Sunday Sermon Scripture

Further Down The Samaritan's Road

2008-07-24T11:30:00.002-04:00

This week's scripture is Luke 10:25-37.

You'll notice that once again this week's New Testament scripture is the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told in answer to the question, "Who is my neighbor?"

All week long our Music and Arts Camp has been exploring just that question. The kids have been looking at areas around the world: Zimbabwe, El Salvador, and China; and learning something about each culture.

This Sunday they will be leading our worship and sharing music and drama with us. Watching this unfold as Eloise, Jolly, Jeremy, Joann and Susan pulled all of this together with music and crafts, drama and food has been a real treat. Sunday you'll also meet some older kids who came to help the younger ones have a good experience...now that's what I call 'growing your program.'

I hope that you'll take the opportunity to join them as they share what's been going on. And I also hope that the ongoing question of "who is bleeding beside our road?" has been moving you toward some thought about how we as a congregation can reach out in new ways in the community around the church.

Carole and I will be on vacation this Sunday and all of next week. I'll be back on August 3rd for worship. I'm looking forward to some kayaking on Cape Cod and the chance to spend time with some old friends. But I look forward to seeing you again when I get back.

Take care.
Shalom,
Stephen

The Neighbor By Side Of The Road

2008-07-16T11:43:00.003-04:00

This week's scriptures are Deuteronomy 10:12-22 and Luke 10:25-37.

A couple of things before I start to blog about this week's scriptures.

First, I've been invited/challenged to preach a series of sermons that will help us sharpen our vision of who we are at Broadneck Baptist in terms of our life and mission moving forward into this next phase of our life together. This coming Sunday will be the first sermon in that series.

The scripture that we're using this Sunday is the Good Samaritan parable that Jesus told in answer to the question "who is my neighbor?" And, throughout the following week at Music and Arts Camp, the kids will be using this same story to frame their work and play around international neighbors. I think this is an interesting way to explore the passage. At the beginning of the work the kids will be doing we as grown ups will be doing some grown up 'theological reflection' on the passage. My hope is that our reflection will trickle down in some ways in the work done with the kids; that the things we discover about our identity on Sunday will be reflected as the Church's (as in universal Church) identity is expressed to kids.

In Mark 12:28-31 Jesus is asked, "what is the greatest commandment?" In his answer, Jesus doesn't settle for one commandment. He responds, "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" but he doesn't stop there. Jesus isn't content with leaving the most important thing about our lives being our attitude toward God; he goes on to say, "and the second is 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself' there is no more important commandment than these two." Matthew has Jesus follow up by saying that all the Law of Moses rests on these two commandments. Luke, on the other hand, has Jesus telling the parable that we call the Good Samaritan.

There are a number of lessons that can be learned from this parable. There's the judgement lesson about letting 'religious' laws and rules interfere with compassion-it shines a light on the Priest and the Levite. There's the 'anti-discrimination' lesson about recognizing and valuing couragous compassion where ever it comes from-it shines the light on the Samaritan. But in terms of our exploration of our ministry as Broadneck Baptist Church, I'd like to point us in a different direction. I'd like to shine a light on the man on the side of the road.

We don't know much about this man. Though it is often assumed that he is Jewish, we don't know for sure. Many people traveled the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He could be any one of them. We know nothing about his economic or social status. He'd been stripped of all his clothes. All we know is that he had been robbed, beaten, and lay bleeding by the side of the road. Jesus defines him only by his need. There is no discussion about "the deserving poor" or about his history or family or his religion-or lack thereof. There's not even much discussion about the kind of need he has (is he brain injured, or just cut up?)Nor (as Jeremy pointed out in our Bible study on Monday night) is there any discussion about the wounded man's response to the Samaritan's kindness. He's there; he's wounded and needy.....what will the passers by do? It is in this response that their "identity" for future generations is defined.

For Jesus...and he makes this point in a multitude of ways and places in scripture...there is no seperating our love of God from our love of neighbor. He goes so far as to say "if you did it to the least of these (the most pitiful, the most powerless, the most despised) you did it to me." If we want to wake up every morning and see Jesus; if we want to encounter God every day; we're told to open our eyes and look at our neighbor.

For us as a congregation in the midst of exploring, examining, struggling with what our ministry to the Cape and surrounding area should look like this is an important lesson. Let's put it in stark terms: Who is bleeding on the side of our road? Where is the need? How do we equip ourselves to respond to it? Maybe we've already got some gifts and tools (the Samaritan had oil and wine), but not having the tools isn't an excuse for inaction. Our action has to be determined by the need.

You might ask, "well what if we don't know a lot about this issue/need?" My answer is that we educate ourselves. We've just been given a tremendous gift by 20+ years of giving at Broadneck...our morgage is paid off. That frees us financially, should we need to, to put money into education ourselves about the need, to develop an intelligent response, to live out our call.

But let's be blunt. We're not talking about "issues" or "needs"....we're talking about people. Who's bleeding by the side of our road? Or better yet...where by the side of our road do we see Jesus wounded, bleeding, in need of help?

That's where we need to start.

Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

Trusting the Process of God's Grace

2008-07-11T09:07:00.002-04:00

This week's scriptures are Genesis 25: 1-18 and Matthew 13: 24-30.

In this section of Matthew, Jesus tells three parables back to back that he prefaces with the phrase "the Kingdom of heaven is like..." They are about tiny seeds that grow into large plants; yeast in bread dough; and weeds in the wheat field.

These parables are, in part, about the paradox of the Kingdom of God. About the fact that small things make great differences and that it is in the tinest of moments or actions that great things are held.

But the lead off to this is this pecular parable about the weeds and the wheat. Now most of you who garden weed on a regular basis. I hear folks talking about tending their flowers nearly every Sunday. So it seems a bit strange that the farmer in the story tells his workers NOT to weed for fear they will pull up some wheat by mistake. The farmer would rather risk the weeds (for now) than lose the wheat. Though the story ends with the idea that the weeds will finally be culled out, this is a story of patience and grace and trust. Of a desire to let the process of growth and life do their work and make sure that we can tell the difference between weeds and wheat before we go to yanking things out of the earth.

When followed by the two stories of small things...mustard seeds and yeast...I can't help but wonder if part of what Jesus was getting at was that little things can turn the tide; the power of the smallest act-"the cup of cold water" that we talked about a couple of weeks ago-to transform not only the moment, but the larger picture as well.

How many times in your own experience, or in your knowledge of history, has someone been written off as a "weed" only to be transformed by the process of life and grace-or by some "cup of cold water" into a life of "wheat"?

Have you ever felt written off yourself as a "weed" only to find renewal and hope in someone's "cup of cold water" held out to you?

Do you look at your own life and see lots of "weeds" and little "wheat"?

These parables tell us that our lives, and in fact, the universe, turn on small things. And that God is patient with the process. God is not so quick to go 'weeding', but rather seeks to 'draw straight with our crooked lines' by the use of the small things...the pebble that turns the stream.

Please don't mistake my faith for naivety. We make mistakes...huge mistakes. We sin. And there is evil in the world. Huge clouds of evil in which violence is done, humans are trafficed, and innocents tortured and killed. I know this and we have responsibilities to face and respond to it.

But we respond in faith. Faith that God will have the last word. That the final act does not belong to evil and that the small actions you and I take today can turn the stream, raise the loaf, or grow into a place where others may find shelter.

We'll explore some of this on Sunday in relation to Isaac and Ishmael and the Issac's and Ishmael's in our lives.

For now, I'm off to go camping. Car is packed; the dog is ready; and Carole is waiting.

Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

Incredible Love

2008-07-01T14:39:00.003-04:00

This week's scriptures are Song of Solomon 2:8-13 and Matthew 11:16-30.

God loves us. Now when I say that, most of you sort of go..."yeah, we know that"-right?

But I mean God LOVES us.

