“Embracing Abundance”
Matthew 20.1-16
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
24 September 2023
 
 Did you hear that? The day-laborers who were standing around looking at the tops of their feet all day were paid the same wage as the workers who had been slogging away all day in the vineyard! I ask you: is that fair?

But this isn’t the first time you’ve heard about something so unfair, is it?

Remember the one about the father who welcomed his spendthrift son – the one who had been living among swine, the one who spent all of his inheritance? And what does the father do for the responsible, hard-working son? Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Parables are a distinctive form of story intended to grab you, the hearer, and pull you in and make you wonder, ask yourself what is going on, and what “other thing” is that we’re meant to grapple with. Parables contain the aspect of riddles in the same sense that a Zen koan is meant to provoke deeper contemplation in order to help the hearer derive alternative wisdom that goes beyond a purely logical way of thinking.

The Greeks roots of the word parable are “para” and “ballein” — to throw alongside. So, there is one story being presented, but there is something thrown alongside the main narrative: a provocation to consider our assumptions differently. Dom Crossan claims that parables like this one are “challenges [that] attempt to raise the consciousness of listeners by luring and leading them into thinking for themselves.”

So, what do YOU think is going on here? What is Jesus provoking YOU to consider?

Perhaps those first listeners were in the same landless peasant class as the parable’s day laborers, and they focused on what happened at the end of the day: the landowner give a small coin to each person who ultimately worked in the vineyard, whether they worked for ten hours or only one hour. To that audience, perhaps, it seemed unfair or maybe envious of those who worked a short day.
But this is a parable of the kingdom, the reign of God that we pray for each Sunday! Does that mean that the realm of God is inherently unfair? (Maybe in our eyes.) Here are two important hints in interpreting this parable: it opens with “The kingdom of heaven is like…” (Matthew’s way of saying “the kingdom of God is like”), so right away we see Jesus saying that this is an alternative ethos creating an unconventional vision that stands in opposition to Rome’s imperial vision, and a subversive twist on the rabbinic tradition of his day. And he brackets the end of the parable by saying, “the last will be first and the first will be last,” which implies radical reversal. Who is the first in this parable? Who is the last?

That’s important for us to consider as well, because most of us come to this reading with deep American cultural expectations and assumptions from English Common Law around the rights of property and compensation. Using that lens, of course this parable seems unfair. But it’s a parable that begins with “the kingdom is like…” and ends with the last being first and vice versa. It sets OUR assumptions on their head.

Historically, this parable has been explained in different ways. Luther and Calvin saw this as a way of proclaiming that God’s grace (extended to the late-in-the-day laborers) is far more important than the good works of the early morning workers. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” asks the landowner/God, “Or are you envious because I am generous?” So, do YOU think this parable is about salvation?

Another way to look at the parable is through the lens of Matthew’s audience, which was both Jewish and gentile. Perhaps the laborers who arrived in the vineyard to work all day represented observant Jews, who had achieved salvation through centuries of following the Torah. And the latecomers to the party are the gentile followers of Jesus, who are admitted even though they show up late. In this interpretation, we are still seeing the landowner as God, spreading grace (unearned gifts) to anyone she wishes.

I was talking about this parable last week with Diana Butler Bass, who will be in the pulpit next Sunday, and her take was that it calls forth a new socioeconomic norm. What Diana said is similar to Dorothy Day (co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement), who wrote that Jesus “spoke of a living wage, not equal pay for equal work, in the parable of those who came at the first and the eleventh hour.” So, perhaps the parable envisions an alternative socioeconomic order.
I wonder if we all have an assumption that there isn’t really enough to go around and so the landowner’s actions are unfair. But what if there is actually plenty instead of scarcity? What if there IS enough?

