Year A, Advent 3, Isaiah 35.1-10, Matthew 11:2-11 Rejoice

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.  Amen

How can we sing the Lord’s song, while we are captive in a foreign land?

How can we leap for joy, while our legs are still in shackles?

And what good news is there that could lighten the load of our suffering and oppression.

Two weeks ago Isaiah sang a song of peace.

Last week it was of righteousness that Isaiah wrote, of reconciling all creation.

And today Isaiah’s vision is of rejoicing and healing.

Isaiah goes back and forth.

Much of his message is one of judgment and stern warning about the disaster that was looming on the horizon.

The earliest writings of Isaiah come from about the year 600 BC, just prior to the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah and the deportation of the people into exile in Babylon.

But remarkably, even while the impending disaster is still on the horizon, he sings these songs of hope and rejoicing.

5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.  .   .

10And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

It’s a mixed message that Isaiah brings.

Imagine, for example, that Isaiah is speaking to a group of young recruits prior to being sent off to war.

As these soldiers hear the words, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” there are two messages:

1.       They will be blinded, lose their hearing, be wounded and lame, and be left speechless for the ordeal; and

2.       There will be an end to their suffering, and at that time, in spite of being blind, deaf, lame, and speechless they shall rejoice.

Or to put it differently, it’s like promising a young soldier heading off to Iraq or Afghanistan that they need not worry because the Veteran’s Administration runs hospitals all across the country they can be fitted with prosthesis when they get home.

In the years that followed, Judah was conquered and its people taken into captivity in Babylon for a generation.

Then Persia conquered Babylon, and allowed the people to return to Israel to rebuild the nation.

In Ezra we hear the story of the return from Exile and the mixed emotions surrounding that:

And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. 12 But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, 13 so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away.

Ezra 3:11b-13

They could not distinguish between the laughter and the weeping.

Again, it’s this mixed message that runs throughout Isaiah.

It’s like hearing that we will be healed, prior to knowing that we were even sick.

Our response is “Wait, what?”

To celebrate the coming of a Savior, is also to admit the reality that we need saving.

We live in interesting, troubling times.  Much like Judah during the time of Isaiah.  Or at least it seems like it.

On the one hand, we are enjoying a long period of economic growth and prosperity.  This began following the “Great Recession” of 2008 and continues to this day.

And yet even in the midst of our prosperity there are those who are sounding warnings, who speak like Amos did when he said “Alas, for those who are at ease in Zion. . .”

Some of those warnings come regarding the environment.

Greta Thunberg, the sixteen year old environmentalist activist, was named Time Magazine’s “person of the year”. 

The message that we hear from climatologists around the globe is that if we don’t act now, and decisively, there will be hell to pay in the future.

In the political arena, we hear voices of warning coming from all sides.

Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” resonated with those people who were deeply concerned that our country had gone astray and was not so great anymore.

On the other side of the aisle, the Democratic candidates are working diligently at casting a vision for our country, their own version of what it would be to “make America greater than it’s ever been.”

The common thread weaved through the messages of both the right and the left, is that “all is not well”.  That in spite of the prosperity, all is not well.

Economically there is a disconnect.  On the one hand, the stock market is at an all time high.  On the other hand, wages of many Americans, especially in the lower economic brackets, are stagnant or even declining. 

Others would warn us about the sustainability of our healthcare system.  We have an incredible health care system, but the cost is an ever increasing issue.

Others would warn us about the overreach of government into our lives.

Still others would warn us about our country losing its status as the leader of the free world.

And all these warnings, warnings from every end of the social/political spectrum, come at a time of prosperity.

For all the warnings, life is good.  Or to put it in a Norwegian sort of way, it could be a whole lot worse.

But going back to the promises of Isaiah, that eventually there will be a time of great rejoicing, and the words of Jesus answering John the Baptist’s question, there is reason to hope and rejoice, but that will come to us after a period of great suffering.

During Advent, the whole point is that we look forward in anticipation of the birth of our Savior, and his coming again – but it is always with an acknowledgment that we NEED a savior.

On a personal level, we believe that the Savior has come and is coming to forgive our sins.

Good news.  Our sins are forgiven.  Rejoice.  Dance. Leap for joy.

But to get to that point of rejoicing, we must first deal with the reality of our sin and repent.

