Building on the Ruins

 How can we rebuild our society? It's broken, and we all know it. COVID-19, police brutality, political corruption, and ideological polarization -- what do we do about it? Where in the world do we go from here? This sermon offers the beginning of an answer. I hope it will be helpful to you.

I invite you to take a journey with me to the land of Israel, a land rich with history that has been inhabited for thousands of years. As we stand in the countryside, we see that the landscape is dotted with small, flat-topped hills. Each one is silent evidence that a city once flourished at that location. We’re going to explore the interior of one such hill, a large one that sits where two ancient trade routes crossed. During the four thousand years of its existence, that hill has watched civilizations rise and fall.

On the very top of the hill, a the remains of a Roman structure are evidence that a garrison of troops was once quartered there. The remains are businesslike, constructed of sturdy masonry blocks, typical of Roman efficiency. Its military days are long past, though.

Beneath the Roman ruins lies a city from the Iron Age, perhaps one from the glorious days of Solomon. The city is well-planned, and its buildings are large for their day. In the far corner of one such building, we find storage jars, still intact after almost three thousand years. Someone was careful to make sure that provisions were stored well.

Deeper still is a layer that yields very little. We find only a grinding stone, a small oven, some pottery fragments, and a circle of stones that may have braced a tent support. Perhaps this was once the home of wandering nomads like Abraham.

By the time that we reach the lowest level, we have travelled more than four thousand years into the past. We are all the way back in the Bronze Age, before the technology needed to produce iron had been discovered. But even here we find evidence of habitation! We uncover a massive building, at least two stories tall, that might have been a palace or a temple. Built of mud brick on a stone foundation, it was built to last for generations. That building lies in ruins now. All of it has been destroyed: intentionally leveled and then burned. The building blocks of mudbrick have been toppled from their foundations. They rest at odd angles that no builder ever intended. The foundations have been torn apart. The building stones that once were carefully arranged to support the structure are now in disarray, scattered over the whole area like huge grey marbles. In one corner, we find lumps of charcoal among the foundation stones. Was it once furniture that was burned in the fire; or wooden beams that formed the frame of the building? It’s a bit of a surprise! We don’t expect to find a disorganized ruin at the bottom of such a big hill! How can a place that has been occupied for such a long time sit on a foundation like this? And yet, here it is. This place that was inhabited for over four thousand years is built on ruins.

Nowadays, we don’t build on ruins. We aren’t like the people of ancient civilizations who rebuilt on the foundation of what existed before them. We would much rather get rid of the remains of the past. Oh, we might keep a few mementoes – a brick or two from the old schoolhouse where we went to kindergarten – but then we get out the bulldozer and tear everything down. We get rid of all the mess and smooth out the ground so that we can build on a clean site. But we can’t always do that. Sometimes, when parts of our lives have fallen down around our ears, we have to build something new on the ruins that lie around us. And that’s not always a bad thing. The past can provide a very good foundation on which to build as we move into the future.

We are surrounded by ruins right now. We are sitting among the ruins of what we once relied on. Our physical security has fallen down around us as COVID-19 silently invaded our environment without our knowing it. Our emotional security has tumbled down like a house of cards, because our nation has become so polarized that even our own families sometimes condemn us for what we believe. Even the institutions that are supposed to protect us have been unmasked as imperfect. The police departments who are doing their best to maintain civic order have been infiltrated by white racists who treat Black citizens more severely than they do Whites. Where do we go from here? We sit in the ruins and look around us at the jumbled mess of our old ways of life and wonder, “How in the world do we rebuild?” The answer is that we find a good foundation on which to build, and go from there.

But what foundation is that? Is it medical science? That is certainly a part of a good foundation, but it’s not all of it. Medical science can do many things, but it has its limits, as the COVID crisis has shown us so clearly. Is it the stock market? Heavens, no! It bounces up and down like a yo-yo, and sometimes it collapses. That’s not a good foundation, either. Is it unquestioning obedience to authority? Some people say that it is. But that won’t work, either, since the authority in our nation is bitterly divided, and we all know it. Besides, all human authority is sinful and limited. No, that’s not the foundation that we want! Where can we turn for the foundation on which to rebuild wisely?

Our strong foundation is found in the Holy Scriptures, and in the 2000-year-old Christian tradition that has evaluated and reevaluated itself as it has tried to faithfully follow Jesus Christ. How do we build on that foundation, though? We begin with ourselves. We’re all pretty good with our relationships with Jesus. We all know how to pray and meditate; we all seek the guidance of the Spirit in our personal lives; and we all know that Jesus is walking beside us through tough times. But when we talk about rebuilding on the ruins of our society, we have moved beyond a personal relationship with Jesus into the realm of the community. Are Christian voices being heard as we join in doing that?

