JESUS SEATING CHART AT A RECEPTION

Luke 14: 7-14

Seating can be a tricky business.  Since we just finished three weddings in two years we had to think about seating charts, especially at the reception: who should we put at what table? Of course everyone knows there is a head table; or do they? Without a seating chart would someone actually sit there?  At a public school assembly one time, I was involved in a prayer assembly, (yes a prayer assembly!) A tragedy had occurred on the campus. The school had seats with names on them for the principal, the student government president, family members who had suffered the loss, and for me to lead in prayer.  The mayor of the town arrived; seeing that no seat on the podium said mayor, the major proceeded to remove someone else’s name from one the chairs and sit down! I thought of Jesus story in today’s message when I saw that. But in our day rules of behavior are being broken without batting an eye. I have watched plenty of people (and perhaps you have done this) move from the cheap seats in a ball game to the higher priced seats unless someone shoos them away. It seems that some have no problem moving to the seats that are not their own. The movie popular with college students called “Wedding Crashers” gave people a humorous and raunchy blueprint of how to get food and women at a reception that was not theirs to attend. In the James Camerson movie “Titanic” the fictitious character Jack barely made it on the ship by gambling for a seat in what was called “steerage.” Certainly on the Titanic those conditions were better than on similar ships, but it was still a no frills existence. Ships and their first class passengers were quite strict about keep other lower classes out: they paid a huge premium to get their seats so for steerage Jack to ever meet First Class Rose was pure Hollywood. Likewise as we flew to Germany in July, we looked longingly at the first class cabin of the aircraft as we made our way into the fully loaded and cramped main cabin for our ten hour flight. One person had checked the cost to fly over in first class: it would have been more than three times the price of our seats! No wonder people in first class don’t want others wandering through their cabin or moving to a seat near them!  And in concerts, most often ticket prices vary according to which seat you want to purchase. Civility seems to be at a premium in some venues without seating charts as people push or butt in line and enter a venue saving many seats for people not yet present. It can be maddening.

But there are some places where one’s net income is not an issue. Any American age 62 or older can buy what is now called a “Senior Pass” from the National Park Service. The pass costs just $10.00, whether you are poor or rich, and lets you and anyone in your car drive into one of our many national parks. Can you believe it? One of the few deals in America.  In politics, state funding for candidates can allows a person of moderate income to beat a billionaire, but in another race, the millionaire beat one of just slightly more modest means. In church, the prime front seats often remain empty, while the cheap seats in the back get packed! How humble of all of you to leave the best seats for others!  What would Jesus do? Today’s passage lets us hear his guidance. We note in verse one that he has been invited to the house of a leader of the Pharisees.  Most of us paint the Pharisees as the bad guys in the Gospel drama, but Raymond Bailey has an astute observation when he says: “The Pharisees were the good people of their day. They never missed a religious meeting, they studied the Scriptures, they tithed, and they set the moral standard for their cultures. Jesus did not choose the guests but accepted the invitation to join them.”  So although they were good men—like some who belong to exclusive country clubs, hunt clubs, or communities—certain etiquette would be expected and a breach of etiquette would be noticed. Have you ever gone to a gathering when you felt distinctly under-dressed, or under classed or just plain uncomfortable? Again, weddings bring it out in people. Just think of the scenes of discomfort the parents went through as they visited the parents of their child’s fiancée in “Father of the Bride” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding!” And think of the discomfort the boyfriend played by Ben Stiller had in “Meet the Parents!”  Grace, hospitality, and humility are all part of Jesus’ lesson for today. In this case, cleansing rituals, food selections, and religious affiliation would have guided the Pharisee’s guest list, even as they tried to trip up their invited guest Jesus! But it was he who turned the tables when he noticed everyone taking their seats in places of honor! “When you are invited to a banquet, go and sit at the lowest place so that when the host comes he may say to you: “Friend move up higher.” I thought of that mayor, who had done the opposite, when I read that. Jesus, who at that point knew he was God’s chosen one, chose not to take the highest seat, but just as he once washed his guest’s dirty feet at another banquet, he took a low position at this one. What an example. Jesus was modeling how all who love God should act when they are invited to a banquet, particularly to the heavenly banquet. His message about the heavenly realm only becomes clear in verses 12 through 14.  Who would invite people to a fund raiser if they couldn’t pay? Who would invite people who couldn’t pay to see the show? No one on earth, right? Wrong. There are examples of grace, hospitality, and a desire to give children or adults of little means a leg up. Years ago when I saw Zero Mostel in the Broadway traveling show of “Fiddler on the Roof,” it was at the Muny Opera in St. Louis. We were in the area early when we saw a line at the box office and then another line. Although we had tickets, I asked what the second line was for. My mother told me that when the Muny Opera was built,  the major donor for its construction stipulated that the back two rows must be kept available free of charge for those who otherwise might not be able to be able to see great plays or hear great music. I was proud to learn about that gift.

Today we wish there wasn’t fighting for or saving seats in theatres any more than we want fighting for or saving seats in pews! After the election this past week I felt like I needed a bath to get the mud off that kept being flung in newspaper and television ads. What incivility; what does a servant life look like? We need more people to be like Jesus. We need more people like you or like me to not only be practicing for heaven, but to be living unselfishly on earth.  Christians could cordon themselves off in their giant mega-church campuses so they can move about with only like-minded people, or they can do what Jesus did: every time he prayed, he went back into the city, or a village, or to those who disagreed with him. After he was transfigured on the mountain, he refused to simply stay there with disciples who adored him. That would have been easy; but Jesus took the road less traveled. If the Christ of the gospels is going to change our world, he is going to do it through his beloved bride, the Church. We are his body, who gather to worship and pray who then go forth to tell about him, show others about him, and inviting others to know him. It takes us being in the world to change the world, not avoid it. It takes us all if we want to be invited to the great banquet tomorrow, or even the table of sacrament next Sunday.  How will you demonstrate that Christ has taught you the way, the truth, the life?

Jeffrey Sumner August 29, 2010

REMEMBERING THE SABBATH

Exodus 20: 8-11; Luke 13: 10-17

Do you know people who can’t accept gifts well?  I’m one of them!  So many thoughts go through my mind: if I use the gift right away then it will be gone, so instead I save it! By my not using the gift, gift cards have sometimes expires or gotten lost. If it’s food, it might go bad or expire. I have seen places in people’s closets where they have neatly placed gifts they have received that a) they haven’t yet opened; or b) that they aren’t sure they can use; or c) that they think they’ll “re-gift!” I am bad about using gracious gifts, but now I am working to use them with thanks! Have people given you gifts that you haven’t used? Have people given you a gift and you didn’t thank them? Both have the potential of hurting the giver! 