There is no point in celebrating the birth of a savior if we do not acknowledge our need of a savior.

That’s the two edge sword of the Gospel.

Likewise, when Jesus comes to us proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is at hand, we rejoice, but, only in as much as we also confess that the Kingdom in which we live is NOT the Kingdom of God.

In the Lord’s prayer we pray:  “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Every time we pray that prayer we implicitly admit, confess, that the Kingdom has not yet come and God’s will is not being done.

And so we wait for a savior.

We long for Jesus.

And we wonder when, and how this world will be redeemed as has been promised.

The message of the Gospel is that it will be redeemed, and it will get better, much better, but that there will be times of suffering and great ordeals before that happens.

What we hope for is that we will be sustained by the love of God through those difficult times and be able to wake one day to the redemption that is coming.

And so we light the candle of hope.

And we look forward to the day of rejoicing.

And we trust Jesus.

Amen

Neither do I condemn you. Lent 2019, John 8.1-11,

John, Chapter 8

2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11 She said, "No one, sir." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again."

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen

Imagine standing before God and Jesus on the Day of Judgment.  And imagine that the Accuser begins to read the litany of your sins for which you will be judged.

Do you suppose that it will read:

·         She was too loving.

·         He was too forgiving.

·         She was too merciful.

·         He was too compassionate.

·         She was too accepting.

Do you suppose, if those were the charges levied against you on the Day of Judgment, that God would then condemn you??

No.  Of course not.

For this is all the stuff of grace and near to the heart of God.

And though we can never be perfect, and everything we do is in some way tainted by sin, it is better for us to err on the side of grace, than the law.

We, however, often feel most righteous when we are most judgmental, and condemning.

Some lament the fact that we simply don’t preach against sin enough in the Church.

I quote a Dr. James Emery White from his blog page:

“In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger published a book with the provocative title, Whatever Became of Sin?  His point was that sociology and psychology tend to avoid terms like “evil,” or “immorality,” and “wrongdoing.”  Menninger detailed how the theological notion of sin became the legal idea of crime and then slid further from its true meaning when it was relegated to the psychological category of sickness.

Sin is now regarded as little more than a set of emotions that can be explained through genetics.

So something like lust is not a wrong that threatens our own health and the well-being of others; it’s simply an emotional urge that is rooted in the need to propagate the human species.  It’s fixed in our genes.”

And hearing someone say something like that, there is a whole chorus of voices that say “Yes, that’s what wrong with our world.  We need to take a strong stance against sin, and for righteousness.

What is the world coming to anyway?

One of the things we do is focus on certain sins more than others.

And frequently that means that we focus on other’s sins, not our own.  And we particularly love to focus on sexual sins.  That has been the case for a long time.

Imagine how righteous those scribes and Pharisees felt when they brought that woman before Jesus who had been caught in the very act of committing adultery.  I mean, really, in the very act. . .  One would assume she’d been pulled naked from the bed and her lover’s arms.

The judgment couldn’t be questioned at that point.

“Jesus, what do you say?”

People who committed adultery were to be stoned to death.

If a man raped a woman in the city, both of them were to be stoned to death—the man because he raped her, the woman because she didn’t cry out for help.

If, however, the rape took place in the country, the woman’s life was to be spared.

If a man rapes a virgin, who is not yet engaged, in other words a young girl, he is required to make the girl his wife and cannot divorce her.

And so the Law of Moses goes.

And it’s not only sexual sins that count.

Rebellious and stubborn sons are also to be executed by the elders of the town.

Even Jesus, at times, preaches a very strict understanding of the Law.

In Mark 10:11 he says "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

Yes indeed, whatever happened to sin?

Whatever happened to sin?

So there this woman was, standing before Jesus, having been caught in the very act of adultery.

She is without defense.

Then Jesus does a curious thing.  He bends down and starts writing something with his finger on the ground.

“When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.”

Wouldn’t you love to know just exactly what it was that he wrote on the ground???

Some have speculated that he was writing down the sins that these scribes and Pharisees had committed.

Or perhaps Jesus wrote something like “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven;”, that’s from his sermon on the Plain in Luke.

He says something similar in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew:  "Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.

In Romans, Paul writes:

“Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.”

As Jesus wrote with his finger in the dust, the woman’s accusers left one by one.

Finally, she was alone with Jesus.

"Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11 She said, "No one, sir." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again."

“Neither do I condemn you.”

“"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  John 3:17

Such is the heart and the love of Jesus.

He is unwilling to condemn because he came to save.

Those among us who are ready to condemn will cling to the final words of Jesus “do not sin again”.

Forgiveness is possible, but only if true repentance is found.  Sin no more.  And if you are not willing to repent and sin no more, the condemnation remains.

Actually, I’ve come to believe that true forgiveness means that ‘your sins are no more’, not that you will ‘sin no more’.

Paul makes it quite clear in the seventh chapter of Romans that our battle with sin continues.  He writes:

“For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.”

This is the thing, though.

We are forgiven by the grace of God, even though we will continue to struggle with sin all the days of our lives.

We are forgiven.

Forgiveness isn’t contingent on our never sinning again.

Yes, Jesus forgives us to set us free.

But his offer of forgiveness is renewed each and every day.

One of the most important things I’ve learned about this is that forgiveness is not contingent on our repentance, but rather that our repentance is in response to God’s forgiveness.

Repentance is the turning around, turning from our sinful ways, toward God.

And this turning, or better, returning to God, is only possible because of the forgiveness freely offered to us in Christ Jesus.

And so we, like this woman, stand before Jesus and hear those most wonderful words:  “Neither do I condemn you.”

As a Church we simply cannot be too loving, too forgiving, too merciful, too compassionate, and too accepting.

No amount of grace is too much grace.

Because grace, in all its lavish abundance, is precisely what transforms the lives of sinners and sets us free and brings us back to God.

Amen

Ash Wednesday, Matthew 25:31-46, The Heart of Jesus

Matthew 25:31-46

31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. ' 37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you? ' 40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. ' 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. ' 44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you? ' 45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. ' 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

The Gospel of the Lord.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.   Amen

During this Lenten journey we will be focused on the theme:  “The Heart of Jesus”.

We will end with reflections on Maundy Thursday where Jesus says:  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

And on Good Friday we will, of course, remember again the tremendous love that he had for us, loving us even unto offering his life for ours on the cross.

The love of Jesus. 

His precious sacred heart.

All that’s fine and good as a place to end, but why start with this last teaching of Jesus on the judgment?

How can that possibly be a revelation of Jesus’ love?

There are days, when I read this text, that I think “you know, I’ll be alright.”

First of all, there is a question about the nature of the judgment.

Are we going to be judged as a nation?  Or as individuals?

Notice if you will that Jesus says that all the nations will be gathered before him.

As a nation, we often do quite well at these things.  Or so we think.

But what if we are to be judged as individuals?  Will we end up at Jesus right hand or at his left?

In this regard, I’m not quite as confident.

It’s one of those “is my glass half empty, or half full” questions.

I shared my food sometimes, but not always.

I never recall refusing a drink to the thirsty, but quite frankly, that’s rarely been an issue.

I’ve tried on occasion to welcome the stranger, but more often, because I’m an introvert, I’ve tended to shy away from that.

Clothing, well, we used to have a clothing bank in Sandpoint – but we closed it. . .

I’ve cared for the sick, as pastors do.

I’ve even visited the imprisoned – once that I can recall.

You see, it’s a mixed bag.  I’ve done these things some of the time, but not all of the time.

Am I a sheep or a goat???

When we ask that question we are focused solely on ourselves.  It’s all about me.

And that’s part of the point.  It’s not about just you and me.

It’s about Jesus, and the love he has for us, even the least of these.

'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. “

If we focus on Jesus, and not ourselves, what is crystal clear is that he cares, deeply and profoundly, even for the ‘least of these’.  No one is outside and beyond his love.  No one.

Which is good, because when you think of it, we are all “one of the least of these”. 

That’s one of the interesting things about the way we hear this text.  Rarely do we realize that when Jesus lifts up the “least of these” he may in fact be talking about us!

In Psalm 8 it is written:

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars that you have established;

4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,

mortals that you care for them?

Consider the vast reaches of the universe and the eons of time that has past, and is yet to come.

Against eternity, we are not even the blinking of an eye.

And when you think of the vast reaches of the universe, we are hardly even a speck of dust.  Here today.  Gone tomorrow.

Remember that you are dust.

And to dust you shall return.

Can you get any lower than a speck of dust?