I think that sometimes we lose track of what that means; of the incredible depth and passion that is involved here. It may be because so many of us grow up singing "Jesus loves me this I know" that we think of that love as somehow childish. Or we hear John 3:16 "For God so loved the world..." so often that it quites having a real impact.

Then we look at stories like Hosea. Hosea who loves his wife so much that he goes and buys her back after she's sold herself into sexual slavery...and then tells us that this is what God's love is like. Hosea who, on God's behalf, describes God's love as like a mother remembering nursing her new-born and the time that she taught her toddler to walk.

And then, we have the pictures painted for us in the Song of Solomon (or the Song of Songs if you prefer). This is really hot, sweaty stuff. Much of it is graphic sexual love poetry. It is steamy account of two young lovers and their desire for one another. They can't keep their hands off each other and everything they see reminds them of their lover's body. So much so that the girl in the poetry goes wandering the streets at night in search of her lover.

We're told by the rabbis and other commentators that this book is included in the scripture because it's also description of the kind of love that God has for us. Think about it! There's God, like a young adolescent male, hanging outside his girlfriend's house....peeking through the windows to catch a glimpse of her, waiting for her to wave back at him...gazing through the latticework into the back yard.

What we're being told in no uncertain terms is that God has the hots for humanity. Think about the most powerful erotic loving feelings you've ever had for another person...they don't even begin to touch the passion God feels for you!

Roll together all the images that scripture gives us: Father, Mother, Brother...and now Erotic Lover-even in combination they only begin to scratch the surface of the quality of depth and passion coming to us from God. This is the Love that the hymn says will not let us go; this is the Love that Paul says nothing can seperate us from; this is the Love that not even death could conquer.

I find it a little bit scary, frankly.....but it's a good kind of scary. Think about falling in love. God's in love with you. Can we fall in love with God?

Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

How Do We See God?

2008-06-26T16:13:00.002-04:00

This week's scriptures are Genesis 22: 1-14 and Matthew 10: 34-42.

The Genesis passage for this week, often referred to as "The Binding of Isaac" is one of the more disturbing passages in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Matthew passage with its "who ever does not hate mother and father" and "I have come to bring not peace, but a sword" may not be quiet as disturbing as Abraham getting ready to make a sacrifice out of Isaac...but it's close.

As I'm living with these two passages this week there are a couple of thoughts that keep coming back to me...and before I share them I want to offer a big THANK YOU to Jeremy for his conversation with me about them-it really helped my processing of these passages.

Now....
Part of the problem is that we tend, way too often, to look at God through the lens of our culture and/or our family. We get caught up in what C.S. Lewis referred to as "Christianity and..." This is a view of our faith that defines our belief in terms of things which have nothing to do with Christianity, and, finally, these things take over and become part of our understanding of what it means to be Christian.

Abraham, lived in a culture in which the sacrifice of children was, if not normal, not unusual either. What WAS unusual in this story is that God relinquished any claim to human sacrifice here. In fact-with one exception-there is no occurance of human sacrifice in the Hebrew faith from this point on. One way to look at this story is that it is the account of the Hebrew faith breaking with the cultural expectation of human sacrifice.

This all sounds really good til we get to the Matthew passage. We don't have any trouble believing that faith should not demand human sacrifice. But when Jesus says, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and who does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me".....that's harsh.

Can we challenge ourselves to look at our faith and seperate out all that isn't Jesus? Can we put Jesus first? Can we be willing to go against those who would make culture or family or politics a god?

These are the thoughts that are moving me toward Sunday. I hope you'll join us as we continue to explore these passages and what they mean for us and our faith today.

Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

A Dark Story of Crooked Lines

2008-06-18T18:06:00.004-04:00

This week's scriptures (a whole bunch of them): Genesis 16: 1-16, 21: 8-21;
Psalm 69: 1-3 and 16-18, 86: 1-10; Matthew 10: 26-39.

Whew! I don't think I've ever posted this many scriptures for a Sunday before. And to be prefectly honest with you, as I read them I'm not totally sure where we're going to wind up on Sunday when it comes time to preach.

What I do know is that the story of Sara and Hagar is a dark story of jealousy and rage; of using people to get our goals met; of God's hearing the cry of the mistreated and the throw-away; and of God (to use the words of an old Portugese proverb) "drawing straight with crooked lines."

It is faith in this....in God's action in the face of our pain and despair....that gives the Psalmist the strength to call out. To say, 'I'm drowning here,' and to give voice to the anguish of the moment.

And it is this understanding of His Father's concern for us-not just as a piece of history or part of some ongoing Will-but as individuals, as persons, that causes Jesus to remind us that not even a sparrow (often used by the poor for their sacrifice or as food) falls without God's knowledge.

The idea that the same God who is the God of history-who has a hope, a dream for what creation will be....cares about you and me in all our tiny, small, petty, cruel, heroic, humanness....it is truly an Awe-ful thing.

That God heard the cries of Hagar and Ishmael does not diminish or excuse Sara's cruelty or Abram's cowardliness in sending them into the wilderness. But if I have to live in a world where cowardliness and cruelty are often in the driver's seat, I'm grateful that God hears the cry of those who are driven out.

A final word. One of the things that I love about scripture...even when it makes me squirm...is that it does not blink in the face of the truth about the people whom God called to be God's friends. It does not soft-soap their shortcomings or their sins. The Hebrew Scriptures are especially noted for their brutal honesty about the human condition and its potential for being less that what we are called to be. It gives me hope that if these persons, with their issues, found a place in God's friendship, perhaps there is room for me as well with all of my sins.

See you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

Like Sheep Without A Shepherd

2008-06-10T13:02:00.001-04:00

This week's scriptures are Matthew 9: 35-38 and 10: 16-25.

Matthew 9:36 tells us that as Jesus went about in the cities and villages and saw the crowds "he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd."

Now, as a prelude to understanding this verse it might be helpful to notice what Matthew records Jesus has having been up to before this verse and his sending out of his disciples: he's cleansed a leper, healed a centurion's servant, healed Peter's mother-in-law (and those who came to the house when they heard about it), stilled a storm, healed a paralytic, been ranted at by the Pharisees for hanging out with sinners, raised a dead girl, healed a woman who was hemorraging, given two blind men their sight, and given a mute man back his voice....and that's just in the space between this verse and 8:1! No wonder, being faced with this overwhelming expression of human suffering, that Jesus would look at his disciples and say 'the harvest is plentiful...ask God to send help.'

Jesus looked around him and was acutely conscious of the state of 'harasssed helplessness' of those who came to him. What do harassed sheep do? The become nervous. They may run in circles. They flock closer together. Except if they're seperated. Then a sheep will become paralyzed and lay down. This is why we see pictures of the 'Good Shepherd' carrying the sheep. The creature has frozen and cannot even respond to the voice of the shepherd (which it will do under other conditions). I'm reminded of experiments done on traumatized mice. They were shocked without any ability to escape their cage...then they were put in a cage with the door open...having been exposed to this inescapable trauma, they would go to the corner of the open cage, huddle down, and not move to escape further shock---even though there was now a door open for them.

How many of us know people like that? How many of us, if we're honest, have places in our lives where we are like that?

Frightened, frozen, unable to see the doorway(s) to freedom. We ask ourselves, perhaps, "can't they hear God saying that they are loved? Can't they hear the shepherd's voice?" But the honest answer is "no, they can't." In my work as a therapist, I often see traumatized clients who's entire early life had been a case of "inescapable shock." You know them too. The battered spouse, the grown up abused child, the abandoned one.

This is the 'harvest' that Jesus was talking about. It wasn't about 'saving souls' when a few verses later Jesus sent out his disciples. He sent them out saying, "proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons" (10:7-8)-these, by the way, were the things Jesus had just been doing. The coming of the kingdom meant that human needs were being met. Illness was cured, alienation releaved, voices long silences were being heard.