Today I want to suggest that the Great Gift-Giver of the world—God

 --the one who has given us blessings, and the Son, and creation, has given us another gift that is often ignored, stomped on, or set aside, and often people do not thank God for it. It’s the Sabbath. It’s a day of rest, or at least a day of doing something different from the other days; doing something rejuvenating instead of debilitating. It is also supposed to be a day to honor and thank God. Even though it is a commandment that is meant to be kept along with do not kill, do not steal, and do not commit adultery, the gift of the Sabbath is one of the most trampled-on and ignored commandments on the list. I suspect it hurts the giver when we do not receive the gift and use it! Some walk around exhausted, sleep-deprived, over-worked, grouchy, or complaining. Could God be watching and say “I don’t want to hear it! You need to put your foot down and take a day; make a day; carve out a day to rest! I gave you that gift and even modeled it for you in Genesis!” Many would say back to God (and yes, God can take a good argument) “Right! Tell that to my boss, tell that to my kids, or tell that to their coaches.” Encroaching activity, like crabgrass on a lawn, will eat up your day of rest. We know since New Testament days that the Christian churches have most often carved out Sundays as their Sabbath. If you are Jewish your Sabbath is Saturday (actually Friday sundown until Saturday sundown.) Jews had problems in this country for years when many occupations required Saturday work and almost everything was closed on Sunday. Now Christians also have to decide to keep a Sabbath or not since most stores stay open that day. Sabbath is only one of God’s finest gifts, one that often gets set on the shelf of our lives to be used another month, or another year, or decade. But like many other gifts, you either use it, or you lose it or it expires.  I know a number of people who worked non-stop most of their lives, some of them even working extra hours for extra money. They looked forward to their retirement day, some even crossing off days on a calendar, when all their days would be free time. Finally: retirement! Their saved-up chores took about a month of retirement time and then many were bored. They decided to travel, but then a heart attack, or cancer, or some other ailment clipped their wings and the second half of life changed from what they had pictured. Soon their saved up time was just taken up reading magazines in doctors waiting rooms. Just as the saying suggests to stop and smell the roses along life’s pathway, the Sabbath is a gift meant to be enjoyed along the way, not saved. (Jeff Sumner, are you listening??) Using the gift of Sabbath pleases the giver!  There are no stars in our crowns by working ourselves into burnout, bitterness, or illness.

Certainly there are those who do observe the Sabbath- some strictly, some more openly.  Some of you grew up when there was no card playing, no television, and no shopping on the Christian Sabbath. For the Orthodox Jew even today, any food consumed on the Sabbath must be prepared the day before. “No work of any kind” is their way of understanding this law. Read it in Exodus for yourself. But we find in Luke that Jesus attracted critics when he stopped a synagogue service to offer healing on the Sabbath. “Healing is work!” they said. “Heal that person tomorrow!”  Can you imagine if hospitals went dark on a Sabbath day so that no care was offered? Or perhaps the Jewish nurses would work on Sunday and the Christian nurses on Saturday, and the atheist nurses would take a different day! Even now weekends have fewer staff. But healing and recovery does not happen according to a set schedule. The Savior, the one who came to give us abundant life, healed on the Sabbath. You’ll remember his words in Mark chapter 2: “The Sabbath was made for mortals, not mortals for the Sabbath.”  Even on the day Jesus was put into the tomb, his body was not anointed with spices until the next day because “On the Sabbath day they rested according to the commandment.” (Luke 23:56) Attending to the body of Jesus- perhaps one of the most important events in the history of the world- did not happen for 24 hours because God’s gift was before them. They chose to follow the commandment and not to insult the giver. If they had anointed Jesus’ body immediately, the Easter story would have been strikingly different.

In her book KEEPING THE SABBATH WHOLLY, Marva Dawn writes: “To keep the Sabbath means to cherish it, to honor it as the Queen of our days, in consort with the King of the Universe. To develop the habit of Sabbath keeping requires some intentionality on our part; [but] its ceasing enables us to rest, and its feasting enables us to embrace afresh.” (p.203)

Keeping the Sabbath; we know it is a commandment, not more or less important than the other nine; we know that it is a choice since God gave us free will, but that God hopes we will keep it. The other thing we learned today is that the Sabbath is a gift and that the giver is God. Now if we choose to keep the Sabbath, how might that be done?  There are those who have fond memories of Sundays in the past as I do. Growing up when I would visit my grandparents in Ellwood City, we would go to church, have family members over to share a big noonday meal, we would visit with each other, and then they would leave and we would take naps! There would be a light supper that night and afterward before dark when it was cool, we would drive to the cemetery to water the flowers on the family graves and hear once again the stories of their lives. At my grandmother’s in Sylvester we did almost the same thing. To the boys and girls here I have to tell you, it was not boring, it was magical. I never forgot the ritual. Certainly the times have changed and the way you might keep your Sabbath has changed. Some who work Sundays observe a Sabbath on a different day. But if you are like me, you have to be extra vigilant to guard your Sabbath. On those week days, you can get swept into work that is draining and stressful if you aren’t careful. The times are different in Florida. It is more difficult for most to keep the Sabbath. There are distractions and attractions everywhere. But when your soul feels most dry, or bitter, or over-worked, only stopping to drink in the living water of which Jesus spoke can revive your soul again. Observing the Sabbath is part of the prescription.

Lynne M. Baab wrote a recent book called SABBATH KEEPING in which she admits she struggles to do what her title suggests. That is honest. In our world that values what we have accomplished more than who we are, God says “I value who you are most.” Our world tries to create each one of us into the sadly humorous term “human doings” because it measures our worth by what we do. God, conversely, created us as “human beings” because we are valued for who we are.  There have been studies of those who have skipped having days off: some by work demands, some by choice. In both cases, people who took their Sabbath days were more alert, joyful, and productive. It was once put this way. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” What saying might describe your life? How could you choose to change it today? 

Our Jewish brothers and sisters have been keeping or struggling to keep the Sabbath for ages even before Jesus was born. Let me close with their prayer of the traditional home service for Sabbath eve. Let us pray: (Silence)

Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us by Thy commandments, and commanded us to kindle the Sabbath lights.

May the Sabbath-light which illumines our dwelling cause peace and happiness to shine in our home. Bless us, O God, on this holy Sabbath, and cause Thy divine glory to shine upon us. Enlighten our darkness and guide us [and the world] toward truth and eternal light. Amen.