We often fancy ourselves to be greater than we are.

But even the greatest, the most powerful, are mere dust, mortals whose time quickly passes.

5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God,

and crowned them with glory and honor.

6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under their feet, . . .

We are nothing apart from God’s grace.

Nothing.

And yet in his love, he has lifted us up out of the dust of the earth, to serve him and have dominion over the very dust from which we came.

The heart of Jesus, and God’s love.

Consider also this passage from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:

25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat? ' or 'What will we drink? ' or 'What will we wear? '

God cares for the least of these—which is why he cares for you and me.

And God has provided for us all, which is why he expects us to share with all according to each one’s need.

We are but the dust of the earth, and yet God breathed into that dust the Spirit of life itself.

We will return to the dust, yet even still, he will raise us up on the last day.

And because of God’s concern for each one of us as his children – he asks nothing in return except for our praise and thanksgiving, AND, that we pay it forward.

God forgives us.

                And so we are to forgive others.

God is merciful to us,

                And so we are to be merciful to each other.

God has provided for our every need,

                And so we are to share that which we have with others in need.

And when we are found wanting, in this regard, there is Jesus who has done for us what we could not do for ourselves.

How does Jesus love us?

This teaching which comes at the end of Jesus’ ministry points us to the beginning of Creation itself.

God has called us forth from the dust of the earth and crowned us with glory and honor.

Amen

Year B, Advent 2, Isaiah 40.1-11, What time is it?

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen

“Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her

that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,

that she has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins. . .”

“He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.”

These are the words that the prophet Isaiah was called to speak to the people of Israel. 

Beautiful words.  So beautiful that one could write a song, or two, from them.  As Handel did in the Messiah, or Johann Olearius did in the hymn we’ll sing later.

Words of comfort,

Words of hope,

Words of peace,

Are most powerful for us at those times when we are not comfortable, when our hope is dried up, and when peace seems so far away.

So it was for the people of Israel.

“They had received from the Lord’s hand double for all their sins.”

Through the first 39 chapters of Isaiah the prophet spoke words of warning to the people of Israel, words of warning about the judgment that was to come.

In Chapter 10 Isaiah warned:

1 Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees,

who write oppressive statutes,

2 to turn aside the needy from justice

and to rob the poor of my people of their right,

that widows may be your spoil,

and that you may make the orphans your prey!

3 What will you do on the day of punishment,

in the calamity that will come from far away?

To whom will you flee for help,

and where will you leave your wealth,

4 so as not to crouch among the prisoners

or fall among the slain?

What followed these words of warning was a time of judgment.

Israel was defeated by her enemies,

The nation was destroyed,

And the people were taken into captivity and exile in Babylon.

It seemed that all of the promises that God had made to his people had failed them. 

Promises of a great nation, a Holy Land, and of being God’s Chosen People.

Promises that had been made to Abraham, to Moses, and to David.

And now all was lost.

Had God abandoned his people?

The answer is no, he had not abandoned them, he had judged them and punished them for their sins.

Ironically, it was their prosperity that had become their undoing.

8 Woe to those who join house to house,

who add field to field,

until there is no more room,

and you are made to dwell alone

in the midst of the land.

9 The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing:

                "Surely many houses shall be desolate,

large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.

10 For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,

and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah."

The rich were getting richer, and the poor, poorer.

This disparity displeased the Lord and the judgment was a return to slavery.

God’s vision for the Kingdom of Israel was that all of his people would share in its prosperity.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the concept of the Year of Jubilee, which was to be celebrated every fifty years.  During the year of Jubilee, or the Year of the Lord’s favor, all debts were to be cancelled, all prisoners set free, and the land was to be returned to the original owners.

Jesus quotes Isaiah in this regard when he begins his ministry with the words:

18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Judgment and punishment for Israel.

Words of hope and comfort in their distress.

And finally, a promise of Good News for the poor as the nation is rebuilt.

We live in interesting times.

As Isaiah did of old, there are many prophets today that warn us about the rich getting richer and the poor poorer.

For many, what has made America a great nation was the emergence of a middle class, people who have shared in the great American dream, who, though they are not rich, have plenty.

Today, we are being warned that the middle class is slipping away.  That as the rich get richer, the rest of us are falling behind.