As we look at our world; as Broadneck explores the new opening phase of its life; can we hear Jesus saying, 'Look! there's work to be done...ask God to send help' and can we realize that, just like the disciples...that help is us.

Hope to see you on the water Sunday for our outing.
Shalom,
Stephen

How Can I Give You Up?

2008-06-03T15:42:00.003-04:00

This week's scriptures are Hosea 5: 15- 6: 6, 11: 1-9, 14: 1-9.

I love the story of Hosea. It is filled with longing and anger; pathos and passion. It is Hosea's way of looking at his own life, and in conversation with God, coming to believe that "this is how God feels about the relationship with God's people."

It's not a pretty story by any means. Hosea marries a woman named Gomer. But Gomer is a prostitute. She has children by other men. She abandons him. Hosea rages. He gives the children names like "not pitied" (another version of this name is "never again forgive") and "not mine." In fact, no sooner has Gomer weaned her daughter "not pitied" than she conceived "not mine." Finally she leaves. And if Hosea was like most of us, this would be the end of the story.

But somehow, Hosea saw in what happened between him and Gomer, an example of what was happening between God and Israel. Hosea came to believe that God's heart was being broken just like his was broken. And, wonder of wonders, God showed him that the story didn't stop with anger...not God's story with Israel, or Hosea's story with Gomer.

God tells Hosea "Go again and bestow your love on a woman loved by another man, an adulteress; love her as I, the Lord, love the Israelites..." And Hosea does. He goes and finds Gomer-who is for sale. We don't know if she's been put on the auction block as a slave, if she's working as a temple prostitute, or if Hosea buys her back from a pimp. What we do know is "I bought her for fifteen pieces of silver, a homer of barley, and a measure of wine..."

When God, through Hosea, talks about the deep love that God has for Israel, Hosea uses incredibly beautiful feminine images of a mother teaching her child to walk, bending down to breastfeed her infant, and lifting her baby to rub it's face against her cheek. God uses the equivilent of childhood pet names in talking to Israel and even in the midst of God's anger at Israel's unfaithfulness says, "How can I give you up...a change of heart moves me, tenderness kindles within me...I shal not turn and destroy Ephraim, for I am God, not a mortal; I am the Holy One in your midst."

No Biblical writer, in my mind, has come so close to the heart of God's anguish at humankind's betrayal and lack of trust; or to the depth of the love that moves God to stay connected to us...even at tremendous price.

And we could stop here...but it wouldn't be the whole story. Because if we take this story to heart, you and I aren't Hosea (and we're certainly not God)-we're Gomer. Loved-when there was no reason to keep loving; forgiven-when there was no right to expect it; bought back and brought home-when we were the ones who sold ourselves out in the first place.

Hosea doesn't pull any punches. He's incredibly blunt and brutal about Gomer and Israel's sin; about God's anger (and his). But he makes the point that God's love doesn't pull any punches either. God will not pretend that our sins don't exist, that they haven't happened. But God refuses to be controlled by, defined by our sin, our failure, our shortcomings. Consequently, we don't have to pretend either. We can come to God with all we are, all we've done, and trust that God's response to us...just like it was to Israel...will be "how can I give you up?...I will heal my people...I will love them freely."

God's love for us is bigger than where we've been, or what we've done. That love still seeks us out and brings us home.

Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

How Then Do We Live?

2008-05-28T13:02:00.006-04:00

This week's scriptures are Genesis 6: 5-22 and Matthew 7: 13-29.

If you take a look at the titles of the blogs for the last couple of weeks you'll see a conversation taking place with myself (and hopefully with you):

"What Does God Think of Us?" is followed by the question "If God Cares So Much, Then How Come....?" This is a basic question that has troubled humankind for centuries. Whether you ask it as "how can a loving God allow suffering?" or "why do bad things happen to good people?" or in more painful, deeply personal ways (I will leave you to speak your own) it is a set of questions-and answers-that will shape our responses to the world around us.

According to some geological theories, about 12,000 years ago, toward the end of the Ice Age, glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere began to melt. Oceans and seas grew deeper. About 7,000 years ago the Mediterranean Sea's waters pushed northward slicing through what is now Turkey and flooded into the Black Sea with 200 times the force of Niagra Falls.

Seared into the memories of terrified survivors, the tale of the flood was passed down through generations; from the Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic on into the Hebrew Scriptures account of Noah.

I read an interesting comment while preparing for Sunday's sermon. It isn't a pretty comment, but it rings true to me. The writer said that we've taken a story of terror and turned it into a cute little story about animals coming two by two. The truth, he pointed out, was that Noah looked over the ship's railing at the bloated corpses of animals and people floating in a scene of absolute devastation.

Talk about being overwhelmed. And yet...and yet each day, Noah sent out a bird. It wasn't a big thing to do. It wasn't some great act. He turned a bird lose. He committed a small, single act of faith in God's promise that this wasn't the end...that there was more to come...that God would, in fact, live up to God's word.

It is easy for you and me to feel overwhelmed as well. For me, accounts of 38,000 cases of PTSD resulting so far from the Iraq war; the tragedies in China and Myanmar; and the brutal violence in Zimbabwe are mind numbing. When I add to those stories the ones I hear closer to home from both victims and perpetrators of abuse; from those suffering from physical illnesses who are denied insurance coverage; the requests for help with food and electricity.....

Jesus talked about this at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. He said, "Everyone who hears these words and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house..." Can you relate so far? I sure can. But listen to the rest: "...but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock."

Now I've got some other things I want to add to this on Sunday; but for now, I want to point out that being "founded on the rock" looks a lot like what we talked about on this past Sunday when we explored "living in trust" as opposed to "living for security." It isn't that we're not afraid, or that we don't have issues to deal with. It's that we do the little things. Like Noah, we 'send out a bird.' We commit small acts of faith in God's promises, based on what Jesus has taught us about what God is like....'everyone who listens and acts, builds on the rock.' The action may be small. It isn't the size of the act, but the direction we take it in.

What 'bird' will you send out this week? Will you respond to Joann's request and write a letter to Zimbabwe? Will you make a contribution to relief aid somewhere? Will you live today in hope...despite what your past may have been? Maybe you'll plant your garden..and that beauty will be your statement in the face of all that is destruction. All of these may be 'birds' that we send out from the deck of our life's ship into the face of the overwhelming turbulence we see. Acts of faith that God loves us and all creation; and that this love will speak the final word.

Oh...a hint about Sunday...if you look at this scripture, ask yourself: 'what was the first thing Jesus did after talking about listening and doing in imitation of Him as building on the rock?'

Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

If God Cares So Much, Then How Come.....?

2008-05-22T18:11:00.003-04:00

This week's scriptures are Isaiah 49: 8-16 and Matthew 6: 24-34.

The Bible Study group on Monday found that these scriptures may raise as many questions as they give answers. They are comforting passages; that's true. But they also force us to ask some hard questions about our own anxieties and fears.

The passage from Isaiah is a good example. In the early verses, God-through Isaiah-talks about all the good things that have been done for God's beloved Israel. Look at the language:

"I have formed you" "I have destined you" "I answered you" "I came to your aid"

But Zion's reply to this is "The Lord has forsaken me: my Lord has forgotten me." Israel's fear of abandonment is strong. So, apparently, are the trust issues of those that Jesus reminds in our Matthew passage not to worry about their life, "what you will eat or drink, what you will wear."

Unfortunately these verses don't mean that everything is okay, that we can count on God filling our every need right now. If that were true, what would that say about Christians in other parts of the world (or even in America) who go hungry, who are poorly clothed, who suffer from illnesses brought on by poverty?

Things don't go the way we would like. Trouble is all around us; personally and from a world wide perspective.

