.  He didn’t have any problem with the way his friends were thinking; he just couldn’t square it with what he knew to be true of his own life.  In fact, he was so convinced his theology and his life were right that he thought something was wrong with God.  So for most of the book, Job is shouting at God, “You have a lot to answer for.  Come down here and face me like a man!”

After thirty-five chapters of this, even God got fed up with the way Job carried on.  You’ve heard of someone having the patience of Job?  That’s not really accurate:  it was everybody around Job who showed great patience and restraint.  When God finally spoke to Job out of the tornado, were there any real answers to Job’s “why” questions?  Questions like…

• God why are you picking on my? 
• God, why won’t you answer me? 
• God, why did I ever pick people as wife and friends who love to argue so much? 

No, God did not answer these or any other of Job’s questions.  Instead, God just piled on more questions like, “Who are you?”

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
²‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
³Gird up your loins like a man, [great irony]
   I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

and “Where were you?”

⁴‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
   Tell me, if you have understanding.
⁵Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
   Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶On what were its bases sunk,
   or who laid its cornerstone
⁷when the morning stars sang together
   and all the heavenly beings^* shouted for joy?

The questions continue along the lines of “What can you do?”   

Who’s in charge of the weather, Job? 

Who makes people wise?

Who makes sure there’s enough game for the birds and wild animals?

 Thomas Edward Frank, in Feasting on the Word, asks us to consider another question, “What if God really did show up at the invocation in church on a Sunday morning?”   Had you ever thought about that?  Further, what if God decided to answer us out of the whirlwind for every complaint we’ve ever flung against heaven?  And what if we got an answer a lot like Job’s?  Would we be tempted to just get up and leave?  Would we shout back at God?  “I don’t need this! I get enough stress at work!”  Would we flee and never come back?

Thomas Frank goes on to say, “God takes an enormous risk that Job will never want anything to do with God again, by responding, not about Job’s “why” but about the grandeur, beauty, and order of the creation.  If asking why is some feeble human attempt to get control of life and bring it to sense and better management, God’s response gives humanity even less sense of control than before.  In fact, human concerns are completely peripheral in God’s queries.  God has a universe to run, and human beings are only one among many species to be tended.”[3]

You see, what Job forgot – and what we often forget – is that it’s not all about us.  Part of the human predicament is that each of us has an individual point of view that encourages us to think of ourselves as the center of the universe when in actuality we are not.  So when things start falling to pieces in our lives as they did for Job, we tend to take it personally.  God’s response, in pointing Job to “the grandeur, beauty, and order of the creation,” should encourage us to get beyond that narrow perspective and realize that it’s not all about us, either as individuals or as a species; should encourage us to realize that something bigger than humanity is going on.  Of course, if it’s not all about us, we want to know what it is all about.  Maybe our second scripture for the morning can give us a hint to the answer.

That passage comes from the most systematically theological of the Apostle Paul’s letters, his letter to the Christians in Rome.  At the beginning of chapter 8, he finishes describing the two principles at war within believers: the perspective of life in Christ and the actuality of an ego-centric predicament.  Paul calls these two principles “spirit” and “flesh.”  They correspond roughly to freedom and determinism: the freedom of choice we experience as self-conscious (and, even more, as Christ-conscious) beings and the determinism of matter, subject as it is to the laws of physics.  The apostle’s interest, however, is not philosophical, but theological: the big picture is grounded in God.  So, having explained that there is a struggle between “spirit” and “flesh,” Paul brings it back to what for him is always the main point: the resurrection of Christ and what that means for us.

 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. ¹⁹For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; ²⁰for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; ²³and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  (Romans 8:18-23)

The redemption of our bodies refers to the Christian hope of a bodily resurrection in which the matter that makes us up is transformed into something more appropriate to eternity, to divine time and space, when God recreates us beyond all time and death.  And yet the power of resurrection is already present in us by faith through the resurrection of Christ.  This is what I preach during Easter.  We have the promise of resurrection beyond time, but we have the power of resurrection now. 

As Paul wrote in Philippians 3:10-12,

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹²¹³

So when Paul writes, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us, he’s writing about the power and promise of resurrection.  The truth here about suffering – both the suffering of Christ on the cross and our own suffering which often feels like the suffering of Job – is that it is ultimately redemptive for us, though remember: it’s not all about us.  So the very next words read, for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; all creation longs for its fulfillment in resurrection.  It’s not all about us; it’s about creation participating in the power of resurrection as we participate in its sufferings and longing for resurrection.  