Wages have not kept pace with inflation.  The cost of living, especially for things as essential as health care, has risen astronomically.

One example of this is that the cost of my health insurance now exceeds what I received in salary the first years I was in ministry. 

I am also struck by the fact that the wages I receive as a woodworker are but a fraction of what I received thirty years ago, when adjusted for inflation.

Are we at a time in our nation’s history similar to those days in Israel’s history when the prophets spoke the words of warning?

I don’t know.

I simply don’t know.

What I do know is that sometimes when we feel most secure, we are in fact most vulnerable.

A day of judgment came to Israel.

Everything that they cherished was lost.

That loss was a judgment of God upon them.

Then and only then, did the words of comfort come to them.

It was like a child, being comforted in their parent’s lap, after having received a spanking.

They misbehaved.  They were punished. And now, they are being reassured that they are still loved.

Judgement.

Comfort.

And Hope.

We confess.

We are forgiven.

And we are reborn.

This is the spiritual cycle of life.

There is a time for confession, a time to hear the comforting words of forgiveness, and a time to live anew in the grace of God.

Part of wisdom is to know what time it is.

I’ve been thinking and praying a lot about this question.

What time is it in the church’s life?

What time is it in our congregation’s life?

Is the decline of the church in America, and of our own congregation, a sign that this is a time of judgment in the life of the church?

Is this a time of comfort where, following a period of judgment, we hear tender words of comfort that reassure us of the never failing love of  God, and that though we have been judged, we are also forgiven?

Or is this the beginning of a new day?  Of the restoration of the church?  A time of hope and anticipation?

One way to put these questions is to ask “have we suffered enough to come to repentance, be forgiven, and be reborn?”

Or are we still secure in our own sins?

One oft quoted adage is that the Gospel is a comfort to the afflicted and an affliction to the comfortable.

I would suggest that one of the ways that you can recognize a false prophet is that false prophets tend to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.  They say that the rich and powerful are blessed by God, but the poor and outcast are under God’s curse.

Is that what is happening today?  That the comfortable are becoming more comfortable while the afflicted are even more afflicted?

Is this a time of judgment?

A time of comfort?

Or a day filled with hope?

In a few hundred years we may know the answers to those questions.

Today, though, all I can offer you is a promise.

That God is present in the times of judgment.

That God speaks tenderly to us when the time comes that we need such comfort.

And that God remains with us until the day that we are reborn and renewed.

“He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.”

These were the words of hope and reassurance Isaiah spoke to Israel as they labored in exile, bereft of hope.

These also are words that speak to us today, regardless what time it is.

God is with us.

Amen.

Year A, Christ the King, Matthew 25.31-46 “One Nation, Under God. . .”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

This text frightens me.

‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

‘And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’

Accountability.

What we do matters.

A day of judgement.

A time of reckoning.

Perhaps the final judgment might be summed up with this, that we will stand before our Lord, and look into his eyes, and in the eyes of Jesus we will see ‘the least of these’, and then we will hear Jesus say simply:  “Well?”

But for all that, this is not what frightens me the most about this text.

You see, to a certain extent this lays out everything in a most manageable way.  “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

• ·         Feed the hungry.   Check
• ·         Give a drink to the thirsty.  Check.
• ·         Welcome the stranger.  Check.
• ·         Clothe the naked.  Check.
• ·         Take care of the sick.  Check.
• ·         Visit the imprisoned.  Check.

For those of us who like to make lists, and check things off, one by one, this is pretty manageable.  Six items.  Six check marks.  All in a day’s work.

Just do it. 

I have nothing to worry about.

• ·         I have fed the hungry.
• ·         I’ve given a drink to the thirsty.
• ·         I’ve welcomed the stranger.
• ·         Clothed the naked.
• ·         Cared for the sick.
• ·         And even visited the imprisoned.

Check, check, check, check, check and check.

Got it covered.

What’s frightening about that?

The most frightening thing about Jesus’ words here, for me, can be summed up in three words:

The “nations”, “people”, and “we”.

You see when Jesus describes this day of judgment, we do not come before the throne of judgment one by one, each being judged according to our own individual lives.

It’s the nations that will be gathered before him.

He will separate the ‘people’, not persons, one from another.

And the question asked will be “‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?”

It’s unnerving enough to think of being judged for my own sins, but here Jesus indicates that the judgment will be rendered on the nations.