It's easy to start feeling like the Hank Williams Jr. song that starts off

"The preacher man says it's the end of time
and the Mississippi river she's going dry.
The interest is up and the stock market's down
and you only get mugged if you go down town"

The song's solution, unfortunately is that owning a "shotgun, a rifle, and a 45" takes care of those problems. It's a solution (or some version of it) that can look very attractive when we're feeling helpless and anxious. It's a power based solution. But is it the solution we're called to?

Two things leap to mind for me (and there will probably be others before Sunday):

The first is that we live in an 'Escatological Hope.' That means we believe somethings about what the Final Word is going to be. We believe that God is moving in and through history to heal and restore creation. That movement is often bumpy and rough; and confusing to us as we stand in our little bit of the road. But we hold tight to our faith that God is going to have the final say.

The second thing is a belief that part of God's answer is us. You and I are called to be part of God's action. Listen to these verses from our Isaiah passage:

"I have formed you, and destined you to be a light for peoples, restoring the land and allotting once more its desolate holdings." God goes on to describe how the prisoners will go free, those in darkness will come into the open. How "one who loves them will guide them and lead them by springs of water." God speaks of calling creation home, "Theya are coming; soe from far away, some from the north and the west, and others from the land of Syene."

If it's going to happen...if the Kingdom of God is going to come...then you and I are going to have be part of the coming. Jesus told us, "the kingdom of God is within you" this is the same kingdom that is described as yeast in the bread baking in the oven...the thing that makes the loaf rise.

Still and all, we fear being forgotten. Our anxieties about tomorrow still trouble us, even if they're just a vague feeling underneath it all. We need to acknowledge this; put it on the table with God...that's part of what Zion was doing in the Isaiah passage.

Maybe...at least in part...that's the conversation:

US-It's dark and I'm afraid

GOD-I'm here. I've always been here

US-I'm scared you'll leave. It's dark, I can't see what's going on and I can't see you.

GOD-Listen to my voice. I'm right here. I could never leave you...I love you.

US-(breathing a little calmer) Let me try to light a candle, someone else might be scared of this dark too.

It's a thought. We'll look at it further on Sunday.

I know many folks will be on the road this weekend. Please drive safe. And if you're in town, we hope you'll join us for worship on Sunday.

Shalom,
Stephen

What Does God Think of Us?

2008-05-13T12:44:00.002-04:00

This week's scriptures are Genesis 1:1-2:4a (and probably 2:4b-2:9), Psalm 8, and Matthew 28: 16-20.

First of all, I'd like to thank the folks who commented on last week's blog. Kara's comments about creating a space where things can happen and Jeremy's comments about the need for us to risk vulnerablility are important lead-in's to this week's conversation.

I would maintain that one of the reasons that most of us find it so difficult to risk vulnerability...with God, with others, even with ourselves...is that we tend to see ourselves as being judged rather than embraced. Another way to put it is that we do not believe that people (or God) will embrace/love us unless we are some how "good enough" to deserve that love.

Even when we give 'lip service' to the idea of God's love being free, unconditional, and for everyone, there is the little voice in the back of our head that hedges our bets, that wonders if this kind of love is truly possible.

For those of us who grew up in homes where it felt like love was doled out based on our accomplishments; or where violence and abuse were common; such love is almost beyond belief. In fact, we can be suspicious of the words that come from scripture or the church when our life experience was to hear one thing ("Mommy and Daddy love you just like you are") and experience another (the feeling that love was given or withheld based on what we produced).

For many of us, our experience of love has felt more like running for office that the recieving of a free gift. We feel like we have to store up enough "votes" or "trophies" or whatever before we can safely expect to be cared for.

Even those moments of exquisite awareness of God's love for us are often accompanied by words like those of the Psalmist:

"What is a frail mortal, that you should be mindful of him/her, a human being that you should take notice"

Or those of Chris Christofferson:

"Why me Lord, what have I ever done
To deserve even one, of the pleasures I've known?
Tell me Lord, what did I ever do,
That was worth love from you, or the kindness you've shown?"

The truth is that the answer is "Nothing...and we don't have to." This is shocking to most of us. It goes against the grain. But it doesn't go against scripture. The Bible keeps telling us things like: "God showed God's love in that while we were yet sinners...." and "greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." The truth is that God doesn't love us because we're good.

In fact, there's some pretty steamy stuff in scripture that points to the idea that God's feelings toward us are more like those of a lover in the erotic sense. The Song of Songs, in addition to being incredible (and vivid) love poetry, compares God's love for humankind to a young couple who can barely restrain themselves. And the description of the Church in Revelation as "prepared as a Bride for her husband" builds on this image.

his isn't an intellectual exercise....God loves, craves, desires, "has the hots for" humankind. And what's more, God created us to have that kind of desire for God. This is why St. Augustine could say "our hearts are restless til they find their rest in Thee." God wants you (and me) in a big way. And we were created for that relationship. All our seeking, all our wandering, all the striving/addiction/craziness/hungry for we don't know what....it's our search for the true home that we find only in God. Just like (if we're lucky) the true home we find in the arms of our lover.

Good parents...good lovers...when these are at their best, they point us toward another reality. All of them point to-but can't even begin to describe-how God feels about us. You and I are called to join this terrifying, joyful, giggly, tearful dance of Life....and we can only risk the vulnerablility to step into the music when we know how God feels about us.

God loves you. Come join the dance.

Hope to see you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

Living Water

2008-05-08T18:43:00.003-04:00

This week's scripture are Isaiah 55: 1-5, John 7: 37-39 and Acts 2: 1-21

All these images link together. Isaiah invites us to come to the water; to recieve the gift of an everlasting covenant. Jesus promises that "springs of living water shall flow from with [us]." And the Acts passage tells us something about what it looks like when the Spirit comes and we overflow.

I don't know about you; but I could certainly use some of that water this week. Let's start with the fact that this is the latest I've ever posted my blog about the upcoming sermon. This week was the last week of the semester. Papers were due, exams to be taken (one in statistics....and some of you know how numerically challenged I am). A wedding last weekend. A friend in crisis. A client in jail. Some days you feel like you're in the middle of a 'spiritual blanket toss.'

I could really use some of that water.

That was what I was telling myself when I sat down to write this blog.....Then, I had to take a break to go lead a therapy group.....you know....one more thing I had to do before I could go home and get some sleep.

And the funniest thing happened. One of the men in the group openned up about a painful part of his life. Something he hadn't talked about for years. And the man across the room from him said, "yeah, that happened to me too." Around the room, one by one, men began to share...not just their pain; but their care for each other.
They made sure that guys who'd had a really hard time in group tonight had phone numbers so that they could call each other if they needed to talk. Two of them made plans to go hear a third play in a band over the weekend.

I didn't have to do much. Just sit back and drink from the well that opened up when one man had the courage to share his pain and have a community of men gather around him.

When I sat down to write this blog tonight, I said to myself, "I certainly could use some of that water." Obviously Someone was listening. Isn't it amazing the places where the Holy Spirit moves and wells of living water spring forth.

Hope we'll see you Sunday.

Shalom,
Stephen

It's Not All About Me (or you either)

2008-04-29T13:37:00.002-04:00

I will be away this Sunday. Joann and Jolly Davis will be talking about the Alliance of Baptist meeting in New Orleans and the work they did there.

So this gives me a chance to share something that happened to me recently that I found interesting...and funny...and thought provoking.

We were having the monthly potluck at church last Sunday. Joann made a comment (I forget what it was exactly) and I responded by saying something like "did I do something wrong?"

At that point, Marge leaned toward me and said, "It's not all about you Stephen." The table laughed...then laughed again when I told Marge that I would pass along to my wife Carole that she had stepped in (in my wife's absence) to remind me that everything isn't all about me.

It's a problem that many of us raised with high standards and expectations often have. If something goes wrong-it must be our fault. If someone is upset-we must have done something. We are somehow responsible for keeping all the wheels greased and all the folks happy; so if there's a problem...it must be all about us.