Many years ago, I was in Senegal on a pilgrimage to explore the roots of Americans whose ancestors had been stolen from that land. It was eye-opening for me is myriad ways, but one of the lessons that struck me most was seeing what little kids did with some candy bars that I gave them. We’re talking about a few fun-size snickers bars. If we were in a group of American kids, I imagine that the children who got the candy bar would eat it themselves or squirrel it away to eat later. But that isn’t what happened in this Senegalese village. No, what I saw amazed me. The kids who received the candy bars carefully divided them so that each person would get some. There was no consideration that there was not enough to go around, rather these young Africans taught me a profound lesson that there is always enough…so long as we are willing to share. Even though they had little, they knew how to take what they had and instead of seeing it from the perspective of scarcity, they saw abundance.

Do you ever have a sense of scarcity — like there isn’t quite enough? Enough money, enough security, enough time, enough health, enough love? Sometimes I do, and I have to catch myself and try to steer a different course.

I think our culture breeds that fear-filled scarcity mindset, and advertising doesn’t help at all. We Americans are driven to earn more, spend more, consume more, want more. And I think the root of that is the fear that there isn’t enough for us. If you look back at our Unison Prayer and Sung Response, that’s why I had us sing, “Dayenu!” God has provided enough, but we have to be spiritually mature enough to recognize that there is enough and to share it.

As a congregation, we have plenty to go around. I say that not just because we have people among us who have considerable professional accomplishments or because the average household income in Fort Collins is $96,300. We may not have extravagant excess, but as a congregation we have enough.

A pastor at another church said of his parishioners, “As they earned more, there seemed to be more scarcity in their life. There was never enough time or money.” And as he began to talk about re-examining the way they perceived scarcity and abundance, and the purpose behind giving, the church had a real turnaround. They began to think about what they COULD do and what tools they needed to make that happen. They began to think in terms of abundance and what God had made available to the members of the congregation.

Still, I sometimes hear a lot more in our church about scarcity than I do about abundance. I’m not talking about extravagance, but rather simple things in our mission and ministry that are reasonable to do. What I sometimes experience is an attitude of “We can’t do that because it would cost too much” or “We can’t waste money on THAT” (even though THAT might be just the thing gives other members of the community a sense of life and spiritual connection). Having an overdeveloped sense of scarcity is hamstringing this congregation in achieving all we are called to be. It isn’t faithful, and we need some course correction.
What do you think of our Share the Plate program that gives half of what we receive as undesignated offering to a community partner? Do you think that is foolishly extravagant or do you think that is our congregation expressing our faith in God’s abundance?

How do scarcity and abundance play out in your own life, whether you are a teenager with an allowance, a young adult working for minimum wage, a retiree living on a small, fixed income, or a physician, a lawyer, an engineer, a professor, or a clergy person? Do you fundamentally think you have access to “enough” and give thanks to God for that, or do you think more in terms of not having enough? Where do those attitudes come from?

When I speak of abundance, I’m not talking about the New Age idea of “manifesting” wealth because you have dreamt that into being. I’m talking about seeing our lives in global perspective… that we have been given plenty.

God has provided for the world abundantly. God has provided for US abundantly. It’s a matter of those who have more being willing to see what they have abundance to share. Not just as what they “deserved” or “earned,” like a daylong laborer. And once we have a mindset of abundance and possibility rather than scarcity and fear, we need to act in a way that reflects God’s attitude of grace and abundance.

The wonder of parables is that there are many ways to interpret them. I hope that you have been provoked to wonder, to think, and to dream by Jesus through this parable. The kingdom of heaven on earth is like a group of people, young, old, and in-between; queer, straight, trans or cisgender, Black, Asian-American, Latina, white; rich, poor, and everywhere in between. It is seeing them following Jesus, employing what has been entrusted to them, working for justice, welcoming the stranger and the outcast, enjoying the fruits of their labor, finding meaning in the Spirit, and working to ensure that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

May it be so. Amen.
 
© 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 

Transfiguration Inspiration
A Transfiguration Sunday sermon related to Matthew 17:1-8
 
CENTRAL FOCUS:
That the transfiguration story is s source of inspiration amidst struggle, a theophany of Light and Renewal to "Get up and be not afraid" as we head back down the mountain.
 
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.
 