Let me give you just one example of what I’m talking about. The Bible talks a lot about being not only a community of faith, but a faithful community, too. A faithful community not only cares for itself, it cares for others, too, who are not a part of that community. Deuteronomy, for example, says over and over that God has a special love for “the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant,” people who had no way of supporting themselves in that ancient world. “[God] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the immigrant, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are immigrants, for you yourselves were immigrants in Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19) Are we speaking up for the immigrants who have had their children torn away from them, and put into detention centers where they get no medical care? Are we speaking up for the children, who have been torn away from their parents and put into camps that are thinly-disguised prisons? As Christians, our voices should be speaking out on their behalf, and working to build a world where even people who are not citizens of our country are treated fairly. What about young adults in the foster care system who are removed from their foster parents when they turn 18 and are left to fend for themselves. Are we raising our voices about that? And let’s not forget the widow who has to get by on only her monthly Social Security and can’t afford to get her leaky plumbing fixed? Are we raising our voices on her behalf?

Of course, the Bible doesn’t just talk about the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant. The Hebrew prophets condemn the rich who have amassed their money by taking advantage of the poor. (What do you think that Jesus would say about loan sharks masquerading as payday lenders?) Jesus condemns anyone who doesn’t care about other people who are not just like they are. (What do you think the parable of the Good Samaritan is all about?) And from the first chapter of Genesis, the Bible calls us to care for the earth. Jesus even tells us that God cares about sparrows! (What do you think Jesus would say about our abusing the earth in the name of profits?)

The world is in ruins right now; and we Christians can help to rebuild it. But we can only do that if we not only know what the Bible says, but also raise our voices in support of those God cares about: the poor, the oppressed, the immigrant, and even the earth itself. The scripture is our secure foundation for working together to build a world that is full of opportunity and justice for all; one where all men and women – Black, White, Brown, and any other color of the rainbow – will have truly be equal. Jonathan Martin recently wrote: “I am an optimist by nature, and hopeful by choice, because I believe in a God who resurrects the dead. And I hear bright, clear prophetic voices from the margins refusing to let the center ignore them, sons and daughters speaking truth, elders who tell stories of faithful resistance… and people who are waking up for the first time. …I have moments when I can glimpse something of what could and must yet come, and it is beautiful. And yes, I do believe in being the change you want to see in the world… [and] focusing on the small things you can change: all the things I am not only supposed to say, but really do believe.” We can help to build on the ruins by standing on a firm foundation, by raising our voices so that we are part of the conversation, and by holding on to hope so tightly that it becomes a part of us. And may the Spirit guide us as we do it.

Is It Time Yet?

 We are impatient people. We want what we want when we want it. But sometimes "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" isn't good advice. My sermon today explores why.

I’m going to begin today’s sermon with a quiz. Don’t worry; it’s an easy quiz. All you have to do is to raise your hand.

First, raise your hand if you have ever taken a car trip with children. If you don’t have any children, but you took a car trip with your parents when you were a child, raise your hand, too.

Now, keep your hand up if the children on that car trip were impatient. If you were one of those impatient children, you keep your hand up, too.

Finally, keep your hand up if you were ever stuck in traffic with impatient children. And if you were an impatient child stuck in traffic in a car with your parents… well, you know the drill.

OK, you can put your hands down, now.

I don’t know how many of you raised your hands, but I’ll bet it was most of you! What memories do you have of those trips when you were stuck in traffic with impatient children in the car? Are they happy memories – or are they a little bit painful?

I can remember when I was a child, maybe 10 years old, and my mom and dad, my sister and I all drove over to Indianapolis for the Indy 500 time trials. On the way back, we got stuck in traffic. Those were the days before interstate highways, and the only way home from the race track was right through the center of town. It was also before cars routinely had air conditioning. It was broiling hot that day – at least, it seemed that way to me – and we got stuck in traffic right next to a big, loud, smelly semi-truck. There we sat. I remember it so vividly! I was hot; I was thirsty; I was bored; and all I wanted to do was to get out of that traffic jam so that we could go home! I tried to remember that episode when our own children were small and we traveled with them. That memory might have made me a little more patient when one of them asked for the ten-thousandth time, “Are we there yet?” No, not yet. “How much longer?” A little while yet. “How much longer is a little while?” You know the routine. We’ve all been through it.

Right now, we’re all traveling together along our journey of life; and we’re stuck in a traffic jam. Except that this time, the jam isn’t with automobiles on a highway. It’s a jam that has been caused by COVID-19. We don’t want to be here. We’re tired; we’re bored; and we just want to get out of it and have some normalcy to our lives! But, just like that long-ago traffic jam in Indianapolis, we’ll get out of it when we get out of it; and not a minute before. We can’t pull off on another road, or veer over and drive down the sidewalk. We’re stuck. We are all incredibly impatient to get this COVID thing over with so that we can get back to living the lives that we are used to living: eating out, going to sports events, and going to church! Most of you know by now that our church council recently decided that we will not reopen for physical worship until the first of the year. None of are happy about that, because we want to go back to worshiping in person! We’re impatient! We’re like the children who keep asking, “Are we there yet? How much longer?” Well, we’re not there yet; we don’t know how much longer it will be before we can worship together again; and deciding that we aren’t going to wait any longer will only make matters worse.