Jeffrey A. Sumner August 22, 2010

STORM WARNING

Luke 12: 49-56

The comic strip of the cavemen pals “Frank and Ernest” is one I have enjoyed over the years. One time Frank was coming out of their cave with a club and Ernest was with him. Their faces were grim. Ernest said: “I am worried about the future all the time.” Frank says in reply, “Yeah, I’m worried all the time too. I wish we’d never invented the future tense!”  Like it or not, every one of us has a future. There are some people who think everything in the future is in God’s hands- that by God’s providence there is little we can do to change things. There are others who believe that their destiny is in their own hands and it is up to them to either sink or swim in the future. And still others believe in God’s steady hand in bringing the future upon us, and that God wants us to prepare to face what comes our way. Today Jesus teaches his listeners to cast their assumptions aside, and to prepare for what they see coming, not for what they think is coming. What was on the first century minds when Jesus was with them?  It will sound familiar: taxes, concerns about government leaders, fear of changing weather conditions, anxiety about children being able to earn a living or be matched with a good spouse when they were ready, and fearing that they didn’t have enough money for food and clothing. It is prudent for us to listen in to their lessons from Jesus, some of which are our lessons for today as well.

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” What can our Savior mean with those words? Some have suggested that the metaphor refers to the gospel message. What if the gospel message had been already kindled, that is, already lighted? As we saw in the fires of 1998 in Florida, great fires can be frightening and destructive. Some fires begin with carelessness like with a tossed match or a stove left on unattended. But other fires, like controlled burns, are started deliberately. Gasoline engine cars will not fire without a spark. Outdoor grills, whether wood or charcoal or gas, need a spark to start. Our world, like the world of ancient Jerusalem, is filled with chaff, that is, dry leftover grain or destructive weeds- people who are useless, destructive, or even evil. Haven’t you known some Christian families who so damp with their zeal for Christ, so lethargic, anemic, and lukewarm about their church that even a spark could not ignite their passion for Jesus? Jesus, it seems to me, sees not only corruption, but also complacency; he sees apathy and fear. Certainly as in Judah, he could point out some stellar examples in zeal in his day as he could in ours! But I think Jesus also sees the poor examples of discipleship in our world today because I see them too! You can’t get a commitment out of some people when it comes to Jesus no matter how hard one tries; but when it comes to other areas of interest. Commitment abounds. Jesus is ready for a fire! He is ready for a Holy Ghost fire! One day, tragically, a long time ago, a declining church building in the middle of a town burned to the ground. A sarcastic man in the community looked on from a distance as firefighters battled the flames. He said to his neighbor: “Wow! I’ve never seen that church on fire about anything!” I have pictured Christ looking on at some church services in our day from across the street, because he wants no part of compromised, damp, or lethargic Christianity. “What would he say if we made our commitments to him clear, and unequivocal, and fervent: “Would he say “I’ve never seen you on fire about God before!” Jesus is looking for a fire, a fire in us, and he wishes it were already started. Perhaps it is in you.

Next he says “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!” How does one who was baptized for us as an example have a baptism still before him?  As those who fight for their country, or give an organ to a loved one or stranger, or give their savings to pull someone else out of the jaws of bankruptcy, many people “sacrifice” themselves for someone else. Jesus still had a sacrifice before him, an immersion into giving life for someone else. There is another route besides sacrifice: it is contribution. Some contribute to helping others with words like “I’ll pray for you,” or “Give me a call if I can help.” But others say “Move over on that couch; I will care for and feed you and stay with you.” It is sacrificial, and sometimes it can pull a caregiver under the overwhelming flood. There is an old stewardship message of a pig and a chicken walking down a road. They come upon a family that is without food and starving. “What do you think we should do about this?” the pig asked the chicken. “I think we should help them out,” the chicken said. “ I have eggs and you have pork! What do you say?”  To which the pig replied, I’m not so sure: if you offer eggs it’s a contribution. But if I offer pork, it’s quite a sacrifice!”  Plenty are willing to offer a contribution. But how many will sacrifice for their faith? Jesus’ baptism that he faced was a metaphor for the cross. In effect he said, “I have a sacrificial death to face, and I feel its weight until it is accomplished.” This is the example of Christ. There are times we will sacrifice for our faith, and other days we just make a contribution.  “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?” Jesus then asked his disciples, and we listen in. “I am just sure that many of us, and perhaps three-fourths of his disciples, would answer “Yes! I do think you have come to bring peace! We call you Prince of Peace! If you are the true Messiah shouldn’t you be bringing peace?” Perhaps reading that the Messiah brings peace, as the prophets believed, was a naïve view of God breaking in to this world. If you shift your loyalty from earthly kings to the King of Kings, do you think peace will ensue instead of financial or personal consequences?  If you shift your money from giving to Caesar (like withholding taxes) to giving to God instead, do you think it will bring peace when you are arrested for tax evasion? Jesus gives a reality check to followers: down the line, when we are safely in God’s Kingdom, there will be safety and peace and joy. But getting there has its price. Even prophets of old saw the conflicts. Micah once proclaimed: “For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law; your enemies are members of your own household. But as for me, I will look toward the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation” (7: 6-7) And Malachi, in speaking about the coming of the great day of the Lord says “The prophet will turn the hearts of parents to their children and hearts of children to their parents, so that the land will not be cursed instead.” (4:6)

Before we come out on the other side, we will go under the deep waters; before we come out on the open meadowland, we will go through forests that are ablaze. There is a cost, a sacrifice, and a commitment to live the Christian life.

We in our day and age are blessed with Doplar radar and other modern devices that let us see clouds, tornadoes, and hurricanes as they form. Even with modern devices and years of experience, my weathercasters have told me to take an umbrella when I didn’t need it, and they’ve told me to look to the skies with the promise of a sunny day and I got raindrops on my face! Weather is not a perfect science, but even in Jesus day, they knew some general signs that warned them to get ready. When they saw clouds forming in the west, they could almost be assured that rain was on the way. When they felt hot wind from the south, they knew that strong sirocco-like winds were on their way. We don’t need a degree in meteorology to know the basics: if we see lightning, wise people move indoors; if our weather radios sound an alarm, wise people stop and listen. If we read that a hurricane is approaching, we rush out for supplies. We can do those things. Jesus wonders if people notice and respond to weather so well, why can’t we respond to the times? I am noticing more extreme weather, whether from God or from global warming. That means I ready for the strange weather patterns I have seen this summer, where the Midwest was steadily hotter than Florida for a time, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Arkansas have been flooded, and a glacier three times the size of Manhattan has broken loose and is drifting. Jesus says if we can see those weather signs and prepare, we should learn how to read the times: is there fighting in families: check; is their war among nations: check; is there economic meltdown: check. Isn’t it possible that people should be turning to God more instead of putting God in second place? Do the things going on in your life make you want to lean on those everlasting arms even more, or to pull away? With all that is in the headlines in our day, does it, or does it not occur to you to prepare for the time when you will meet the Lord?  There are signs everywhere; but some people don’t even have enough sense to come out of the rain.