4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I[a] will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved;[b] with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
 
6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
 
For the Word of God in Scripture
For the Word of God among us
For the Word of God within us
Thanks be to God
 
They were young and in love (at least 23 and 18 seem young to me now). So they married. She was pregnant and they were happy about it. They loved each other and wanted to be married. The baby came and eventually two others. Young love is not an unusual story, but this love does have an unusual twist of context. You see it was 1958 and husband Richard Loving was what our society calls white (European American) and wife Mildred was what our society called back then "colored." (Her lineage was African American and Native American.) And, in the State of Virginia in 1958, interracial marriage was forbidden, a felony, and punishable by significant jail time.
 
After marrying quietly in the District of Columbia and returning to Virginia to live quietly, someone tipped off the police who then raided their bedroom in the middle of the night and arrested them. They plea bargained for a sentence of one year in jail to be suspended, provided they left Virginia for 25 years, never in that time to return together. These country people lived in DC for years away from family and the country life they loved before Mildred appealed to Attorney General Robert Kennedy who referred them to the ACLU. The ACLU provided free legal support that over several years finally landed their case in front of the Supreme Court who overturned Virginia’s and all such state laws in 1967.
 
My wife and I watched the dramatized version of this story some years ago in the feature film titled simply and appropriately, Loving. That cinematic way of telling the story allowed me to see and feel the love between these two and the anguish, pain, and struggle that these two people, these two citizens, endured. Born of fear and systematized into law, the injustice of white supremacy caused these two to be sometimes separated from each other, separated from family, and to be exiled from their home.  It was an inspiration to witness their love, their perseverance, their strength, and their courage in staying together and in finally finding a way to publicly and legally resist.
 
It is appropriate to uplift such stories of courage and justice making, even more so during Black History month. And there are other such stories brought to film. Selma is the dramatized version of the story of seeking voting rights in Selma, Alabama and of the events and efforts of 1965 at the end of this long campaign that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 13th is a documentary film outlining the historic pattern of turning the racial discrimination of slavery into the racial discrimination of criminalization, using the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which forbids slavery, but allows an exception when one is duly convicted of a crime.
 
Difficult stories these are, yet inspiring in their witness to those who put their lives and bodies on the line for the truth of justice, the truth of liberation, the truth of the dignity of the human person, all persons.  Feature films are one of the common ways we tell stories today.
 
Our tradition of faith is also gifted with stories, ancient stories. Their distance of time and culture can make them seem less accessible than the movies which are a primary form of storytelling in our age, but the effort to overcome that distance can be worth it. These sacred stories are meant as teaching, reflection, and inspiration just as they were for the early Christian communities.
 
This morning’s story can seem particularly distant, especially if you are not a mystic and not inclined to imaginative prayer visions. It can be easy to classify this story as very "religious" and simply a story to support some kind of high theological and doctrinal view of Jesus as Divine. But, this morning, I offer that, looking closer, we can see something more, something more for Matthew’s community and something more for our community.
 
Context is important always to shape our imaginations in getting the story’s fullest impact and import. Matthew’s author is writing to a community still wondering what it means to follow the lineage of Judaism now that the Temple has been destroyed by the Romans after another failed revolt. Matthew’s author is writing to a community wondering if they will be safe, if they have a place, in this new version of Roman Empire occupying their land.
 
My UCC colleague Rev. Anne Dunlap offered insight into the context of this story of Transfiguration in an online sermon on this text and I gratefully follow her lead here in further understanding the context of this sacred story.  The baby Jesus, visited by the Magi, subsequently has to flee for safety south to Egypt. After returning, Jesus has grown up, been baptized by John in the Jordan River, and has begun teaching and healing. He has spoken his Sermon on the Mount (much longer than any I would give!), gathered and sent out disciples, and has made his way to many towns and cities.
 
But something significant happens in chapter 14 that subtly changes the tone of Matthew’s Gospel: the incarcerated John the Baptist is executed. Another movement leader killed by the empire. The one who baptized Jesus, to whom he was related in blood and in a message of Holy resistance and change, murdered by the state. We notice that Jesus from this point on seeks refuge regularly in deserted places like mountain tops. And, just prior to our story in Chapter 17, he begins to talk about the suffering he is to endure, even having to forcefully rebuke his close disciple Peter who discourages the path of suffering.  Immediately after our story of transfiguration, Jesus speaks of John the Baptist and his fate.
 