The text that I read you this morning is a stark warning about forging ahead at all costs (I Samuel 13:1, 5-14). Saul was a military man; and his military training told him that waiting too long to go into battle could be costly. Samuel, though, had told him to wait, because Samuel was the only one who was authorized to offer a sacrifice to God. But while Saul waited, he became more and more concerned. The Philistines had a huge army; big enough to frighten even a seasoned army commander. Some of Saul’s men saw it and ran away to hide. Others deserted. The men who stayed with Saul were frightened out of their wits: “quaking with fear” in the words of the text. More of them deserted. Finally, Saul decided that he had waited long enough. He offered the sacrifice himself; and no sooner had he done so than Samuel showed up. “What a stupid thing to do!” Samuel told Saul. “Who told you that you could offer this sacrifice? Because you haven’t followed God’s orders, you will lose the kingdom to someone else.” Sometimes we need to wait, even when we don’t want to wait at all.

The book of Ecclesiastes says that “for everything there is a season.” (3:1-8) As I read part of that passage a few minutes ago, I’ll bet that you didn’t like some of the options nearly as well as you liked others. “There is a time to weep and a time to laugh.” Laughing is wonderful; but no one likes to weep. “There is a time to keep and a time to throw away.” Keeping is easy, but throwing away… It’s a lot harder! Just ask anyone who has ever cleaned out their attic. “There is a time to be born and a time to die.” We’re good with being born – who doesn’t love babies? -- but we’d just as soon skip that death thing. We don’t get a choice, though. Both of the options are a part of life, whether we like it or not. Ecclesiastes might well have added, “There is a time to go forward and a time to wait.” Right now, whether we like it or not, we’re in a time of waiting.

So, let’s change the question that we asked when we were children. Instead of asking, “Is it time yet?”, let’s ask “What time is it?” It may not be time to gather for physical worship, but it’s time for several things. It’s time to love and support one another. Right now, we need all the love and support that we can get, no matter who we are! It’s terribly difficult to constantly monitor our health condition so that we don’t catch COVID, which might be lethal for some of us. We could all use some TLC! It’s time, too, to have compassion for those who are hurting; and many of us are hurting right now. Some of us are suffering from chronic conditions that are making our lives difficult, while others are facing difficult medical conditions. If you know someone who fits into one of those categories, give them a call, write them a note, or sent a text message! You have no idea how uplifting it is to hear from a friend saying, “I just wanted to know how you are doing.” It’s time for something else, too. It’s time to discern how we will move on from here. When we do open the sanctuary for physical worship again, it will probably be with some significant changes. How will we worship together safely? How will we do mission when we can’t gather to assemble blessing bags or wrap Christmas gifts for our adopted families? How can we safely gather for fellowship? COVID will be with us for some time in the future, vaccine or no vaccine; and we need to make plans for the future taking that into account. It may not be time to gather together again, but it’s time for love and support, for compassion, and for discernment. If we do all of those things while we are waiting, I don’t think that our time of waiting will be wasted. And I’m pretty sure that God won’t think so, either.

The Story Goes On

 What is your favorite Bible story? Is it an exciting one; or is it a peaceful one? Whatever it is, I'll bet that you learned it in Sunday school. Today would be Rally Day if we could physically gather in church, the day that everyone gathers for another year of Sunday school. This year, though, things are different. One thing is the same, though -- we are still part of God's story of salvation. My sermon today explains what I mean!

Once upon a time, there were three little pigs…
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Little Red Riding Hood…
Once upon a time, there was an enchanted princess who slept in a tower…
Once upon a time...

When we hear someone say, “Once upon a time…” we know that a story is coming; and that story will probably take place in a world that is far different from ours. It might be a world where animals talk, or where a wolf dresses up like Grandma, or where a princess can sleep in enchantment for years and years. And we know that the story will turn out well. The three little pigs will outsmart the big, bad wolf; Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother will be rescued by a brave woodsman; and a handsome prince will awaken the princess with a kiss, and they will live happily ever after. The most popular modern stories end well, too. Frodo Baggins throws the One Ring into the fires of Mt. Doom, saving Middle Earth from destruction; Harry Potter defeats the dark wizard Voldemort through the power of sacrificial love; and the lion Aslan makes the whole world right in the end. Maybe we love these stories so much because we hope that, at a deep level, they are true. After all the difficulties, the problems, and the suffering, we want everything to eventually turn out all right.

Today is the day that many churches call Rally Day. They invite all their families to gather again after their summer vacations, and Sunday school begins for another year. Rally Day won’t be taking place in many churches today. For some, the reality of the pandemic has meant that they can’t physically gather together. Other churches have no families to gather, and children’s Sunday school is just a distant memory. Our congregation, sadly, fits into both categories. But I don’t want to ignore Rally Day, because it reminds us of the important things that we taught our children in Sunday school, and the things that we learned ourselves.

What did we learn, back in the days when we went to Sunday school ourselves with well-scrubbed faces, freshly-washed church clothes, and shoes that shined? Why, we learned the stories, of course! We learned stories that we love to this day; and we learned the lessons that those stories taught us! When we learned the story of Noah, we discovered that God cares for the animals just as much as he cares for us human beings. When we learned the story of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, we found out that God can do all kinds of wonderful things. When we learned the story of David and Goliath, we realized that big bullies don’t always win. And when we learned about Jesus, we found out how much God loves us!