Jeffrey A. Sumner                      August 15, 2010

“Searched and Known”

You might have noticed I have strayed off lectionary for this morning. Well at the end of July I attended a conference with a number of our youth that was called Into the Wild. The conference was about the wilderness that each of us face in our lives every day. During the conference we talked about the two texts I have chosen for today along with a number of others. I thought the lessons we learned were important enough to share with all of you, hence my detour off of lectionary for today.

The first passage from Isaiah, was one that we talked about during our evening worship. I have heard this passage from Isaiah many times, as I'm sure have all of you. But I heard it in an entirely new way during the conference. I've always heard the voice crying in the wilderness. Haven't you?

Well, actually, it can be read as A voice crying out. And what the voice cries out is "In the wilderness, prepare a way for the Lord." The voice isn't in the wilderness, the one who is preparing the way is.

Isn't that an odd way to look at it? When we go out on a trip, we tend to prepare BEFORE we get to the wilderness. When I went on the trip with the youth, I didn't think about packing after we had left. No, I packed ahead of time (admittedly it was the night before, but it still was ahead of time.) We try to prepare before we get to the wilderness.

Yet this voice tells us to prepare in the wilderness. Why? Because we are already in that wilderness. Look around at the world. We live in a deep wilderness. Wilderness is a word used many times in the Bible. It is meant to be a place without rules, a place away from others. People frequently are traveling there to flee God. Or to speak to God. But it is a prevalent place.

The wilderness is full of the dark places in our lives. The untamed. The place where unexpected things happen. We all have our own wilderness that we have dealt with. Or maybe you're dealing with yours now. A fight with a trusted family member that has gotten out of hand. A struggle with an addiction. A loss of employment. The breaking down of an important relationship in your life. These are our wildernesses. It isn't all jungle and wild animals.

That's why the voice tells us that we have to prepare in the wilderness. We are all in the wilderness! If we waited until we were back to a place of safety to prepare away for the Lord, nothing would get done. No one would be able to prepare. Instead we are called to prepare a way for the Lord in the mess of our lives. Not when things get calmer. Not when jobs are worked out. Now. In the mess of our lives today, we are called to prepare.

And what are we preparing? We are preparing a way for the Lord. The Lord will come in glory and rule in our lives.

Not an easy thing to think about. After all, when we are deep in the wilderness, we don't necessarily want to share those experiences with anyone, do we? When we are feeling shamed by what has happened, or embarrassed by our actions to try to solve it. We are a people of self-reliance. We want to deal with the wilderness by ourselves and not show the flaws to others.

There's one small problem with that, which we see in Psalm 139. God already knows. God is with us in that wilderness and God knows our pain. God knew us before we were born and knows the layout of our days. God knows the deep secrets we try to hide in our wildernesses. Isaiah is talking about listening to God in turn in his passage. Paying attention to God in God's glory instead of turning away and trying to ignore God's presence. We can't keep God out, the Psalmist talks about that. But we can and do pretend that God is not present.

I ran across a delightful video on youtube this past week by Wendy Francisco. The lyrics begin: "I look up and I see GoD, I look down and see my dog. They would stay with me all day. I'm the one who walks away. But both of them just wait for me and dance at my return with glee. Both love me no matter what, divine God and canine mutt." The song goes one from there, and I really recommend watching it. But for a God whose knowledge is too wonderful for me” looking at a beloved dog helps our minds to understand God's enduring love. God is always with us, but we sometimes push God away. Forget that God is there.

Why do we do this? Well, it's not an entirely comforting thought is it? I mean, there is the joy and delight in knowing that no matter what happens, we are never ever alone. And there is the shame and the worry that no matter what happens, we are never ever alone. Everyone has secrets they don't want to share with anyone. Ones that we just want to be buried. But God already knows those. God knows our inmost thoughts so God knows what spurred us into doing them.

By pretending that they are hidden from God, all we're doing is holding onto that shame and fears by ourselves. When God is waiting to help us in the wild, we try to forge ahead, all on our own. Turning back to God, eases the journey. Allows us to be loved and known, even in the dark places.

God knows us. What an awesome thought! One of the biggest causes of loneliness is the fear that no one really knows you. But God does. You can be completely yourself with God.

That doesn't mean that its okay to continue with the sins you've been hiding because God already knows. By turning back to God, we are loved and embraced, but we also have to acknowledge the wrongs we have done. God knows you and loves you, but like anyone in love, God wants what's best for you. God wants you to grow beyond the limited space you have allowed yourself. God wants you be the best you, you can be. And God knows who that is.

One of my favorite lines in the whole Bible comes in this Psalm “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” What a rich thought.

We are fearfully made because God has created us and not we ourselves. We are finite, limited; that knowledge stirs up fear. We have the capacity for making choices, but we cannot choose what the outcomes will be; and that stirs up fear. We can imagine a life with no sin, but we discover we are powerless to achieve that life. The gap between what we imagine for ourselves and our reality stirs up fear.

We are wonderfully made because we have a unique capacity for wonder, prayer, song, friendship, love and redemption. We are remarkable creations who in turn can create. That balances out the fear of our sinful selves.

Yes, God is all knowing. Yes, God is all powerful. And on top of that, God is creative. You are a marvelous expression of God's power and knowledge. We learn this from the creation account in Genesis, where after forming humankind, God said it was very good. You are an expression as His masterpiece – a living expression of the creativity of God.

For Middle Schoolers I think this Psalm is valuable to hear. God knows and loves your strange and awkward self. Every middle schooler feels they don't fit in at some point. But they always have a place with God. As I listened to this Psalm again with fresh ears, I realized that it isn't just middle schoolers who can benefit from looking more closely at these words.

We all feel like we don't fit. We all forget that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and instead feel strange and awkward. We all have deep secrets that we think no one else can know. We don't remember that God knows all of us. We all need to hear the comforting words of the Psalmist here.

For all of us do have our own wilderness to get through. Our own dark times. Yet we can take comfort in the fact that no matter how dark the times are, God is with us. Nowhere we can go and nothing we can do can separate us from the love of God. God has searched us and knows us. God made us just as we are and God loves us! Even in the depths of the wilderness, God is with us. Amen.