There's an even uglier shadow side to this. In my secret heart I think that because I work so hard to do it right, to be good, to be caring...that I deserve to be rewarded. People should love me, sing my praises...or at least be grateful for all I've done. After all...It's All About Me. For many of the persons I've worked with who've broken the law in one way or another this is the very excuse they use: 'I work so hard, I put in all this energy, I'm entitle to... (fill in the blank for yourself). But it all translates out to the same message: It's All About Me.

This morning I was trying to reflect on the Lord's Prayer when it hit me. When you and I say "Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be THY name; THY kingdom come, THY will be done." We're acknowledging that it's NOT All About Me.

In fact, in the great scheme of things, it's hardly about me at all. It's about God; and God's desire and love for God's creation. What it's about is whether or not God's will, God's desire, God's kingdom are realized in the moments of our lives...and through the actions of our lives. Our task is to seek that will, that kingom, and try as best we are able to join ourselves to it.

There is a gift for us here. See, if it's all about me, then my salvation is all about me too. And if my salvation is all about me...if my relationship to God is all about me...then, I don't know about you, but I'm toast. Cause I just can't do it. But what if here as well as in other ways, it's not all about me. If it's not all about me; then maybe I can relax. Maybe I can not have to be so scared of failure. Maybe I can risk. Martin Luther once said, "Sin boldly, but believe more boldly still."

If it's not all about me, then I can enjoy the part that is about me...that God loves you and me; that God loves us in ways beyond our imagining. And in that love we can risk, and fail, and rise again as we move toward God's will for us and for our world.

It's not all about me...or you either. Thanks be to God.

Shalom,
Stephen

Lepers

2008-04-21T13:28:00.003-04:00

This week's Scriptures are

Before I say anything else, I want to thank the Wonderful Wednesday Kids for the incredible job that they did dramatizing our scripture lesson on Sunday. Then, they sang with the adult choir and were a marvelous addition to their music....So THANK YOU Wonderful Wednesday Kids....you are an important, valuable part of our church community. And thank you to all the adults who helped you get prepared in so many different ways.

This week's scriptures are about Jesus' encounter with persons who had leprosy. Because of their illness, the were forced out of their homes and made to live on the outskirts of the village or encampment (if it was a nomadic community). They had to wear torn clothing, let their hair hang in front of their face (looking down, they weren't allowed to look others in the eye) and cry out "unclean, unclean" as they moved through the streets. In some cultures they carried little bells that they rang as they walked to warn others that they were coming. Not only did they have to cope with the economic and medical issues caused by their illness; they had to endure the public shaming of their outcast status. This status could also be incurred by their families as well.

I think that these scriptures speak to us on three levels. The first is the social level. Where do we as Christians need to be reaching out to those who are alienated and outcast. Not just to those who are the 'flavor of the month' recepients of help (caring for others needs to be more than a fad); but the ones who are truly set adrift in our culture. From my work with sexual offenders, I think not only of them, but of their families. Remember how the outcast status of the leper could also be visited on their kin.

Second, I find that these passages challenge me to look at the list of people who, in my own heart of hearts, I have made 'lepers.' Who have I written off, written out, ostracized in my own mind and life. How might Jesus be calling me to deal with that part of my own living.

Third, if I flip this story a little bit, I need to look at the places in my life where I feel like a leper. All of us have them. Those places that make us ashamed to lift our head, the ones we're sure that if anyone else knew they'd turn away and go "oh yuck." Can we find in ourselves the courage this leper had to bring these things to Jesus and say, "if you want to, you can heal me."

A final thought that brings us full circle back to our Wonderful Wednesday Kids. These are wonderful children. We value them greatly-as we should. Can they help us not lose sight of the fact that the people we write off were once someone's beautiful child as well? I'm often reminded (in better moments) as I work with someone who had been battered by life into a state where they are difficult to deal with, much less to love, of the words to and old religious folk song about the "Tramp on the Street":

He was some mother's darlin'
He was some mother's son,
Once he was beautiful and once he was young.
Some mother rocked him, her little baby, to sleep;
But the left him to die, like a tramp on the street.

God still looks at all of us....lepers, outcasts, tramps on the street, upwardly mobile successful ones....all of us....with the eyes of a loving parent. Can we learn to look at the world though those eyes as well.

See you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

What's Clean and What's Unclean?

2008-04-15T17:22:00.003-04:00

This week's scripture is Acts 10: 9-35.

The Wonderful Wednesday Kids are going to be acting out the first part of this scripture for us on Sunday. You won't want to miss it.

When we look at this passage, it's a very strange story. Cornelius has a visit from an angel telling him to send for Peter. Peter gets a vision (and a pretty weird vision at that) which he interpretes in a way that lets him go to Cornelius when Cornelius sends messengers asking him to come.

I got to thinking about this passage. And it seems to me that this is the first time that God has taken such an active, out front role in making things happen since He sent an angel to Mary and a dream to Joseph. I asked myself why that was? What is happening here that is so important that God wants to make sure that everything goes according to plan?

Then it hit me. The importance of this moment is the move of Christianity out from being simply a Jewish sect, to being a faith for all persons. God is going to 'drop kick' as it were the new Christian community into relationship with, and acceptance of, their non-Jewish neighbors. Before they get set in their ways and start demanding that everybody who wants to be a Christian has to first convert to Judeism (and there are some in the early Church who will want that to be the rule), God is going to jump into the middle of the discussion and say, "No...don't you DARE go calling what I have said is 'clean', 'acceptable', 'kosher'...don't you DARE go calling it 'unclean'.

And Peter got the message. That was the good news. The bad news is that it didn't stick for very long and Peter would later chicken out a bit when an intimidating bunch of muckity mucks from the Jerusalem church showed up. But this day, he got it. And because he got it the Christian Church got its first gentile converts.

It's a funny thing though. Even after God gave him this great vision telling him that nothing and no one was 'unclean', even after he's stood there and watched the Holy Spirit come down on Cornelius and his household, Peter still slide back into his fear later on. Kinda like me and you. I need to ask myself over and over: 'who am I calling 'unclean' that God has made clean?' 'who am I blocking out that God has included?'

I am always humbled when I ask those questions of myself. Cause there's a long list of folks I wouldn't want to make a long car ride with; and a long list of folks who (if I'm honest) I harbor resentments toward; who I have deemed 'unclean' in my own heart. And the judgement of Jesus when I look at it honestly is, "when you do this to them...you do it to Me."

What's it like when you ask the questions?

Hope to see you Sunday.

Shalom,
Stephen

The Early Church and Us

2008-04-08T16:27:00.002-04:00

This Sunday's Scripture is Acts 2: 42-47.

I will be away this Sunday at a conference. Rev. Dub Pool will be filling the pulpit and he will be using the scripture above as the focus for his sermon. It was interesting to be at the Bible study last night and studying a passage together that I wouldn't be preaching on.

However, I do get to share with you here some of my thoughts about that passage. Here they are:

These verses outline in simple, direct form what the early Christians did (we're going to get to that in a second). And we're told in verse 47 that as they "praised God" (by living the way we'll get to in a second) that they "enjoyed the favor of the whole people and day by day the Lord added new converts to their number."

The early Church grew because of the way that they lived and how attractive that was to the people who observed them.

Those of you familiar with 12-Step programs will know that AA talks about being a "program of attraction, not promotion." That means that it is a way of dealing with addiction that grows because people are attracted to it because of what they see and hear about how others have gotten sober...not because they're running a 'high gloss' add campaign. And they grew because recovering alcoholics told friends who were still drinking addictively about the help they'd found. Sorta like the old description of sharing our faith being "one begger telling another begger where to find food."