We’ve known those stories for years, now, and maybe we think of them only as scraps of our childhood. Some of us have put them on the shelf next to “Fun with Dick and Jane” and “The Cat in the Hat.” After all, we’re older now and we don’t need those stories anymore. These days, we talk about adult topics like “the theology of prayer” and “the formation of the canon” and “why bad things happen to good people”; and those are all good things to discuss, but we mustn’t forget about the stories, because those stories tell us who we are. Those stories may be from long ago and far away, but we are in them, too. They are our stories!

Here, let me show you what I mean. Let’s take a close look at the story from Mark that I used as this morning’s scripture reading. You probably learned it in Sunday school as an example of Jesus’ love and power to heal. It certainly is that! But that story invites us in, and it invites us, too, to learn something about ourselves in the process. Let’s look at the characters. We see Jesus, the crowd that has gathered outside the house, the paralyzed man and his friends, and some teachers of the law who were in the crowd. I’ll bet that the homeowner was there, too, even though he isn’t mentioned. Which one of these people are you today?

·       Are you one of the crowd who really wants to hear what Jesus has to say, and is willing to be stand outside the front door in order to hear it? Are you so thirsty to hear the Word of God that you are willing to be inconvenienced so that you can get closer to Jesus?

·       Are you one of the friends of the paralyzed man, who care so much for him that they take apart a roof to get him to Jesus? Is there anybody that you love so much that you would dig through a roof to get help for that person?

·       Are you the paralyzed man himself, who is amazed to find himself healed? Maybe you have been healed yourself, from a physical or emotional wound that you believed you would carry for the rest of your life. Maybe you didn’t even believe that Jesus could help you, until you were amazed to find that the pain from that wound was gone!

·       Or maybe you are the homeowner, who is fuming mad at the mess that these people are making. You’re concentrating on all the money that you’ll need to repair your roof, angry that your quiet, peaceful life has been disrupted. Lots of people feel that way today. In particular, there are many people who would just as soon that the Black Lives Matter movement would just go away, because it means making changes to the way they live and the beliefs that they hold. Are you one of those people?

·       Are you one of the people who looked on, realized what had happened, and praised God, even though they hadn’t been healed themselves? Maybe you’ve never been healed yourself, but you’ve seen all the people who have been changed through God’s grace, and you praise God anyway.

·       Or are you one of the teachers of the law who is scandalized by what Jesus says and does? Lots of people are still scandalized by Jesus, you know; because Jesus disregards all kinds of social customs in order to help people, even if we don’t think they deserve it. We don’t much like it when Jesus turns our world upside down to forgive and heal.

Yes, you’re in this story somewhere! You might even be more than one character. That’s the power of stories from the Bible: they are mirrors in which we can see ourselves, if we are brave enough to look into them. And every single story in the Bible is like that. We can find ourselves in the story of Joseph, whose brothers hated him because he was daddy’s favorite; in the story of Moses, who was called by God to do a job that he thought he couldn’t do; in the story of Esther, who left some crucial details out of her resumé when she auditioned to be the queen, and then risked everything to help her people; in the story of Peter, who was full of confidence, sure that he knew it all, only to betray the friend that he loved the most.

And all these wonderful stories are woven together into one great big story – a story that began with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. And just like all good stories, it has a happy ending. In fact, the ending of the story might be the very best thing about it! We can read it in the book of Revelation: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with people! God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away!” (Revelation 21:1-4) Everything will turn out all right in the end, and we will all live happily ever after!

So, here’s the very best story that was ever told! Once upon a time, there was a God who loved his creation so much that he refused to abandon it. That God came to be with his creation in a very special way: in a man named Jesus, who showed everyone what God is like. Finally, God sent his Spirit to be with us forever, to comfort us when we are in despair, to guide us when we are confused, and to help us remember everything that has already happened. We are right in the middle of that wonderful story; and it hasn’t ended yet. The story is still going strong after all these years! And thanks be to God that it is!

Laying Down Our Burdens

 Labor Day is a time to relax! But many of us don't ever relax -- not on Labor Day or on any other day -- because we're carrying loads around that we never ever put down. My sermon today takes a look at those loads and suggests the loads that we should be carrying, instead.

We’ve made it to Labor Day, the end of the summer season! Labor Day was created way back in 1894 as a holiday to honor the contributions of American workers. What better way to honor workers than by giving them an extra day to relax! Traditionally, Labor Day is a day for late-summer vacations, cookouts, and family gatherings. This year, things are a little bit different; but this weekend is still a time to relax and take it easy. We relax in all kinds of different ways. When we go outside, we hike, or swim, or canoe, or fish; and when we stay at home, we read, or cook, or sew, or play music (or listen to it), or just relax on the sofa or the patio. Those activities all share something in common, though. When we do them, we put down the burdens that we carry on other days, and we give ourselves a rest! The trouble is, though, that most of us carry some burdens all the time, even on Labor Day. We carry an invisible backpack that’s loaded with some things that we never, ever put down. Most of us aren’t even aware of it; but it’s there, all right; and it causes us no end of trouble. An overloaded, ill-fitting, physical backpack can cause chafing, blisters, and back pain; and our invisible ones can cause all kinds of problems, too. Let’s open one of those backpacks and see what heavy stuff is in there. Maybe we can put some of it down today, on this day of rest and relaxation.