So it appears the context of the Transfiguration story is of a Jesus under duress of the system, under a growing threat as his movement grows, under the shadow of the cross. And where does he go in such a state? He goes to the mountain to pray. He takes the support of community with him. He seeks and finds the support of the ancestors.  He listens for and hears a Divine Voice of Affirmation. Faced with his mortality and vulnerability, he seeks the Divine Light. And while Peter offers to build dwellings to stay there and they all respond with fear to God’s presence and message to follow, it is Jesus who touches them and says, “Get up and do not be afraid.”

“Get up and do not be afraid.”
 
The story of Transfiguration is a story for our difficult stories, for our difficult times when Herod or Caesar, the one out in the world or the one inside of us, is on our trail. The Transfiguration Story is a story for us, an invitation to experience the Divine Light and hear Divine Affirmation so that we can be like those who persevered in their love for each other amidst hard times,

so that we can be like those seeking voting rights who got up after being knocked down by State Troopers,

and be like those who see the painful path of injustice and have the courage to seek and even suffer another path for justice. 

Transfiguration is a story of Spirit’s power to touch us, bless us, and send us back into the world as it is so we might witness with our lives to how it can be.
 
One of the possible translations here is that Peter wanted to build three sanctuaries. Jesus’ message to him was that, with the power of Divine Light and Truth, and of the ancestors, we must overcome our fear, get up, and come down the mountain to be sanctuaries in the world. Transfiguration is a story of the Divine Light that has the power to sustain us in the difficult times. We can be like the disciples focused on the power of the Christ Mystery. We can be like Jesus and become infused with God’s Light. We can know Transfiguration Inspiration so that we can come down the mountain and become sanctuaries in the world. May this be so. AMEN

Mark 11.1-11; Matthew 21.1-11
Palm Sunday
Plymouth Congregational, United Church of Christ
The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson
 
Mark 11.1-11
When Jesus and his followers approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives. Jesus gave two disciples a task, 2saying to them, "Go into the village over there. As soon as you enter it, you will find tied up there a colt that no one has ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'Its master needs it, and he will send it back right away.'" 4They went and found a colt tied to a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. 5Some people standing around said to them, "What are you doing, untying the colt?"6They told them just what Jesus said, and they left them alone. 7They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes upon it, and he sat on it. 8Many people spread out their clothes on the road while others spread branches cut from the fields. 9Those in front of him and those following were shouting, "Hosanna! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest!"11Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.  After he looked around at everything, because it was already late in the evening, he returned to Bethany with the Twelve.
 
Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Locations 39636-39644). Common English Bible. Kindle Edition.
 
I begin today with a story about standing in line at the grocery store, a mundane, routine, probably recent, event for all of us. But no matter how routine grocery shopping may be, it has taken on palpable and deeply poignant resonances for us in the aftermath of the King Sooper shooting in Boulder this week. When I was the interim pastor at Community UCC in Boulder in 2013-2014, I lived part of the week at a parishioner’s house nearby that King Soopers and shopped at that store. Community UCC is just up Table Mesa Road from the King Sooper’s shopping center. As I share my brief grocery store story with you today, I am sensitive to where our minds may go with just the mention of grocery stores. And as I begin this sermon, my heart is breaking and praying for the people of Boulder, particularly those in the Table Mesa and Broadway neighborhood, for Community UCC, as well as for our country which urgently needs to change the use and role of guns in social structure.

Some of you may remember, as I do, the spring of 1999…all the dire predictions beginning to be made about the Millennium, what would happen on December 31 as we turned the time corner into a new century. I was still living in Connecticut that spring, anticipating the move to Colorado in July. I was a full-time Divinity school student and full-time mom. As I stood in line at the grocery store one day with a cart full of supplies for the week, a tabloid headline caught my eye. I make it a practice to avoid the tabloids, hoping in a ridiculously self-righteous way that if I don’t even acknowledge them in the grocery store line, I am contributing to the downfall and bankruptcy of the tabloid industry. You can see how well that has worked! But this one jumped out at me – “Millennium Predictions! - Jesus May Have Already Returned!”