Think about that.  It’s not just about what we do individually.  It’s about being accountable for our nation’s actions, or lack thereof.

We’re all in this together.

We stand or fall, together.

That’s quite different from the way we tend to think.

Especially during these highly polarizing times.

When the Democrats are in power, Republicans have tried to wash their hands of responsibility.

And likewise, with Republicans now in power, Democrats are quick to distance themselves from what is happening.

“One nation, under God?”

Well not so much.  Actually, we are more prone today to look at each other from across the political divide and see each other as the sheep and the goats.  The righteous and unrighteous.

But what Jesus says is that we will stand or fall as a nation, based on how we responded to the “least of these”.

That should give us pause to think.

I think I’ve shared with you before about a conversation that I had in Russia with the members of St. Nikolai’s Lutheran Church that we were visiting.  We were asking questions about each other, and our nations, in an attempt to better understand each other.

I will never forget the question they asked us:

“Is it true that there are poor people in America?”

When we replied that yes, there were poor people in America they came back with another question:

“How can it be, that in a country as rich as yours, you still have poor people?”  “We’re poor,” they said, “but we’re all poor.”  “We don’t understand how you can be so rich and let others in your country be poor.”

That question will stay with me for a long time.

And I find myself wondering if Jesus will ask the same question of us.  “How can that be?”

Of course, similar questions could be asked of them.

How can it be that Russia spends so much on the military when so many throughout their nation have nothing?

I mean, Russia is and probably always will be a land of great contrasts.  Most of the people live in what we would call ‘slums’, and yet you can walk into the Hermitage and see Rembrandts just hanging on the walls, room after room of Picassos, and every other artist imaginable.

How can that be?

When the “nations” of the world are judged by how they treated the “least of these”, will any be left standing?

I hope not.

I hope not.

That, I believe, is the Good News associated with this text.

Against the backdrop of the history of the world and all the warring madness of the nations, with the rich and powerful always overlooking the least of these, there will be a judgment of all the nations.

And when God is done judging the nations of the world there will be nothing left but the smoldering ashes of empire after empire, that failed to be righteous in his eyes.

And in the end—there will be only one enthroned in Glory.

“Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

There is the promise.

There will be only one Kingdom left standing when the judgment is done.

No borders.

No divide between the peoples.

There will not be ‘the greatest of these’ or ‘the least of these’.

There will not be rich and poor.

Imprisoned and free.

There will not be black or white.

They will not hurt or destroy.

The kingdoms of this world will have had their day.

And none of them will be found to have been righteous.

All of them, including our own, are destined to the dung heap of history.

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

"See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them;

they will be his peoples,

and God himself will be with them;

4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away."

This is Christ the King Sunday.  It points us forward toward the end of all time, and the beginning of eternity.

It points us forward to the day when God alone will reign.

We have that promise, and it is our hope.

For now, though, we live in ‘in-between times’.

We have our feet in both Kingdoms at once.  We are at one and the same time American citizens, and citizens of the Kingdom of God.  It’s like those who are born with dual citizenship.

But know this, that one day, one of those Kingdoms will come to an end.

And the other will not.

And then Jesus will say:

“Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

Amen.

Year A, Proper 22, Isaiah 5.1-7, I’m tired, Boss.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen

“The Green Mile” is a movie about death row, and in particular, about one John Coffey, a black man who was a miracle worker, who could save lives, but who was wrongly charged and convicted of murder.

In the end, as he accepts his fate to be executed, he makes the following statement to the sympathetic guard he’s come to know who offered to help him escape:

“I want it to be over and done with. I do.

I'm tired, boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I'm tired of never having me a buddy to be with... to tell me where we's going to, coming from, or why.

Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world... every day. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head... all the time. Can you understand?”

Sometimes I feel like John Coffey.

I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world.

Just tired.

Sometimes the only thing I can do is turn off the news.

Not read the paper.

Nothing.

Just live each day, eating, working, sleeping, all the while trying to ignore what is going on in the world.

The struggle is it happens whether I pay attention or not.  It happens.

Life is hard enough to deal with as it is.

There is a certain amount of suffering that cannot be avoided.  There are natural disasters like hurricanes that will happen.  This has been a horrible year for that.

In other parts of the world there are different risks.

Earthquakes.

Tornadoes.