There’s something heavy in the big, middle pocket: a great big load of guilt! I’ll bet you didn’t know you were carrying all of that around! The truth is that we all carry some of it. I’ll be that there isn’t a person alive who doesn’t feel guilty about something or other. Maybe it’s family guilt. There’s a lot of that around. Did you once say “no” to someone, and they have never let you forget it? Lots of people feel guilty for the times that they said “no” in their lives. Maybe that “no” set a reasonable limit to what you could do, but other people expected you to do more; and you’re secretly afraid that they’re right. Or maybe your guilt is about something else. Maybe you once made a very poor choice, and others were hurt because of it. Did you make a flippant remark that was taken the wrong way? Did you fly off the handle because someone pushed your button once too often? We all do that. No matter what is causing your guilt, it’s time that you got rid of it. It’s way, way too heavy to carry around for the rest of your life!

I think there’s something else that was underneath the guilt. Oh, yes – it’s regret. Guilt and regret are good friends. Where you find one, you frequently find the other. Regret is about wishing that we had done things differently. You can regret something you did, or something you didn’t do! A traditional Christian prayer of confession asks forgiveness for not doing “those things which we ought to have done,” and for doing “those things which we ought not to have done.” We’ve all messed up; and we’re all sorry for it! And if you have learned from your mistakes, then you’re a better person. Our mistakes helped to make us who we are today. But maybe you’re regretting letting an opportunity go by; and now, you wish that you had grabbed it when you had the chance. But you didn’t grab it; and what you’re holding on to instead is regret. Open your hand and let it go! The past is, as my mother used to say, water under the bridge. It’s much better to look ahead than to hang on to the wounds of the past. Regret just weighs your backpack down and keeps you from going on.

Well, thank goodness that middle pocket is empty! But the side pocket has something in it! What in the world is it? It’s really stuck to the backpack, so it’s hard to get out. Ah… it’s fear. Fear is in the very air that we’re breathing these days. Frightening images and frightening predictions are everywhere – about the COVID pandemic, about our political situation, about the havoc that climate change may cause. But here’s what we all forget when we buy into those predictions. No one – NO ONE – knows the future! These predictions are just the best guess of people who may or may not know what they are talking about! And as for the images… For every frightening image that we see on TV, there are a thousand encouraging images that we never see! If we focus on what is frightening, we will be afraid. And right under fear in the side pocket of the backpack is cold, heavy lump of despair. Despair is fear that has given up. Despair says, “Things will never get any better, so why even try?” Despair poisons everything it touches. Let’s get rid of fear and despair right now!

But what can we put in our backpack in place of guilt, regret, fear, and despair? Jesus tells us to take up his yoke, because his burden is light. And what he offers us doesn’t weigh us down; it sustains us on our journey through life! He offers us forgiveness for all the ways we have messed up in the past: all the thoughtless words we’ve said, all the selfish things we’ve done, all the well-meaning actions that we have taken that didn’t turn out as well as we had hoped. Jesus knows that we are only human; and he wants to replace our guilt with the certainty that, in God’s grace, we can start over again. He offers us something else, too. He offers us hope. Fear and despair keep us stuck in one place, worrying about the future, afraid of what might happen next. The hope that God offers us invites us to move ahead with courage. We may not know the details of what the future holds, but we do know that God is already there, waiting for us. We know, too, that God has promised us a future of love and peace, even though we sometimes don’t have a clue how we’re going to get to it. We do our best; and God handles the rest.

On this Labor Day weekend, as you lay down the burdens of labor that you carry every day, lay down the invisible burdens that you carry, too. Lay down guilt, regret, fear, and despair; and pick up the certainty of forgiveness, courage, and the promise of hope. Lay down the heavy burdens that the world gives you; and pick up the light burdens that Jesus offers. His burdens will help you rest, not only during today’s holiday, but every day of your life!

Recognizing a Christian

 How can folks who are not church members find spiritual support when they need it? They can't just go into a church on any given Sunday morning these days, because many churches are not physically worshiping together yet. We individual Christians must be "church" for them! But how can they recognize us? This sermon suggests a way that works quite well.

After all the heat of the summer, we are finally moving into the fall. This year, though, we won’t be able to enjoy many of the traditions that we anticipate every year. The football games of some teams have been cancelled; the season of others have been shortened; and, in many cases, only families of players will be permitted to watch the games in person. Fall festivals are at risk of being cancelled. The class reunions that usually take place right around now have been put off, too. I was supposed to have my 50^th high school class reunion this year, but that's not happening, either. We are planning to meet in our 51^st year, instead, and everyone is hoping that all our classmates who are around this year will still be around next year to celebrate with us. I was looking forward to that class reunion! I was anticipating meeting friends that I haven’t seen in years, and to renewing acquaintances with people I didn’t hang out with in high school.