“Yeah, right,” I thought, “I wonder who he is this time? How will we recognize him? Why has he come now?”  Just then it was my turn to dump my groceries on the conveyer belt and I forgot my theological musings, paid for the groceries and headed off into my day. But I think of that “prediction” each year at Palm Sunday – “Jesus May Have Already Returned!” If he has, where is he present? How will we know him? What is he up to?

The Palm Sunday story tells us each year in the story of Jesus’ unusual entry into Jerusalem that he is coming! His reputation as teacher, healer, prophetic activist precedes him and as he enters the city gate riding on the colt or donkey, depending on which gospel account you are reading, he is proclaimed by his followers as prophet and king. Or perhaps, by some in the crowd, he is seen as a radical and dangerous fool.

Let’s picture the scene…The city of Jerusalem is swelling with tourists and visitors coming the Passover Festival. (Remember the crush of crowds before social distancing?) They are filling the market at the gate where the road from Bethany and the Mount of Olives comes into the city. Passover begins in three days…people are shopping and preparing…picture the grocery store on the day before Thanksgiving – or just before our recent snowstorm.

Suddenly down the road from Bethany marches this rag tag army of joy, a procession of people singing and shouting at the top of their lungs. It’s a joyful, non-violent protest scene! People are strewing palm branches and cloaks across the road in front of a guy riding on a colt, or a small horse, or maybe it’s a donkey – who can tell from this distance?  They are shouting and singing…. “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! Blessings on the coming of the kingdom of our ancestor, King David! Blessings on the Son of David! Hosanna, Hosanna!” What is this all about?

In Jesus’ day it was traditional for pilgrims coming to the Passover Festival in Jerusalem to greet one another with words from Psalm 118, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” But what is all the Hosanna about? And hailing this one as coming in the name of King David? That is dangerous talk…could be seen by the Romans, who are the conquering rulers of Israel and Judea, as seditious talk! Can you imagine the crowds’ whispers? “What are they saying? The coming kingdom of our ancestor David? This scruffy guy on the donkey? A Son of David? Yeah, right….” Some think he is the anointed One come to lead our people…” “Don’t let the Romans hear you say that! Who is this guy anyway?” “It’s the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth.” “Who?” “You know the prophet, the teacher, the healer, Jesus of Nazareth.” “Oh, Nazareth, right….nothing good ever came out of  Nazareth!’ “But didn’t you hear? Last week in Jericho, he healed a blind man! I’ve heard he’s healed lepers and raised a man from the dead. And the stories he tells….well, you double over in laughter and then he hits you with the real punchline….about God’s love and forgiveness and inclusion of all people…women and children and blind men and cripples….I’m telling you, I think he could be the real deal!” “Oh, go on! He’s just another itinerant, radical rabbi…playing on the hopes of poor and ignorant people. You don’t really think he amounts to much do you?” “I don’t know….maybe…”

That’s the scene at the city gate, in the marketplace and the streets as Jesus returns to Jerusalem for Passover. Some are hailing him as the anointed one, a king in the line of David, sent to save the people. Some as a prophet, healer, teacher, man of God. Some as fool.

We don’t trust king figures hear in America. Kings are figureheads with no real power. Hopefully we have learned not to trust political figures that want to act like kings, obscuring justice in the process. And prophets? They are a bit sketchy as well, if we see them merely as fortune tellers predicting futures that are either too dire or too rosy. We have a bad habit of assassinating social justice prophets like Abe Lincoln, MLK, Jr., Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy. We may see them as wise in their moral vision, but are they foolish in their radical, risk-taking methods of proclamation? Wise fools? We won’t follow kings, we are iffy about prophets turning the tables on the status quo. We certainly don’t want to follow fools!