Rev. Cara Gee

August 1^st, 2010

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THORNY PRAYER ISSUES

Luke 11: 1-13

Two Fridays ago, my class of doctoral students joined Professor Taylor in visiting a Masjid in Atlanta. Often called a Mosque in English, it is the place where, five times a day, Muslims and interested other people gather to offer prayers to Allah, their Arabic name for God. Why do I tell you about this? For just this reason: men, women: what are you usually doing on Friday at 1:00 p.m.? Are you taking a lunch hour as I usually am? Are you at work and can’t leave, or at home watching TV or starting a nap? In Atlanta, we observed what many Muslims were doing: they came for an hour of prayer. This was just one of five prescribed prayer times daily. As they arrived, they respectfully took off their shoes and placed them in wooden nooks in the walls of their vestibule; the only other time I had seen so many shoes in such nooks was at a bowling alley! But the wood was beautiful there, and the shoes carefully placed. There was no chit chat, just purposeful movement. Men and women went into separate locations, in part because arms and feet actually touch your brothers or sisters in faith. We witnessed men, blue collar, white collar, and boys, going into a special purification room where they washed their legs and feet, arms and hands, and face. They then went in to a huge carpeted room where we observed them standing and kneeling together with other men of the faith. They actually prostrate themselves with their face to the ground, their head touching the feet of the man in front of them, and their feet touching the head of the man in back of them; their elbows touched the man’s elbows on either side of them. How many were there on a Friday at 1:00 p.m.? We counted 700, besides women and girls in another room! Men prayed together, physically and fervently; women prayed together as well. We were moved by the reverence of their prayers.

Just three weeks ago I learned about prayer from a Rabbi. Rabbi Amy Mayer of Temple Israel just up the street reminded me of two things that Jews do and don’t do: First she said almost no one asks a rabbi to pray for them! She says Jews believe they should bring their own prayers to God, so synagogue services become a cacophony of a hundred people praying to God at their own speed and for their own purposes. The second thing I learned was that Jews never cut God out of their spiritual life even when a prayer seems to go unanswered. I know some individuals and even some professors who cut God out of their lives when they prayed and believed God did not hear or respond to them. “A Jew would never cut out God,” said Rabbi Amy. “We go back to God, crying out, getting angry, pleading, and asking, until we find the answer God wants us to find. And most often, it is not the answer we are looking for!” From Muslims I watched the power of reverent, corporate prayer. From Jews I learned to never stop knocking on God’s door! Now from Christians, we learn some things as well. Let’s listen to what Jesus tells his closest followers about prayer, paying special attention today to the eleventh chapter of the Gospel according to Luke.

First, Jesus sets the example of constant prayer. He prayed each morning, he prayed during his journeys, he prayed in the garden, and he prayed on the cross. Jesus prayed constantly, sometimes with petitions, sometimes just talking with his Father, sometimes to give thanks and sometimes just to listen! Such reasons for prayer should be ours as well. Prayer is to give glory to God, as well as praise; prayer is to acknowledge God and to keep us from falling into a philosophy of life that even some founding fathers had. Thomas Jefferson, it has been noted, was something of a Deist: that is, one who believes that God set the universe in motion and created the laws of physics, now does not interfere with or change any of it. Some Americans believe that, especially when they don’t think their prayer has been answered. But as I showed the children, we’ll need to get beyond the idea that prayer is like a gumball machine: put in your money and get out the result you want. People do that, of course, because of a line Jesus once said and it is in our text today too: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” This week in the news an Agricultural Department employee who was accused of racism a week ago has received calls of apology because the quote on which the charge was based was taken out of context. Christians have a bad habit of taking one line out of the Bible and making it the galvanized truth. But when you do that with a verse like: “Ask and it will be given unto you,” it turns God into a wonderful gumball machine, or an overindulgent grandfather who gives you whatever you ask, or a spineless parent who creates a child who has no means to mature because she was never told “no” as a teenager. God is not any of those things. Prayer with God is about relationship; about listening, not just about asking. Remember that strange part of our text in verses eleven through thirteen; that part about scorpions and snakes and fish and eggs? Interpreter Raymond Bailey explains: “Luke draws on familiar images to make his point on parental care [concerning God.] There was an eel-like type of unclean fish in the Sea of Galilee. A loving parent would not give to a child anything that would be harmful, even if it fit the category of the request. A baby cries for food, but some food is harmful. A scorpion may draw itself into a ball and assume the appearance of an egg. The eel or scorpion might appeal to the child, but the parent would exercise caution on [their] behalf. A parent must be wise enough not to be fooled, and our heavenly parent is wisdom itself.” So Jesus prayed constantly, but not about getting what he wanted; he prayed ultimately to know and do his Father’s will. Prayer is intended to be more about relationship more than petition.

Second, we are in this world together. When Jesus gave the example that we now call the “Lord’s Prayer,” there was no first person singular pronoun in the whole prayer. While we are most accustomed to asking God to grant one of our requests, the Lord’s Prayer is plural throughout: like with Muslims, it’s a reminder to pray corporately, with one another, perhaps even touching shoulders or holding hands once in awhile. It invites us to find times to pray in the same room now and then, but when we’re away, we remember how many others are in prayer with God at the same time.

Third, be persistent in prayer.  In Biblical times families would usually bed down on the family floor, perhaps near a fire, for homes were usually just one room. Usually the father laid down next to the door, and almost like the men I saw praying two weeks ago, or like arctic travelers with huskies, the father would have his children nuzzle close to him for safety, and most often the mother was at the other end of the line; the children were in the middle. With a knock on the door, not only would the father have to move, the children would have to be awakened to move as well, so the first response to a request for bread at midnight is no. But if the neighbor was persistent, the man might give in a) to be hospitable, or b) to get the persistent man to go away so the father could go back to sleep! Persistence in prayer makes a difference with God.

Fourth, read one verse in light of other verses. If you stop with “Ask and it shall be given unto you,” people miss the shading that the next line adds: “seek and ye shall find” implies persistence; and the next part “knock and the door will be opened” also says that your request is not fulfilled right away, nor is it always fulfilled gladly, but there is a response because of the relationship the neighbor had already built with his neighbor. If a stranger pounds on a man’s door at midnight it will first be assumed he is a thief.

So the fifth and final thing Jesus teaches us about prayer is this:  “Do not be a stranger at the door of your Father.” God wants to hear from you; God wants to know you, not just as you were created, but as you have become; God want to hear your preferences, your choices and your beliefs. Certainly Christians believe in prayer; but do we practice prayer to make it a sacred conversation, inviting God into our space and for a few focused moments, making it holy?  Instead of just throw away words, I witnessed others who believe in God make a time, place, and a posture for prayer. Today I have listened to Jesus words and heard that he often sets himself apart for prayer with his Heavenly Father. Today our text commends to us regular and persevering prayer. Let prayer be constant, corporate, persistent, Scriptural, and familiar. Today let us reclaim holy time- once, twice, five times a day, or even more: when we can we praise, wrestle with, talk with, or even question God, who will be as involved in our lives as we wish. Like Jesus in our facet glass window, God is knocking on the door of our hearts today.