Now I've got nothing against ad campaigns per se. I've heard some lately that aren't bad. But once folks get in the door, if our walk doesn't match our talk, folks will drift on out just as quick as they came in.

So what did that "walk" look like in the early Church? Christians were, in the beginning, called People of the Way...what did that "Way" look like to outsiders?

First of all, we're told that they learned the Story. The "teaching of the Apostles" was those who had known Jesus and traveled with Him telling the same stories and sharing the same teachings that you and I find in our Gospel accounts. So they heard the Story and tried to figure out what it meant for them.

Second, they had "fellowship." Now this wasn't a "Hi, how are ya?" kind of thing. This was a view of fellowship rooted in Jesus teachings (for example "I was hungry and you fed me, naked and you clothed me...") that caused some of these folksto sell property and "share all things in common" so that their brothers and sisters would be taken care of.

Third, they "broke bread" together. Now this is important. I mean really IMPORTANT. It wasn't just that they ate meals together potluck style (which they probably did) moving from house to house. But more than this, each meal became a reminder to them of the Last Supper where Jesus talked about being 'broken' and 'poured out'; and how Jesus, following the resurrection, was "known in the breaking of the bread." And beyond even this, their meals stood as a counter cultural statement about who was in and who was out...reflecting the way in which Jesus ate with others during His lifetime. (We're into next week's sermon, so I'll stop there).

And finally, they prayed. Prayer became a natural, ongoing part of their life together.

I would challenge each of us-myself included-as we look at our identity as a congregation, and as we search for our next pastor, to examine our lives and see how well we reflect these early Church values.

I wish I could tell you that the church has lived up to this lifestyle; but very quickly this mode of living broke down (again, we're into next week's sermon); and we as current 'Followers of the Way' struggle with it even now. How will we...you and I....seperately and corporately seek to engage in this committed, disciplined struggle to understand and live out the Story and teachings of Jesus.

When we figure that out, we'll find, as once commentator (Al Wynn) said, that folks will be trying to break in to such a fellowship.

See you in two weeks.
Shalom,
Stephen

2008-04-01T14:17:00.002-04:00

This week's scriptures are Psalm 116 and Luke 24:13-49

The story from Luke 24 is often referred to as 'The Road to Emmaus' because of where this incident takes place. One of the interesting things is that no one seems to know where Emmaus was. Much like the 'holler' (or hollow if you prefer) in the mountains of Appalachia, it was probably a little village that was associated with a particular craft or family grouping...not even a dot on the map.

And the time? Well to you and me it was Easter evening. To Cleopas and his traveling companion (who was probably his wife....we'll talk about that on Sunday) it was three days after their friend had been tortured to death and the day they'd been told his grave had been robbed. They weren't looking for a resurrected Jesus; they were just trying to make it home safely and sharing their grief and troubled thoughts as they walked down the road. It was an ordinarily painful time in a troubled point in history. Another day in a world of political oppression and personal pain.

They weren't looking for Jesus. And they almost missed Him. It wasn't until the meal time, when he broke the bread and blessed it, that they recognized who he was. Then just as quickly...He was gone. We're told that they hotfooted it back to Jerusalem to tell the others.

But I want to point out three things that seem important to me. The first is that Jesus showed up in the middle of their sadness. God often comes to us in the times of our greatest distress. The second is that they invited this stranger into their home. They didn't know who he was; they only knew that night was coming and he needed to eat. Third, it was in this time of community and hospitality that Jesus became known to them.

The time when folks were most fearful of being arrested as Jesus' disciples, these two invite a stranger into their home for dinner. And in this act of risky hospitality they meet Jesus again. They are blessed with a visit from the risen Christ. Not because they're part of the important 'inner circle' of disciples. But because they shared their story, opened their home.

As we look at our lives personally and as a congregation; and especially as we explore our indentity in preparation to seek a new pastor; we might want to consider that it is in times of risky hospitality that we are most apt to encounter Jesus. This is the flip side to the "I was hungry and you feed me, naked and you clothed me..." passage. It says to us, "if you want to meet Jesus in the day to day, in the ordinary and unexpected places of your life...risky hospitality to strangers is the doorway to that experience."

We'll talk more on Sunday. Hope to see you then.

Shalom,
Stephen

Prophetic Preaching in the Present Day

2008-03-26T11:05:00.002-04:00

This week's scriptures are Ezekiel 34: 1-24 and Matthew 25: 31-40

Well, I went and changed the scriptures that I want to preach from this week. On Easter, when I first looked at what would be the focus of this week's sermon I was all set to talk about the appearances of Jesus following the resurrection in which He proved to His disciples that He wasn't a ghost by eating food and inviting them to touch Him. These are important passages. The invite you and me to also test and experience Jesus....and, they don't condemn us for the struggles and doubts we have along the way.

But then I started looking at and listening to the news, reading the paper, and watching the internet stories about Barack Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright. And it seems to me that neither Obama in his responses, nor the media in theirs, understand the role in our society of persons like Rev. Wright, nor how much we need them.

All throughout the Hebrew Scriptures God raised up prophets to speak to God's people. The primary function of the prophet isn't to predict the future...though there is some of that in what they say...but to hold the people to account-on God's behalf-for their breaking of their relationship with God and with each other. Their words are often strong, hard to hear, and set them, almost always, over against those in power. They point out the inequalities in the social structure; condemn corruption; and comfort the oppressed with the knowledge that God will come to their rescue.

This is the kind of preaching that Rev. Wright was doing in his sermons that were quoted in the news. I doubt that this is the only kind of sermon Rev. Wright ever preached. I imagine that he often preaches sermons that are called 'pastoral' in nature...meaning that they seek to address the needs of his congregation for comfort, guidance, and care. A good pastor does both. Most of us find that our strength tends to lie in one direction or the other; my own preaching tends to be more oriented toward pastoral care...because of the historic role of the black church as a center for social discourse, many black pastors have great skill as prophet preachers.

Our society needs people like Rev. Wright who will hold our failings and our shortcomings as a society up to the light. For Senator Obama to dismiss his prophetic preaching as being "like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with" and to condemn his remarks as "divisive" as though it is somehow the ultimate sin, is both insulting to his former pastor's skill as a prophetic voice and shows a lack of understanding on his part about the prophetic task of those called into ministry.

Of course Rev. Wright's words are divisive. They challenge us to look at the social ills that have brought about bulging prisons, poverty ridden neighborhoods, and an attitude that we as a nation can solve almost any problem by military action. We don't like to hear that kind of word. None of us does. It demands that we look and examine and decide whether we will change.

Would I, in preaching a sermon on these same issues, use the phrase "God damn America" as Rev. Wright did? Probably not. Do I agree with him that we've built an criminal justice system that perpetuates itself as it grinds up the poor and the disinherited; that we've supported state terrorism around the world when it's served our economic and political ends; and that we've treated our citizens as less than human-acting as though our nation, rather than God, is supreme? Absolutely.

If you want to hear more what I think scripture says about these issues, join us on Sunday at Broadneck as we try to take a hard look at the hard words about social and economic justice in the passages above.

I hope to see you then.

Shalom,
Stephen

What They All Agree On

2008-03-18T16:45:00.002-04:00

This week's scriptures are Matthew 28: 1-15 and John 20 1-18.

It's Easter. This year, because I'm the "new kid on the block" in the Broadneck Ministerium, I got 'volunteered' to preach at the sunrise service. This will be quite a feat for someone who can barely function before ten o'clock and two cups of coffee. But it should be a good day. Between the sunrise service on the Cape St. Claire beach and the worship service at Broadneck Baptist, there will be a breakfast sponsered by the Cape St. Claire United Methodist Church. So I know that after the first service there'll be good food and lots of good coffee.