The last reunion I attended was my 30^th one – 20 long years ago – and what I remember most about it was that many of us didn’t look exactly the way that we did when we graduated from Piqua Central High School back in 1970. Some of us had gained a few pounds here and there; and many of my male friends had significantly less hair than they did when we graduated. Even the behavior of some folks had changed! People I remembered as being shy (if not withdrawn) were outgoing and personable; and some of the ones who were big jerks back then had become almost human. And that was 20 years ago! We will all have changed even more by the time my reunion rolls around next year. I hope that the organizing committee will supply us with name tags. I know that I’ll need to look at a whole lot of name tags so that I can recognize people who looked very different at our high school graduation!

The church has changed, too, just like the people with whom I graduated. In the past five months, we have moved from worshiping in a physical sanctuary to worshiping virtually; and we don’t know how long it will be before we can safely gather again. It makes me wonder how people would ever find us if they needed us. Right now, they can’t just appear in our sanctuary on Sunday morning, because we aren’t there! That begs the larger question, how do people recognize the church at all? How do people know that all of us are part of a community that follows Jesus Christ? We don’t look any different from anyone else. Most of us don’t wear signs that say “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.” Oh, we might wear a tee shirt now and then that has a faith-based message on it, but most of the time our faith in Christ isn’t something that people can see.

Maybe we need to wear nametags. Everybody at a 50^th class reunion needs a nametag so that people can recognize each other; so we Christians should have something like that, too. But I’m not going to wear a physical nametag that says “Christian” on it when I go to Kroger or to the Y. No, that nametag needs to be something else, something that we take with us everywhere we go. What about our behavior? Maybe that should be the nametag that says “Christian” on it. That’s what Peter is getting at when he sets down all those guidelines for behavior that we heard in this morning’s scripture reading. (I Peter 3:8-9) He offers quite a list of qualities that Christians should embody: sympathy, compassion, humility, and respect for others, for example. There’s nothing new in his list, though. We’ve all been told to do these things a thousand times before!  We know that this is how Christians are supposed to behave. Actually, this is how we want everyone to behave in a civilized society! But Peter presents one item just a little differently from all the rest (I Peter 3:13-16) After he tells us to behave like Christians should, he says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Peter doesn’t tell his readers to hope; he assumes that they already do. Hoping isn’t something that Christians should try hard to do, like showing respect or sympathy. Hope should be part of our Christian DNA!

If you take a look at the rest of Peter’s letter, you’ll find that this isn’t the only place he mentions hope. Almost as soon as he begins his letter, he reminds his readers that they have been given “new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Peter 1:3). Although he doesn’t use the word “hope” itself very often, it’s the foundation of everything that he’s talking about. We readers today might be surprised to hear about that hope, because the church to which Peter was writing was in the middle of persecution. We aren’t sure exactly what kind of persecution it was, but we can be sure that the congregation was suffering for their faith. This little letter refers to suffering over and over again! Peter talks about suffering “grief in all kinds of trials”. He encourages his readers to suffer for doing good, rather than for doing evil. He even reminds them of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that awaited him after he had persevered. Hope in the middle of that kind of suffering is pretty tough; but Peter not only assumes that they have hope, he tells them that they should be ready to talk about it! I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t expect people who are suffering to be talking about hope. Who would ever walk up to the victim of an accident and ask, “So what are you hoping for?” It seems like the very worst kind of black humor! But that’s exactly what Peter is telling this community. He wanted them to be talking about their hope to the bloodthirsty mob as they were entering the arena to be torn apart by wild animals!

Maybe we should consider the possibility that “hope” is what sets the church apart from the rest of the world. Maybe our hope in Christ and our trust in the power of God’s grace is our nametag that tells the world that we are Christians! The long list of qualities that Peter tells his readers to have – compassion, sympathy, and respect for others – are all desirable behaviors, and even expected; but many people in our society do those things. They aren’t exclusive to Christians. But hope in Christ – that’s what the church has to offer, and by that hope anyone should be able to recognize a Christian, regardless of what creed we recite or where we gather or how we worship! I’m not talking about a Pollyanna kind of hope; that sugary “Oh, it’s not so bad after all” kind of attitude that ignores what’s happening. Several weeks ago, I shared a sermon with you that offered the insight that hope is what is left when everything else is despair. One of the last lines of that sermon said, “Keep kicking despair until it bleeds hope.” Hope may seem like only a little seed in a great big manure pile of despair; but a seed of hope can take root and blossom in the middle of the very worst that life can throw at us. Hope is what keeps us going after property, possessions, and loved ones are lost to a hurricane or a tornado or a wildfire. Hope is what keeps us loving our family and friends when they call us names because of the political party we belong to or the candidate for whom we plan to vote. Hope is what keeps us putting one foot in front of the other in the middle of a pandemic with no end in sight. The world needs that kind of hope right now – the kind of hope that we proclaim because we’re Christians.