Starting with the earliest gospel writer, Mark, Jesus is seen as prophet and king and this is at the heart of the matter in the gospels for God’s good news of liberating love. To understand Jesus as king and prophet, is to understand how him as Anointed One, the Christ. In the 21st century, we like our leaders, our saviors, new and improved with ideas and solutions never heard before. The people of the first century who first heard the stories of Jesus liked their saviors old and unchanging because that is how you could tell a true savior from a false one. A true savior fulfilled the prophecies of old.
Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem on a donkey because that is how the ancient kings, the ones anointed by God, like David, always rode into the Jerusalem. They came to bring God’s peace, not to bring the oppression of control and domination like the Romans who came riding on warhorses. And the crowds spread branches and cloaks because that is what you do for kings in the line of David, a king who was not raised in a palace and educated by the state…but raised instead with the poor, the regular people. Those who claim Jesus as king are tax collectors and blind beggars, lame men and cast-off women and children, lepers. He is a king and a prophet who tells stories about God’s realm being like mustard seeds and yeast. He hangs out with fishermen as some of his closest friends. When asked about his “state policy”, he say, “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant…Let the children come to me, for you must become like a child to truly enter the kingdom of God…Love God with all your heart and soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” This is how Jesus has earned his acclamations as a king and social justice prophet.

Is Jesus a fool, as well? If so, he was a fool for love who told stories and turned tables that upended the status quo so that all would receive the love and justice of God. In the events of his last week, we see him open himself so fully to the power of God’s love that he walks straight into the face of pain, humiliation and death in order that the world, that we, might know that God is with those who suffer, who are oppressed and those who are dying. In speaking of Jesus, the apostle Paul reminds us that “God’s foolishness is wiser than our wisdom and God’s weakness more powerful than our power.”
So, here we stand at the beginning of a fateful week. The tumult at the city gate is growing louder and stronger, spreading through the marketplace, public places of influence and power, to the temple itself. People in high positions are asking questions. “Who is this man?” Others are shouting praise. By the end of the week the voices will swell to a conflicting crescendo. Shouts of anger will triumph over shouts of joy. Prophets are rarely welcomed in the own neighborhoods. Many will decide this is not the savior king or prophet they thought they wanted and stand staring skeptically at a mocking headline on a cross that says, “The King of the Jews.” “Some king! He’s a fool! Can’t even save himself!” “Can’t or won’t,” we might ask ourselves.

Jesus returns again and again, each year in the stories Holy Week. His presence is palpable. And it is palpable in the world around us. In Asian Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter protests and vigils. At the southern border of our country where unaccompanied immigrant minors searching for new life are held in detention. In hospital rooms where people struggle to breathe, to live, and others struggle to care for them. And yes, in grocery stores and schools and movie theaters and places of everyday business where gun violence erupts and interrupts peaceful life. Wherever there is pain, suffering, oppression, death, Jesus returns to us again and again. Another question for us, “How will we receive him?”

Hosanna. Blessed is the One who comes in the name of God!

Amen.

©The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, 2021 and beyond. May be reprinted with permission only.

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Matthew 17.1-9
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

When was the last time you saw someone’s appearance change radically? It seems to me that something phenomenal — or at least peculiar — happened on the mountaintop, either to Jesus or to the disciples who were with him. Did Jesus undergo some sort of metamorphosis that caused him to be radiant? to shine like the sun? to have an aura? to beam? Or do you think that he was always radiant, but people didn’t notice until his followers — Peter, James, and John — go up to the mountain and literally see Jesus in a new light. I suspect that all of us have at times observed the change visage of a friend or loved one after they have had a life-changing experience. There are outward manifestations of inner changes in us that our friends and families notice.

Assuming for the moment that Jesus did change, why is that important? Does it mean that he was surrounded by the divine light? Did something in his life shift at the moment he began to glow? Does it mean that this was a moment of transformation for him, as was his baptism by John? God speaks at the moment of transfiguration, just ask God speaks at Jesus’ baptism, saying, “This is my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased,” using exactly the same phrase.