For the creation was subjected to futility … in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  You and I are star-matter.  Every atom in our bodies was forged in the heart of a star where hydrogen fusion makes all the heavier elements that occur in nature.  We are star-stuff, and this star-stuff first became life, then consciousness, then self-consciousness, and finally Christ-consciousness which is the power of resurrection now.  Creation could not attain this; it could not find such power and awareness within itself, which is why Paul says it was subjected to futility.[4]  Creation does not contain its own fulfillment.  Therefore, the Creator entered creation in Jesus as the Christ to bring that fulfillment to birth; or to use Paul’s metaphor of a pregnant woman, to induce the labor that will produce the birth of that fulfillment.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; Job cried out for someone to explain to him the reason for his suffering, the reason he was born if suffering was to be his lot in life.  God’s response to him out of the whirlwind was to look beyond himself at the suffering of all creation and to realize, “It’s not all about you, Job.”  All of creation is suffering until it reaches its fulfillment in the once and future resurrection.  Our suffering is just one small part of the labor pains of creation as the universe gives birth to its fulfillment in the power and promise of resurrection.

 

 

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[1] Jeremiah 31:33 

[2] With the possible exception of Genesis 17:23-33

[3] Thomas Edward Frank, “Pastoral Perspective for Job 38:1-7 (34-41),” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Volume 4 (Louisville, KY: WJK, 2009), 170-172.

[4] Robert W. Nicoll, Expositor’s Greek Testament, Vol. 2 (Romans 8:20) – mataiths was used in LXX to translate the Hebrew word hebel, found in the wisdom literature, most famously in Ecclesiastes.  “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”  Viz. 1:2; 2:1; passim.  The word means looking for what one does not find, hence futility, vanity, etc.

A Family Meal: A World Communion Sunday Meditation

For years while we were living in New England, my family would gather at my parents’ home in Nashua, NH, every Thanksgiving for a family meal.  Not everyone was there; my sister lives in Evansville, IN, and was never able to join us for these Thanksgiving feasts because of her husband’s family obligations.  And not everyone fit at the table, even with a third of us absent:  the grandchildren had to sit at a card table in the kitchen so the adults could fit around the table.  Those days are long gone, and Daddy will be eating Thanksgiving in Evansville with my sister this year, but whenever I think of a family meal, that’s what comes to mind for me.

I want you to close your eyes and imagine your own family meal.  What do you see?  Who do you see?  Where is this meal?  What time of day?  What is being served and who prepared it?  Who is it that’s missing from the meal? 

Now open your eyes.  How did that make you feel?  Did it make you feel warm and fuzzy?  Or did it leave you feeling cold?  A family meal is a powerful symbol in any culture, and our reaction to that symbol depends on how we have experienced family.  In our own culture, we find the quintessential image of a family meal in Norman Rockwell’s painting entitled Freedom from Want which portrays a mid-twentieth century Anglo-American family sitting at the dining room table, leaning forward and smiling with anticipation as the grandmother places a huge turkey in front of grandpa who is standing ready to carve it.  There are two children, a young lady, some men and women in the prime of life and one whose white hair shows her to be older than the grandparents, who are graying gracefully.  This image of a family meal is the focus for our meditation based on Hebrews 2:10-12.

¹⁰It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. ¹¹For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, ¹²saying, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”

This passage of scripture is part of a doxology, like what we sing when the offering is presented.  A doxology is like the praise we heap on the person or persons who set such a sumptuous table for our family meal.  In this case it is a poem of praise to God for giving us salvation through Jesus Christ.  At this point in the poem, the author praises God for giving us all a seat at the table of the biggest family meal we could ever imagine.  The way Peterson puts it in his amplified version, “It makes good sense that the God who got everything started and keeps everything going now completes the work by making the Salvation Pioneer perfect through suffering as he leads all these people to glory. Since the One who saves and those who are saved have a common origin, Jesus doesn’t hesitate to treat them as family.”  Because the One who created all things with a word is the same One who saves, in other words because Christ is 100% God, we are assured that we will someday be led home to glory.  And because the One who saves is completely like us, in other words because Jesus is 100% human, we will be welcome in that home as children of God and as Jesus’ brothers and sisters.  This is the ultimate family meal where everyone who wants one gets a seat at the table.

Today is world communion Sunday when Jesus’ brothers and sisters all over the globe are gathering around the table of our Lord to celebrate and commemorate and imitate the sacrifice that Jesus made in order for us to be made whole.  This is our annual reminder that someday we will all be together in the same house and there will be a table big enough for all of us to sit down at once to share in God’s family meal forever.  Amen.