Jeffrey A. Sumner July 24, 2010 

“Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

This is probably the best known parable in the Bible. The story of the Good Samaritan. Seeing it listed in the lectionary for today gave me pause. After all, people have told this story before. They have talked about the Priest, the Levite and the Samaritan until they’ve become almost a bad joke. People have argued that this parable has the same formula as that of a morality play.

And yet, this parable isn’t your typical morality story, is it? I mean, if this parable really was just another morality tale, I think the Samaritan would be the guy in the ditch. Then we'd have a classic "love your enemies" story. You know the rules: help those in need and get bonus points because it's a Samaritan. But that's not the way Jesus tells it. In Jesus' version, the Samaritan is the one who notices – who actually sees – this beaten man and by seeing him is moved to pity. The Samaritan, that is, is the one who recognizes that when it comes to the question of who is our neighbor, there are no rules. Our neighbor, it turns out, is anyone in need. Where does such vision come from? It apparently doesn't come from one's ethnicity, one's religion, one's training, or one's station in life. How else can we explain that a Samaritan saw this when the priest and Levite did not? Having the eyes of faith to see all people are children of God and anyone in need is your neighbor must be a gift of God, it must be a matter of faith, it must start with seeing, and only then move to doing.

That I think is worth talking about. And to talk about the Good Samaritan, we must start with the lawyer who brings this parable about. He asks what was foremost on his mind “What must I do to get to heaven?” Its a question many of us have asked at one time or another. Jesus turns the question back upon the lawyer, as he tends to do, and asks what the Law says. The lawyer gives the textbook answer “You shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus says “See? You know the answer. So do it”

But then the lawyer gets crafty. “Yes, but who is my neighbor?”

My neighbor.

Now, for the lawyer who tests Jesus, this identity draws lines around people and protects us from one another, but it also puts some reasonable limits on the possibly unreasonable demands of the Jewish Law he cares so much about obeying. Give me some parameters, he says to Jesus, I mean, who would it be okay not to love? After all, I'm only human…just give me a list of which people I have to take care of and who's on the outside of that line I need to draw around my community of care. Yes, yes, of course I know that I need to love God – that's a no-brainer – remember, I knew the answer to your question when you asked me what's in the Law (I am a lawyer, after all), but give me a break, okay? Who all do I need to love just as much as I love myself? Who is this neighbor whose needs and welfare need to be as important to me as my own? The question itself implies, of course, that there are people who are not my neighbor, people whom it's okay not to love.

Now, we can’t expect this question to have a simple answer.  Do you think the Jesus we know from the Gospels and from the past two thousand years of a church struggling to be faithful and from our own personal and communal relationship with him, is going to say, "Well, if you can manage to love your family and friends and maybe throw a coin at a beggar every once in awhile, that's pretty good. Just be sure to worship regularly at the temple, obey all the religious laws, and pay your pledge every year. Then you're all set – or as you put it, you'll inherit eternal life, and you'll go to heaven when you die, because, after all, you will have earned it."

No. Instead Jesus tells this oh so famous parable, which never answers the lawyer’s question. Instead, following the parable, Jesus asks a new question: "Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" Jesus' question is challenging, but it is not even in line with the question asked by the lawyer. The question is no longer who my neighbor is, but who acted as a neighbor to another in need. Neighbor is no longer about classification, but about specific action.

According to N.T. Wright, "He wants to know who counts as 'neighbor.' For him, God is the God of Israel, and neighbors are Jewish neighbors. For Jesus (and for Luke, who highlights this theme), Israel's God is the God of grace for the whole world and a neighbor is anybody in need"  Jesus shifts the focus in his parable from the intent of the lawyer's question: the issue is no longer love of God and love of neighbor, but exclusively the issue of love of neighbor.

Don’t worry about who your neighbor may be. Worry instead about whether you are acting as a neighbor; especially when the likelihood, the strain, even the scandal of being one pushes us far beyond what seems desirable or imaginable. This, Jesus says, will be the benchmark of whether we love God and love our neighbor. Fail this? Walk by? Then disdain our enemy who loves when we don’t? And we expose just how little interest we have in following Jesus, and in doing what Jesus both does and commands. By extension, we also make clear what little interest we have in the reality of eternal life: Gods’ love-suffused Kingdom.

We all know the old joke: A minister had just been preaching about the need for world peace and humanitarianism. After the service, one member remarked to another on the lawn outside, "I love mankind. I've got a real heart for humanity." Then she added: "It's just PEOPLE I can't stand!" We laugh, but I think we can all relate to this on some level. Yet Jesus’ vision sees us as we are and as we are not. Love the world, but fail to love as the neighbor we are meant to be on any given day – not least towards the marginalized, the inconvenient, the unacceptable – and we fail in what matters most.

“But,” the more educated among us might protest “The Priest and the Levite couldn't touch the man they thought was dead. It was against their laws.” Which is true. They had legitimate reasons for acting as they did. Any contact with blood or a dead body would have rendered them unclean according to their purity laws. No one who was “unclean” could enter the holy places of the temple. So, walking over and touching this dying or dead man, even just to see if he was alive, was out of the question. It would have disqualified them from their religious duties.

Believe it or not, we’re not so different from them. Several years ago a group of researchers conducted an experiment in which seminary students were each told that they had been selected to help record a talk about the Good Samaritan.  The problem was that the recording was to be done in a building all the way across campus, and because of a tight schedule they would have to hurry to get there.  On the path to the other building the researchers had planted an actor playing a sick homeless man slumped in an alley, coughing and suffering.  The excited students each hurried across campus for their important assignment, and as it turned out, almost none of them turned out to actually be Good Samaritans.  Almost all of them hurried past the suffering man.  One student even stepped over the man’s body as he rushed across campus to teach about the parable of the Good Samaritan!

The seminary students, of course, were not bad people.  They were just human.  Like the priest and the Levite, they simply had other priorities that kept them from acting with compassion. Knowing the right thing to do and actually doing the right thing are two completely different things.  For instance we all value compassion. Yet how many of us act on that value when we are busy, or distracted, or have other things to worry about?

That’s what sets the Good Samaritan apart. He had plenty of reasons to do as the priest and Levite did, passing by on the other side of the road. This happened in a dangerous area. The dying man could have been a trap used to lure him into an ambush by thieves. Any number of things could have gotten in the way of his compassion yet he stopped. He did the unthinkable. He stopped, putting himself at risk. He touched the man and bandaged his wounds, rendering himself unclean. He put the beaten man on his own horse, slowing his journey on the treacherous road. The Samaritan took him to an inn and cared for him, devoting more of his precious travel time. He paid the innkeeper to take care of him indefinitely, likely costing him a fortune. Remarkably, none of these things got in the way of his compassion.