Christians are asked to be baptized as Jesus was, but has anyone asked to go through some sort of metamorphosis or transformation? Maybe? When we join Plymouth, we commit to give ourselves unreservedly to God’s service, which is a big deal, but it isn’t quite asking us to be transformed. In a few weeks, you will hear that thorny line in John’s gospel, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above, [John 3.7, NRSV], or in the language of the King James Version, “born again.” No, I’m not about invite you to come forward for an altar call, and I’m also not going to dismiss the idea of you having a spiritual transformation or many spiritual transformations. I’m not going to try and tame the idea of your having a metamorphosis.

Marcus Borg writes, “The metaphor of rebirth, being born of the Spirit, is an image of radical transformation. An old life has been left behind and a new life has begun…Being born again is utterly central to Christianity, one of the main images for the goal and promise of the Christian life. It describes our transformation and, ultimately, the transformation of the world, for those who are born of the Spirit of God as known in Jesus share God’s passion for a more just and peaceful world.” [Marcus Borg, Speaking Christian (SF: HarperSanFrancisco, 2011), p. 169.]

By a show of hands, how many of us really want to be changed, transformed, pushed out of our comfort zone by the spirit of transformation? It’s not easy, and it’s not without consequences. Transformation means changed hearts and changed lives. What would you expect if you, yourself, saw Jesus in the flesh? Would you expect it to be a transformative experience? 

Many years ago, I was in a therapy group for Adult Children of Alcoholics in California, and for me it was a transformative experience, and helped me to get a fresh start on my journey, and it marked a new beginning. I know others of you who have gone through the process of recovery, and it can be an incredible transformation. What are the moments of transformation in your life that have turned you in new directions or offered you a fresh start? It doesn’t have to be recovery, it could be the birth of a child, starting a new career, finding a hidden talent or a new avocation. But having a fresh start on life because of a new relationship with God is something incredibly powerful and different. 

Most of you know Plymouth’s mission statement that says “It is our mission to worship God and help make God’s realm visible in the lives of people, individually and collectively, especially as it is set forth in the life, teachings, death and living presence of Jesus Christ. We do this by inviting, TRANSFORMING, and sending.” 

That middle element, transformation, can be difficult, don’t you think? …especially if we think that we’re done transforming into new persons or that we simply have no need to change. The Kingdom, or "realm," of God is about transformation of THIS world into the world as it would be if God were immediately in charge, instead of the forces of Empire. Doing the work of justice is about transformation. Loving the unlovable is about transformation. Moving away from self-interest and radical individualism is about transformation. Giving yourself to something bigger than consumerism and acquisition is about transformation. 

We cannot try and tame transformation without taming the Kingdom of God. And we won’t be part of the Realm of God unless we are transformed and born of the Spirit. And that requires openness to new beginnings, to change, to transformation of our lives, to letting go of some old burdens, to adopting some fresh practices and ways of being Christian. 

We are about to enter the 40-day season of Lent, which mirrors Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness; it was a period that was anything but tame: a period of radical transformation for Jesus, even without the radiance he experienced later. Wilderness can be a place for transformation, where we come face-to-face with our truest selves. Perhaps rather than being seen as a period of penitence, we can see Lent as a transformative journey into the wilderness, a time of gestation, of metamorphosis, of new beginnings, of being within the chrysalis — ready to emerge reborn. And it isn’t something we have to do alone…we have companions on our pilgrimage of transformation.

I invite you to open yourself as we finish this season of Epiphany and walk together into the season of Lent next Wednesday evening. I invite you to join all of your sisters and brothers at Plymouth on a pilgrimage of transformation as we walk through the wilderness for these 40 days. 

May you be transformed in the midst of your life, knowing that new beginnings are possible.
May you see change as an opportunity instead of a threat.
May you be blessed as you uncover new truths about yourself.
May you know that you are journeying with kindred spirits through the wilderness.
Amen. 