Above I've put the scriptures I'll be using at the sunrise service (John) and at the 10:00 service at Broadneck (Matthew). There are some differences. In fact, all four Gospels have differences in the way that they describe what happened, who was there,what was said,etc. This, to my mind, adds credability to the story....different people, particularly after a long period of time, are going to remember things differently. It's only when everybody has "gotten their story straight" that you begin to wonder about whether there's some fabrication going on. Add to that the differences going on between different factions of the early church about what the resurrection meant; and you're bound to have different emphasis placed on the events as they are remembered.

Add to all this the passage in Matthew 28: 11-15 which describes the "spin" put on the empty tomb by the religious and politically powerful. We, in our day, are very aquainted with how quickly politicians get their 'spin doctors' to work after an event takes place in an effort to bend public opinion in their direction. So this too is no suprise to us.

One thing that may be a suprise is something often overlooked. They ALL agreed that the tomb was empty. Nobody said,"Hey! These folks are lying, there's a body there stretched out dead as a doornail."

The question is not the empty tomb. Or that something happened that Easter morning. The question for us is three fold:

-What do we think happened?
-What do we think it means?
-What difference does it make to us in our day to day lives?

What happened? What does it mean? What does it matter?

Each of us has to answer these questions for ourself. Each of us has to come to terms with the issue of belief, meaning, and impact regarding the resurrection and the rest of the Gospel message.

I won't claim to tell you what you have to believe. I, and the other members of Broadneck Baptist, will offer to journey with you as you work to find your own answers. And, if you're too far away to join us on Sunday; or if some other reason keeps you from being able: maybe you can take the time to listen to the sermon(s) posted by link here on the Blog page. And, if you have questions, or just a request for prayer, please use the link on our home page to email me at stephen@broadneckbaptistchurch.org and I'll promise to write you back in a timely fashion.

I hope you have a good Easter. May the meaning of the resurrection grow in you and call you into new and exciting places in your life.

Christ is Risen. Christ is Risen Indeed.

Shalom,
Stephen

The Cross

2008-03-11T12:22:00.002-04:00

This week's scriptures are Luke 19: 28-39 and Matthew 27: 32-50.

This Sunday we're going to have some special stuff from the Wonderful Wednesday kids and some special music. I'm really looking forward to it and hope that you will join us.

Our scriptures this week are accounts from Luke and Matthew; one of the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, and the other a description of Jesus' crucifixion. One of the things that they remind us of is how easily we as human being can turn on those people we look up to when they don't meet our expectations. One has to ask, "how many of those folks waving palm branches and shouting 'Blessed is he who comes as king in the name of the Lord,' were also among those who passed by his cross a few days later and shouted 'if you really are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross'?"

I see myself reflected far too well in these folks. When what I expect...what I pray for...what I feel I deserve isn't what happens, I get angry. I'm even this way sometimes when I truly believe that what is happening is God's action in the situation. These folks in the crowd were suffering from the oppression of the Roman occupation. They were smothered by a view of their faith that was becoming more and more tied up in rules and regulations than expressive of God's journey with God's people. Jesus was offering something different, and they were sure that they knew what that something was going to look like. But they were wrong.

The first hint that they were wrong was the way Jesus came into Jerusalem. He came riding on an donkey or a young colt (depends on which account you read). The symbolism of this was that it was a mark of peace. When a conquering ruler came into a city riding on a war horse a very different message was being delivered.

Jesus came offering a radically different way of looking at the Kingdom of God and at our relationships with God and with each other. The miracles and the socializing with sinners weren't just an attention getting device so that Jesus could then say what the Kingdom was really like....no, these behaviors were what the Kingdom of God is.

The Kingdom of God is that place where the outcast (no matter what the reason for that status-illness, sin, politics, race) is welcomed, healed, made part of the family. And Jesus made that clear by becoming one of the outcasts Himself.

See Him hanging on the cross: naked, tortured, dying. Feeling so abandoned in His agony that he screams out "my God, my God, why have you gone off and abandoned me here." In that moment, Jesus, in His innocence and by His own choice, becomes one with every person who has ever been outcast, been torture, been abandoned...regardless of whether it occured because of something they had done or because their social or political status made them vulnerable.

Jesus walked square into the center of our anguish and said, "I will stand here too." And in doing this, He taught us an incredible, almost unbelievable truth: THERE IS NO OUTSIDE IN THE HEART OF GOD. To God, all that we are; our joy, our pain, our anguish, our sins, our triumphs, or tragedies....everything, are wrapped in God's loving embrace. We're all on the inside. All of us. Nobody's left outside. Nobody. There is no outside to be left there.

If we take this view of the cross seriously it will radically alter everything we do as God's people in this time and place. It is a risky road to travel....but it leads to Easter morning.

See you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

Surely He Has Borne Our Grief

2008-03-04T18:29:00.002-05:00

This week's scripture is John 11: 1-44.

This week's story of the raising of Lazarus is one of my very favorite stories out of Jesus' life and teaching (rating right up there for me with the Woman at the Well, th Prodigal Sons, and Jesus' Healing the Leper). I'll tell you more about why on Sunday; but for right now I'd like to focus on the issue of grief.

It is amazing that in a time and culture in which women were kept silent and submissive, both Martha and Mary felt free to speak their mind to Jesus. One after the other they come up to him and the first words they say are, "If you'd been here, our brother wouldn't have died." And Jesus listens. If we're not careful...if we read this story into our own culture...we'll miss just how much this says about Jesus' attitude toward women and his relationship with these two women in particular.

It also tells us something about Jesus' acceptance of the wide variety of feelings that can make up our grief and our response to the tragic events in our lives. Sadness, rage, disbelief, paralysis...any and all of these can be part of our human response. Sometimes we aim those emotions at others. When I worked as a chaplain on a Surgical Emergency Unit we were warned that when we were with the doctor who told the family of a loved one's death to start out further than arms reach away....we could move closer later if we wanted to. Why? Because some people's instant, gut reaction was to physically strike out at the bearers of this news. And a chaplain wearing a clerical collar made as good a target as any for their anger at God over their loss. The phrase "driven to my knees" is a description of that awful agony that hammers us to the floor in a cry of anguish. The humanity of this story, the willingness of Jesus to walk into the middle of it and listen and be truly present to Mary and Martha speaks volumes about how God feels about us at the times of our deepest pain.

But Jesus doesn't just stand back detached. Both verse 33 and 38 talk about Jesus being "deeply moved." The Greek phrase here has bothered translators and commentators alike for centuries because it translates roughly to 'upset and angry.' The Revised English Bible translates verse 33 as "he was moved with indignation and deeply distressed." The New Revised Standard Version says, "he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved." Jesus felt his own strong emotions as well as having empathy for his friends. We've all seen the news clips of grieving mourners in Palistine. Can we imagine Jesus being so "touched with the feeling of our infirmitities" (Hebrews 4: 15) that he is part of such a grieving throng as they approach the tomb where Lazarus is.

Even before He called Lazarus out of his tomb, raising him from the dead, Jesus had entered fully into the life of Lazarus' sisters. What an incredible love it is that does this. It is a love that embraces us in our pain; calls us from death into life; and gives us the job of being the Body of Christ today in the world.

I hope you'll be there Sunday so we can talk about this some more.

Shalom,
Stephen

Fourth Sunday of Lent

2008-02-28T16:55:00.002-05:00

This week's scripture John 9: 1-34

He was blind from the day he was born. And he spent his days begging to survive. Jesus healed him.

And when he was healed we're told that his neighbors and those who were accustomed to seeing him beg sayed, "Is this the man who used to sit and beg?" Some said, "Yes." And some said, "It's just somebody who looks like him."

Isn't it sad. Here he is, healed from blindness, and the people most accustomed to seeing him can't tell if it's really him. They've passed by him every day on their way to work, to the market, to the synagogue...and they haven't paid enough attention to him to be able to tell if it's really him or not.