Rebecca J. Kruger Guadino adds another layer to this story: "If, indeed, the priest and the Levite fear contamination, they do so because of laws that have as their intent the protection of Israel's holiness before a holy God. But at what point does the quest for holiness violate God's commands to love? Certainly all of us in our own communities have regulations intended to safeguard our community. At what point does our allegiance to these laws jeopardize the laws the lives and well-being of our fallen neighbors? Or is it possible that loving God and loving neighbor are at some point incompatible? If the purity laws lie in the background of this story, then Jesus questions laws that purport to honor God while dishonoring God's creation."

What is most important to God? When asked this question, the lawyer didn't respond with the laws of ritual cleanliness. He answered “To love the Lord your God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.” That takes precedence over everything else, even the other laws. We follow the law, but this parable is a clear case where you can't follow the Law and this commandment. This commandment is what matters.

Mr. Rogers who taught many of us growing up, talked about neighbors a lot. He taught children how to be neighbors to each other, how to care and how to listen. Mr. Rogers once said: “The more I think about it, the more I wonder if God and neighbor are somehow One. ‘Loving God, Loving neighbor’-the same thing? For me, coming to recognize that God loves every neighbor is the ultimate appreciation!” That is what matters beyond the laws: loving God and neighbor.

I want to take a moment here to look at the victim on the road. Does he seem familiar to you? He does to me. We know that the beaten man comes from a very high place, Jerusalem, to a very low place, the bottom of the road from the hill. He’s risking suffering and death to get there,going alone on a very dangerous road, and he’s eventually stripped, beaten, and left dying. His suffering is even ignored by the religious leaders of the day. I don't know about you, but I see Christ in him.

If you think about it, he is the Christ-figure of the story. For ages Christians have seen Christ in the compassionate self-sacrifice of the Good Samaritan, but shouldn’t we see Christ in the one suffering as well? Jesus did teach that whatsoever we do to the least of these, we do to Jesus himself. Are we not called to recognize the face of Christ in the poor, the needy, the outcast, and the lowly? We may not be able to force ourselves to act with compassion, but we can at the very least open ourselves up to the possibility that Christ is in every lowly, needy, or suffering person we meet. We can seek to put ourselves in contact with more and more people who are living in need. We can be friends to those in low places. This has been the calling of the Church from the very beginning.

We are called to love our neighbors. To be neighbors in a world that turns away. In a world full of excuses about why we can't help, we are called to care. We are called to see the neighbors suffering and to do something about it. This is not an easy task, at all, but one we must work towards. It is to that height that Christ calls us. So in the words of Mr. Rogers: “In all that you do in your life, I wish you the strength and the grace to make those choices which will allow you and your neighbor to become the best of whoever you are.”

Rev. Cara Gee

July 11^th, 2010

CHRISTIAN KARMA: REAPING WHAT YOU SOW

Galatians 6: 1-10

The Urban Dictionary has some rich things to say about Galatians 6: 7-9. It includes these six definitions of the basic tenet “You reap what you sow,” describing “The basic nature of God’s justice.” The first definition: “Everything that you do has repercussions. It comes back to you one way or another.” The second definition: “You cannot escape the consequences of your actions. What you do comes back to you.” Third: “You will see the long-term effects of your actions.” Fourth: “KARMA- meaning the total effect of a person’s actions and conduct help determine a person’s destiny.” I’ll come back to that definition. The fifth one simply says: “What goes around, comes around.” And the sixth definition: “Your actions all have consequences; God will not be mocked. God sees all. You do indeed reap what you sow.”

Let’s think about that phrase for a few minutes. If we think about that phrase as a law of the universe, then you might be thinking right now about exceptions that you have witnessed or experienced; you know- like taking retribution into your own hands because you didn’t think proper punishment had been doled out. It is justice out of control when a parent kills the killer of their daughter, when a woman takes another woman’s infant because she has failed to conceive one of her own, or a man takes another man’s eye because he was blinded by the first man’s malicious action. As the Hindu leader Gandhi once said, “An eye for an eye justice makes the whole world blind.” I said I would come back to the idea of Karma, which is a Hindu term. Today we remember that it is also a Biblical concept. Professor John A Hutchison wrote these words regarding Hinduism in his classic textbook, PATHS OF FAITH. “One of the themes delineated in the Upanishads which overlaps both cosmology and ethics and has very great importance for the future of Indian thought and life is karma-samsara. Karma is the law of the deed; it occurs in many religious traditions as the perception that moral deeds carry their consequences ‘as you sow, so will you reap.’ (1995, p.82)

Those of you who have listened to the words of Jesus or the Apostle Paul before realize this so-called “law” is an agricultural analogy. It is generally a farmer who goes out to a field to sow; that is, to broadcast seeds where he wants them to grow. In our day this is done with mechanical spreaders most often, but in Jesus’ day, a farmer would sow seeds by reaching into a bag and flinging them across soil that had been tilled, that is, dug and loosened, so that the seeds would hopefully take root and grow. Jesus used that illustration in his parable of the sower, an evangelism message that says even if we tell the gospel to 100 people, and do it equally well to each one, we cannot count on a 100% response. According to nature, or to God’s plan, or to detrimental conditions, some seeds grow, and some seeds just don’t. The other way seeds are planted is one at a time, and even then, not every one grows well. I remember that fact from my experience planting flower and vegetable seeds as a boy, and watching how slowly they seemed to grow, and how some of the seeds never grew at all! Therefore, the phrase, “as you sow, so shall you reap” is based on an agricultural experience of probability, but not total predictability.  The world has examples of peoples and nations doing heinous actions in times of war and yet some countries and organizations have carried out their actions without later equitable consequences. The world also has examples of nations helping other nations, out of grace or generosity, only to find that when the first nation began to be in need, the second nation does not reciprocate with kindness. We know of those examples. But those are more the exception than the rule. In some neighborhoods, people seem to “help God out” in this regard by shunning those who do unkind or malicious things to others, trying to fulfill their “what goes around, comes around” sense of justice. There are other forms of retribution that are also implemented by some, such as boycott, warnings, and aggressive actions. But the agricultural basis of the statement: “What people sow, that shall they also reap,” has room for failure; failure to grow; too much or too little water, too much or too little sunlight, and birds or animals eating what grows. What do we do when the world seems to be not fair, not equitable, or not just? Paul did the Christian thing: Paul put such justice issues at the feet of God. It is Paul who reminds those who are tempted to test this principle that God is not mocked; it is Paul who implies that God sees all, both good and bad, and that God keeps account of our actions. And on that day when God sees whether we have sowed seeds of kindness or not; when God sees whether we have been waiting for the master with our lives in order when God brings in the sheaves, God takes account of the harvest. The good seeds are used, and the useless seeds and weeds are burned. It is a judgment picture. And it is worth our noting today.