So let me suggest this morning the nametag that we Christians can wear. If we want to be recognized by the rest of the world – if we want to help the rest of the world – if we want to be true followers of Jesus Christ – maybe our nametag should say, “Hello!  I have hope!” That’s the nametag that I plan to be wearing! I pray that you will wear it, too.

Filling Our Mugs

 Every morning I get up and fill a mug with coffee without even thinking much about it. What else am I filling my life with, though? This sermon takes a closer look at that and offers a few suggestions.

OK, quiz time! What can cheer you up, inspire you, comfort you, and bring back all kinds of wonderful memories? The answer might be “a close friend” or “a favorite book,” but this morning, the answer I’m going for is “a mug”! Many of us have mugs that we use all the time. The mugs that we like the best fit into our hands like they were made for us. They’re just the right size to fit into the curve of our hand, whether it’s a man-sized mug or one that’s considerably smaller. Before we even pour a hot beverage into that mug, we have been cheered up or inspired by whatever is on the side of that mug. Then we all fill our mugs with our beverage of choice. I’m a coffee person, myself. I wouldn’t even think of starting the day without a cup of hot, freshly-brewed coffee.

We rarely think much about what we use to fill our mugs, though. We’ve got a routine that ticks along like a clock: morning coffee, afternoon tea, and evening cocoa. It’s just part of life that goes on without our thinking about it. But that’s part of the problem that we face today. Just as we fill our mugs without really thinking about it, we fill our lives, too, with all kinds of things without thinking about it. We watch the evening news because we want to keep up on what’s going on, and we hear about wildfires in California, filling us with fear. We scroll through Facebook to catch up on what our friends are doing; and as we do, we see disturbing images of clashes between protesters and armed militia in Portland, filling us with anger. And when we read the headlines on the front page of the Dayton Daily News, they say “Rise in Jobless Claims Reflects Grim Economy,” filling us with despair. I read a recent editorial suggesting that the reason our country is so polarized right now is that, during our time of isolation in this pandemic, we have sat alone, filling ourselves with a continual diet of bad news, disturbing images, political propaganda, and conspiracy theories. No wonder that so many of us are depressed! We’re filling ourselves with poison instead of hot tea with lemon!

But we could be filling ourselves with other things! In his letter to the Philippians, Paul advises, “whatever is true… noble… right… pure… lovely… admirable… if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.” (4:8) If Paul were here today, I’m sure that he wouldn’t tell us to shut our eyes to the situation around us, or to ignore all the injustices that cry out for our attention. But I’m also sure that he would tell us that a steady diet of bad news will corrode us from the inside as surely as acid will eventually destroy the mugs that we love so much; and I’m very sure Paul would tell us that we are far more valuable than our mugs! God tells us something even better. God promises to fill us with the Holy Spirit, who fills us with hope, and energizes and empowers us to meet whatever lies ahead of us. The book of Isaiah frequently uses water in the desert as an image for the living water for which we all yearn. (Isaiah 41:17-18 is a great example.) God assures us that, through Jesus Christ, we have a never-ending supply of that water, even when we are as dry as a bone. Just as we fill our mugs with hot beverages that comfort us physically, God fills our lives with the spiritual comfort of the Holy Spirit so that we can be faithful Christians in this challenging world.

What are you filling your life with right now? That’s a question that we all should be asking ourselves; because life is going to get more difficult before it gets easier. The political season has formally kicked off (although I’m not really sure whether it ever went away), and ads with unsettling images will soon be everywhere; late summer is bringing longer hours of darkness; and winter will soon drive us indoors, many of us into renewed isolation. We all need to care for ourselves with as much concern as we care for others. Instead of reading only the daily newspaper, pick up one of the many editions of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and read one story a day. Instead of listening only to the evening news, find a sitcom that you like and make a promise to yourself to laugh at least once every day. Instead of randomly scrolling through Facebook, go directly to a page that you want to see – the page of a friend or one of your children – and skip all the unsettling stuff that you really don’t need to see.

Ecclesiastes, a text that is a complicated mix of cynicism, optimism, despair, and hope, says this: “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart” (9:7a). I am bold to say that if the author were alive today, he might well say, “Go, fill your mug – and your life – with joy, faith, and laughter.” It’s good advice for any time.

Tough Love

 What does God's love look like? Oh, I know, we can't actually see it; but some comparisons are better than others. I think that God's love looks like a... Well, you'll just have to read my sermon and see what I think!

Several years ago, a pastor named Rob Bell wrote a book about Christianity that caused quite a stir. People who read the book either loved it or hated it. Those who hated it claimed that Bell’s thinking wasn’t biblical. His harsher critics even accused him of being a heretic. That book led to Bell’s removal from the Mars Hill Bible Church, the church that he had founded in a suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan and pastored for over 10 years. Despite the fact that under his leadership, that church had grown to a membership of nearly 10,000 people, many of its members decided that because of what Bell wrote in his book, he was not fit to lead a Christian congregation. What did Rob Bell write that caused such a ruckus? Did he deny that Christ was divine? No. Did he say that the Holy Spirit isn’t really a part of God? No. Did he claim that he himself was the Messiah? No. Well, then, what in the world did he write? In his book Love Wins, he wrote that God loves us, and that nothing in this world can ever separate us from that love.