I have to admit that I'm a lot like they were. How many people do I pass by and pay only enough attention to step around them as I go on my way. How many people in my mind are identified as only 'that guy who stands in the median begging,' or that fellow who keeps trying to sneak into the building where my office is so that he can sleep in the stairwell.'

If we truly want to "reshape the world around through [Jesus'] sight and touch and sound" like the hymn we sing each Sunday of Lent says; we're going to have to learn to look at the world through Jesus' eyes. Jesus didn't just see a begger, or a leper, or a woman who'd had five husbands. He saw a person. One who hurt, and loved, and laughed, and cried. That's what he responded to. That's where His healing miracles started....in the seeing of real people.

As we begin putting together our church profile, and defining what we see as our church's ministry, what happens if we do this? If we make an intentional choice about it, what will happen if we look around and really focus in on the particular people that we want to reach out to in Jesus' name? If we try to look at them through Jesus' eyes?

The people who passed the 'Man Born Blind' each day suffered from their own kind of blindness. Jesus offered them a healing from their blindness as well. He offers the same to us. Seeing people as individuals through the eyes of Jesus. That's where the healing starts.....for all of us.

The Third Sunday of Lent

2008-02-19T13:29:00.003-05:00

This week's Scriptures are Exodus 17: 1-7 and John 4: 5-42.

I really hope that you're going to join us this Sunday for worship. I have become very excited about what I'm discovering as I study this story from John about Jesus' encounter with the "Woman at the Well." I think that it has a great deal to teach us about God's response to persons who have been isolated and scapegoated by the combination of their own behaviors and their culture's response to them. And I think it has a HUGE word of Good News to those of us who feel helpless and isolated; like we just can't win in life. More on this on Sunday.

For now I would like to point in a different direction: one of the contrasts between the Exodus story of Moses getting water for the children of Isreal and Jesus' comments about water in the John story.

In the Exodus story the water comes through Moses who is acting as a 'go between' between the people and God. And one of the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) lessons of the stories of the Exodus is "don't tick God off...He'll smack you around real good if you do" (my own paraphrase). That's why you have a go-between, to keep you from making some fatal mistake in your conversation with the Almighty.

Yet here is Jesus in His meeting with the woman; never once does he speak a word of condemnation to her. Never once does He speak a word of judgement. This poor woman is already the chief outcast in a village of outcasts. And, as a woman in that time and cultural situation, she is dependent on the very men who reject her for life itself.

Instead of condemnation and rejection, Jesus offers her a "spring within....welling up to eternal life." Think about it: no need to depend on someone else to make sure the water's there; no having to worry that you might 'tick off' somebody; just this bubbling, eternal spring....

This is what Jesus offers to us. To you and me with all our looking to others for approval and love and acceptance. To you and me, who are often so scared that if we tick God off that He'll withdraw His love-or worse. A living, bubbling spring of eternal life, eternal love that wells up from within us. What acceptance. What radical, world changing love.

See you Sunday.
Shalom,
Stephen

The Second Sunday of Lent

2008-02-13T22:43:00.002-05:00

This week's scriptures are Numbers 21: 4-9 and John 3:1-17.

First of all, let me apologize for getting the blog out so late this week. Things just kinda crept up on me.

We've been focusing on the fact that if we will sit with God in the silence, God will show us our true face, call us by our true name. We talked about how we've put on masks because we're afraid of the world's rejection of our true face. We've talked about how we've taken on, or been given names different than our true name. And we've been reminded that our true name is "Beloved."

Still, sitting in the silence is not an easy thing. Not easy for me, at least. I've been reading Anthony Bloom's Beginning to Pray; and I think he puts words to part of what makes it so difficult. He says,

"...a meeting face to face with God is always a moment of judgment for us. We cannot meet God in prayer or in meditation or in contemplation and not be either saved or condemned. I do not mean this in major terms of eternal damnation or eternal salvation already given and recieved, but it is always a critical moment, a crisis. "Crisis" comes from the Greek and means 'judgment'. To meet God face to face in prayer is a critical moment in our lives."

I was reminded when I read this that the Chinese character for "crisis" means both "danger" and "opportunity."

Coming face to face with God is a "dangerous opportunity" because it holds our lives up next to what it is that God desires and requires of them. This is a judgement, a 'weighing in the balance.' And the dangerous opportunity is for us to move closer to God's will for us. To respond to that Holy Presence is a frightening thing; particularly since so much of our (at least my) prayer life is caught up in what we want, what we need. I know that I spend far too little time listening and way too much time talking. It's a wonder that God gets a word in edgewise. And I have to ask myself if what I am doing when I do this is really prayer.

The good news is that God is patient; and takes even the smallest effort and blows on it like a tiny spark. Sometimes....every now and then....it bursts into flame. Those are the moments that carry us forward, that give us the courage to risk a little more.

We'll be talking more on Sunday about that risk, about that allowing God's presence to move in us and the love that makes that possible. I hope that you'll join us.

Hope to see you Sunday.

Shalom,
Stephen

Ash Wednesday-Beginning the Lenten Journey

2008-02-05T15:54:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. And tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. we will meet to recieve our ashes from one another.

This recieving of ashes marks the beginning of our willingness to focus during the time of Lent on the things that interfere with our relationship with God....or as I am calling it during this time, from seeing "our true face." Our 'true face' is a reflection of God, for we are made in God's image. But sometimes in our fear and our anxiety we use other things (usually things that are, in themselves, good gifts from God) to try to sooth our anxiety and calm our fears. Lent is a time when we commit to not turning to those things, but risking sitting with our feelings in prayer and expectation that God will meet us where we are.

Let me give you a small, personal example:

I really like junk food. I mean I REALLY like it. I find it comforting. The amount of carbs and sugar can change my mood in a heartbeat (almost literally). After a day of seeing clients when I feel totally inept; when no change seems to be happening; when I feel like I've missed everything I should have seen...I can be really down.

On a night like that I often give in to the temptation to stop at 7-Eleven and grab a sweet roll and a bag of chips. This would not be so bad...except that I eat them on my way to the Wendy's that I pass on my way down Rte 50 to Annapolis. There I'll get me a double meat sandwich, fries, and a rootbeer float (I was in heaven when Wendy's starting making floats).

Now maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I only did this once a week and I let my depressive feelings about myself and the quality of my work as a therapist just go on by....not clinging to them or wallowing in them. But let's say that I get into one of those funks that lasts a loooong time. At this point I'm in a spiritual dilemma. I'm losing my 'true face' as I drag myself through the mud, avoid the feelings that I should be addressing with God in meditation and prayer, and substituting my sugar/carb high for the assurance that comes when I risk bringing my fears and my failings to God in the silence.

Now this may not sound like such a big deal. But what if we ask ourselves about the parts of our relationship with God that we avoid out of fear of rejection, or judgement, or punishment, or abandonment. How many of us have places in our lives where we have soothed that fear, avoided that pain, with substitutes for this ultimate relationship? Success, money, busy-ness, mood altering substances or behaviors, television-have becoming numbing drugs for some of us.

And when our lives have held great pain, the temptation to stay with that numbness is so much greater.

Ash Wednesday is an invitation to risk setting aside what numbs us. To face, in the presence of God, whatever it is we're avoiding. To trust that God will meet us there in the pain and darkness. It is an acknowledgement that this is not an easy task. Like the old preachers used to say "there is no Easter without Good Friday." But it is also to trust that if we take the risk; God will meet us there with new life.

Ash Wednesday is also a reminder that we don't have to do this alone. The community of faith that calls itself Broadneck Baptist Church makes this journey together as we worship, and study, and pray.

And a final invitation...if during this time you feel like you need to talk; like you want to share you struggle with someone...please call the church or email me at the link on our web page and let's make a time to talk and pray together. We all have our 'ashes' and the work of a pastor is very often "one begger telling another begger where to find food."

Hope to see you Wednesday and Sunday.

Shalom,
Stephen