So we have come full circle; we noted that in agriculture not everything grows equally that is planted; we noted that not all good deeds done are rewarded by others in the world, anymore than all bad deeds are punished by others in the world. It is our hope, but human justice is flawed. That leaves divine justice; Christian doctrine puts all the deeds a man or woman does on the judgment seat of God. And although we are saved through grace and by faith in Christ as Lord, our responses to our salvation are surely measured as well. So we are charged with working the fields of God’s green earth; and caring for the sky and the oceans and rivers of the world even amidst an oil disaster. And we are charged with sowing the seeds of the Gospel of Jesus to all the world, knowing that not all our good work will have predictable consequences, but it is what God calls us to do. Conversely, all lack of work or malicious actions are seen by the all-knowing, all-seeing eyes of God. And in the hands of God, we have every belief that what we sow whatever it is, we will reap. For those seeking to do harm, that is a warning from Scripture. For those seeking to do good, it is the reassurance that God this day, and all your days, rejoices over you! Offer unto others what you would want others to offer unto you- it’s another rule of life … that is golden.

Jeffrey Sumner July 4, 2010    

HEALTHY EATING: THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT

Galatians 5: 13-23

In a sport like baseball, players are said to have“the whole package” if they can hit, catch, run and throw. In golf, players whocan manage their woods, irons, putter, and sand wedge are usually good at thegame. College application boards looking at high school students who haveapplied for admission to their school usually look for high grades, the qualityof extra-curricular activities, and even how the students express themselvesanswering prepared questions. Those are all people said to have “the wholepackage.” What is “the whole package” of the Christian faith? Does it includefollowing Jesus as Lord? Yes, but there’s more. Does it include Christianactions, not just Christian beliefs? Yes, but there is still more. And does itis include gathering with other Christians for worship, study, and prayertimes? Yes. But like the Ten Commandments, it really does us no good just tokeep some of them.  With theCommandments, many remember “Thou shalt not kill” but may ignore “Remember theSabbath, to keep it holy.” And most know “Thou Shalt Not Steal” but “Thou shaltnot covet” is to deeply desire what someone else has, and plenty of people dothat. E-Bay is in business because people all over the world will pay goodmoney for something someone else has. So what is the complete package forChristians beyond considering the Ten Commandments? Some people point to Jesus’interpretation of the commandments: you shall love the Lord your God with all yourheart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. But Jesusdidn’t create those; he knew them from Scripture, and our Jewish friends followthe same teachings and had them first! Where else might we turn?

One of the best sources of Christian characteristicsis from the Apostle Paul, who we featured in Vacation Bible School a year ago.Paul, in Colossians 3, gave characteristics of a Christian, ones that I offeredin a sermon a month and a half ago. But this week during our wonderful journeyto visit Joseph, the son of Jacob, in Egypt, I saw one of the best lists ofChristian characteristics being lived out by those who attended. This week Isaw the whole package from children, youth, and adults. Certainly as humans weare not perfect, but our week came exceptionally close to that higheststandard.  The list I saw lived outthis week comes from Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians. We have offereda series of sermons all month from that book and today we continue it; ourstudy will conclude next week. For today, I am pointing to the wonderfulpassage in Galatians 5: 22-23: The fruit of the Spirit. The proof that you andI are what we say we are, is if the fruit grown from the trees of our lives isfound to be Christian. Do you know people who say they are Christian whoinstead show strife, anger, jealousy, and selfishness? Sadly, Christians thatshow those works of the flesh do more harm than good to the one they callSavior: People start scoffing at Christians, calling them hypocrites or simplyturning from listening to their guidance. But even when we fail, let’s make apact together to strive to show the world, and our families, and our friends,the whole package: The Fruit of the Spirit. Here it is once again: love, joy,peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, andself-control. Notice that Paul calls the early list that had such uglyqualities “the works of the flesh.” This week we talked about the fruits andvegetables we most liked, and I learned that we had some very healthy eaters!In the “words to prepare for worship” I included the word “fruits” of theSpirit because that’s the way we grammatically think about them; as if they areplural. But Paul is describing qualities of Christians who have “the wholepackage.” It is no mistake that he calls fruit singular in Galatians 5. Wedo not have the luxury of picking the qualities easiest for us to show andignoring the qualities that are hardest for us to keep. We cannot love but be continuously impatient; we cannotspread peace effectively while failing to exhibit gentleness where appropriate;we cannot show real kindness when it get run-over by an out-of-control temper.This is the total package. As much as you might think you are loving, if yourfamily is on pins and needles because of your temper, you have work to do; asmuch as you think you are a good person, if you accomplish it with a stern andhumorless manner, then any hope for joy gets squeezed dry. You get the picture:when it comes to the fruit of the Spirit, we cannot “cherry-pick,” (an image Iintended to create!) We are called to take the whole bunch of qualities, likegrapes or bananas, not just one quality and call it good.

What Paul described, and what Jesus lived is not easy,nor should it be listed in the “impossible” column. We can change! A wise father was trying to teach his middleschool aged son some of the lessons he had learned. “Every time you saysomething harsh, hateful, or with bad words to another person, go out to theback fence with this hammer and one of these nail, and drive a nail halfwayinto the wood.  If you ever decideto apologize for your actions, go out there again and pull the nail out, butnotice that a scar is left in the wood everywhere the nail was. An apology doesnot remove the scar.” Learning self-control can keep the nail of our actions,from being driven into another person’s feelings in the first place. We can dothat; I have been working on it for years; and I’ve seen people this week whodo it well. Still there are others who need to do it better. I’ll keep trying;how about you?

Let us pray:

Dear God: what a great list you gave us through theApostle Paul! What examples of hope, ability, wisdom, forgiveness, and familyyou gave to Joseph and our Bible School families this week! Thank you for notgiving up on us, but encouraging, guiding, and correcting us instead. Ourprayers are for parents and grandparents dealing with difficult schedules and aworld with different values. Bless our efforts, we pray, and remind us that weare never too old for loving, playing, and learning. Come by here, Lord, righthere, right now, and abide with us forever. Through the power of your HolySpirit we pray. Amen.

Jeffrey A. Sumner                    June27, 2010