Volcanoes.

Drought.

Forest fires.

When you think about it there are risks and suffering that go with living just about anywhere.

And then there is the whole matter of disease.

Little children fighting for life.

People struck down in the prime of life.

And elderly people, battling long term chronic conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease that robs them of every last ounce of dignity that they had.

All this is unavoidable.

It will happen.

There is no choice about it.

What is so difficult to deal with is the suffering we inflict on each other.

“I’m tired of people being ugly to each other.”  Coffey says.  Just tired of people being ugly to each other.

Gun shots rain down from on high on the crowds in Las Vegas as a lone man, for no apparent reason, takes fifteen minutes to terrorize the world.

Dozens of people killed.

Hundreds wounded.

One event like that is hard enough to deal with.

But they just keep on happening.  One after another.  Senseless violence that deprives the innocent of life itself.  School children.  Church people.  People enjoying an evening of entertainment.

We’ve become numb to the pain and suffering.

11,000 people die each year by gunfire in our country.

‘Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world... every day.”

There is another statistic that disheartens me.

In 2013, 664,435 legal induced abortions were reported to Center for Disease Control from 49 reporting areas. The abortion rate for 2013 was 12.5 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years, and the abortion ratio was 200 abortions per 1,000 live births. 

1 in six babies conceived, is aborted.

I find that hard to believe.  But those are the statistics gathered not by anti-abortion activists, but by the Center for Disease Control of our government.

The most likely cause of death for each and every human being conceived in this country is not gun violence, or disease, but abortion.  Let that sink in for a moment.

One of the things that distresses me about our country is this:

We recognize, as constitutional rights, both the right to bear arms and the right to have an abortion.

That shooter in Los Vegas had a ‘right’ to purchase as many guns as he wanted to equip himself to carry out the mass murder he committed.

And we recognize as a right a woman’s ability to choose an abortion.

What we do not recognize as a right is the safety of people from gun violence.

What we do not recognize as a right is access to health care.

To put it bluntly, we are more committed as a nation to preserve the right to kill, than we are to preserve the right to live.

 “Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world... every day.”

I wonder how often God has thought that.

“Let me sing for my beloved
my love-song concerning his vineyard:

he expected it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.”

“For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts
is the house of Israel,

and the people of Judah
are his pleasant planting;

he expected justice,
but saw bloodshed;

righteousness,
but heard a cry!”

Israel came under the judgment of God for their sins.

The judgment was that their nation would be defeated and the people would be carried into captivity.

Isaiah foretold of the judgment that was to come.

No doubt, he was not popular for doing so.

Most of the people in Israel during Isaiah’s time would have much preferred that he sing a song about God blessing Israel, not the song of the vineyard in which God judges Israel, and condemns it for their sins.

And are we any different?

We love to sing “God bless America” but when people talk about what is not right about our country we are upset.

“How dare someone say that God will judge America for its sins!”

I don’t know what the future holds.

I don’t know how much suffering our nation, and the nations of the world will endure.

Mostly I’m just tired of people being ugly with one another.

And I hope God is too.

Isaiah’s word to the people of Israel was not just a word of condemnation and judgment.

It was also a word of hope.

When God judges us, he does so for the sake of making us right.

Later on in Isaiah, the prophet writes:

6 The wolf shall live with the lamb,

the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

and a little child shall lead them.

7 The cow and the bear shall graze,

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,

and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den.

9 They will not hurt or destroy

on all my holy mountain;

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

Imagine that world.

Imagine a world in which every life that is conceived is welcomed as sacred, a gift from God.

Imagine a world in which no one would even consider picking up a weapon to harm another human being.

Imagine a world that devoted itself to enhancing and protecting all life as holy.

Imagine a world in which all children are loved and adored, and all elderly are respected and honored.

Imagine a world in which they do not hurt or destroy.

Imagine a world in which people are no longer ugly with one another.

Imagine a world in which each nation devotes as much effort to preserving and enhancing life as they now do on the military.

That’s the world God imagines when he says in Isaiah 2:4 “they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more.”

That’s the world God wants us to enjoy.

“Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world... every day. There's too much of it.”

I think that one of the most important questions of faith is whether or not we believe that the world can be any different than it is.

Do we believe that it is possible for people to give up killing, and devote themselves to living?

God does.

Amen