God loves us? We all know that! Why, that’s the good news of the gospel! We Christians proclaim that as the very foundation of our faith! Jesus died for us because God loves us so much! So, then… what exactly was the problem? The problem was this: Rob Bell believes that God doesn’t just love us Christians, but that God loves everyone. Even more radical, he believes that God doesn’t just love us here and now, but that God will love us forever, regardless of who we are or what we have done, or said, or thought. He hates the picture of the Last Judgement that Michelangelo painted on the wall above the altar of the Sistine Chapel. In the very center of the painting is Christ judging everyone who has ever lived. Above Christ are the redeemed who are ascending into heaven; while below him, the souls of the lost are sinking down into hell. It’s hard to miss the message of this painting: God’s grace won’t last forever. There will be a time when God’s love for some people runs out; and when it does… well, they’re out of luck. Some people will be eternally “in,” while others will be condemned to eternal punishment.

This, then, is what all the ruckus was about. Rob Bell would say that although images like Michelangelo’s Last Judgement may be fine art, they don’t reflect reality. The reality, he says, is that God loves us today, tomorrow, and forever. Jesus died for us; and his resurrection proves God’s love for every single one of us! Nothing at all can ever separate us from that love. God will never condemn us, because God loves us! Now Rob Bell didn’t make that up. He got it from none other than St. Paul himself, who wrote in the book of Romans: “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39) God’s love can withstand anything that we can do!

What does that kind of love look like, anyway? Most of us think of love in sentimental images like a mother singing a lullaby to her tiny baby who is cradled safely in her protective arms. Sometimes love does look like that. But if God is going to love us through thick and thin – and I join Rob Bell in believing that God does – that love is going to need to be a lot tougher than a fuzzy, pink baby blanket adorned with a picture of Hello Kitty. A love that can embrace even people like Attila the Hun, Adolph Hitler, and Osama Bin Laden has to be very, very tough. That kind of love has to be like a boxer who gets up off the mat again and again after he has been knocked down; patient and resilient enough to keep trying over and over for as long as it takes.

My favorite image of God’s tough love is a green plant that has pushed its way through the pavement of a parking lot and is blooming defiantly where it isn’t supposed to be. Take a look at any abandoned parking lot. It is filled with little green plants that are growing through cracks in the pavement that have appeared over weeks and months. Those cracks were made by the sun and rain and freezing and thawing of life; and no sooner does one appear than a little plant takes advantage of it. Once that plant has thrust its head through the crack, it’s very difficult to get rid of it. God’s love works the very same way. Many people never give a second thought to God’s love. They are so focused on power, money, and their own self-interest that they pave right over it with those other priorities. Those little seeds of love wait until life causes a crack or two in that pavement; and then, up they sprout! There is nothing tougher than patience and the resilience to try again and again until something happens. God’s love is just like that.

Maybe that’s the kind of love that we should be offering to other people in Jesus’ name. That was the advice that Paul gave the congregation at Rome in his letter to them. (Romans 12:14-21) “Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good!” We are all too ready to meet hate with more hate, violence with more violence, and negativity with more negativity. That’s one way that we got into the situation that we’re in now: polarized in our religion and in our politics, alienated from one another, and often downright nasty! What would happen if we kept gently poking at the pavement that separates us like God does with the tough love that never gives up? When we meet prejudice, for example, we could listen to what the other person has to say, gently state the truth that we are all God’s children, and let it go. But then, we could do the same thing again and again and again, patiently and persistently. What would happen if we filled the world with responses like that? What if we treated every single person like we were going to sit right next to them at Thanksgiving dinner? Their behavior might not change; but ours sure would. And I’m betting that sooner or later, their behavior might change, too.

It’s amazing what God’s tough love can accomplish. I heard a story once about Mother Teresa, surely a representative of God’s love. She had set up a meeting with a couple of corporate executives hoping to persuade them to donate to her mission in India. The executives had already decided that their answer would be “no.” Mother Teresa met them warmly, and patiently accepted their refusal to donate to her mission. “Let us pray,” she said. They all bowed their heads in prayer, and Mother Teresa prayed for her mission. When the prayer was finished, she asked them again for a donation. Again, their answer was “no;” and again, Mother Teresa responded “Let us pray.” This process of request, denial, and prayer was repeated several times until the executives realized that they would never get away from this persistent woman who showed such tough love until they did what she asked of them. Mother Teresa got her donation.

I’ll bet that if you think back over your life, you tried to pave over God’s love, too; only to find out that God crept into your life like a little green plant through a crack that you didn’t even know was there! Maybe that love didn’t come into your life through Mother Teresa, but I’ll bet that the process was similar; because that’s just the way God’s love is: tough, gentle, and persistent. “I am the Lord,” God told Moses, “the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.” (Exodus 34:5-7a) If you ever doubt it, just look at the empty tomb on Easter morning. You’ll see the results of a love that is tough, gentle, persistent, and the most powerful force in the universe! Thanks be to God!