© 2020 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

September 24, 2017        
Rev. Ron Patterson
Matthew 20:1-16

Recently a friend who supports my sermon-writing habit sent me a list of one liners. Some of them were humorous, some of them were common sense, some of them were outrageous and a few of them were absolutely irresistible. The list included such gems as:
“Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it”;
“If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague”;
“It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others”;
“When everything’s coming you way, you’re in the wrong lane”;
“Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live”;
“Never buy a car you can’t push”; and
“Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.”

​Those were all pretty good, but the very best of the bunch, as far as I’m concerned, as a former resident of New York City, was the one which stated: “Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue.” I found that one almost good enough to commit to needlepoint and hang on the wall, because it does seem to define a good portion of the human dilemma and especially the topic I want to consider with you today. I want to think with you about fairness.

What is fair? How do we define it? How do you know when you are being fair or when someone is treating you fairly? And for the person of faith, is there a difference between fair and faithful?
Two comments from friends, two vivid memories, and one troubling Bible story raised this issue for me a couple of weeks ago. We were talking and a friend casually mentioned: “life is not fair.” They were commenting on something in the news, perhaps one of those hard luck situations we have all seen or experienced; or maybe some tragedy major or minor that involved the innocent in undeserved suffering.

Life is not fair, they said, the good sometimes die young, the virtuous are not always rewarded, and evil seem to prosper. And then later that same day someone in our building in Tacoma mentioned that during the housing bubble some years ago, they became on paper a millionaire, but that when the bubble popped, it was a very different story. And somehow, that just didn’t seem to be fair.

And those two comments brought back two memories. A number of years ago, on Long Island, I was at a public hearing on a new housing development planned in the community where I lived. The developer stood up and said that if he succeeded with his new development, everyone in that community would benefit from higher housing prices. And he was right, he built his mammoth houses, he constructed his 5,000 square foot “McMansions” and the housing prices in that historic area soared.

Everyone who owned a house became wealthy on paper at least. A couple of years later, I saw that builder and reminded him of what he had said at that meeting. I told him he was right, everything he had said was true, except for one thing. I told him that he was like the Pied Piper; that he made that town a whole lot wealthier, but that he took away our children, because virtually, none of the children who grew up in that community could afford to live there anymore and somehow, that just didn’t seem to be fair.

The other memory is one I’m sure many of you share. It’s the memory of groups of people waiting to be hired as day laborers. I’ve seen it on St. Thomas in the Caribbean, and in some cities I’ve visited in Africa and Mexico and it probably happens somewhere here in Colorado too. Men and women who want to work, day laborers, standing on street corners or in a park, waiting for a contractor to offer them a job. Waiting to pick vegetables, or shovel dirt, or pass roofing tiles. Willing to work and hoping for a job.

Some of them get work and some of them don’t. Some of them feed their families, and some of them don’t. And somehow, that doesn’t seem fair.

And finally, the Bible story that Jesus told us this morning. It’s a tough one: the story of the landowner who went out to hire laborers for his vineyard. On the surface this is a story about fairness and it’s not fair. The day laborers are hired at different times. Some of them work the entire day, some of them work for just a few hours in the heat of the day and at the end of the day, they are not treated fairly. They are all paid the same wage for different amounts of work and the ones who have worked the whole day protest that the landowner is not fair. And the landowner says look, I don’t care about fairness, it’s my farm and my money and I can do as I wish, get over it. And then he asks the grumbling workers: “Are you envious because I am generous?” Every one of them who went into the field, early or late was paid the same wage. Every one of them received the money necessary to make it through another day. Every one of them was able to feed their family. Was that landowner being fair? Or was that landowner dabbling in something way beyond fair?

Now at this point, I have to tell you that I struggled for several hours trying to think about what to say next. But then I went back and looked at the story again and noticed something. This story is a parable and not a news report and so the facts are not nearly as important as the meaning behind the facts. The story begins with those little words: “The Kingdom of God is like,” the reign of God is like this… which should have been a tip off to me and to you that we are not dealing here with how the world works—or with any concept of fairness we might be able to understand—like how when we were kids Mom divided up the chocolate cake so that your piece was exactly the same size as your brothers. That’s how moms are supposed to do it and that’s what you and I expect.

But this is a story about what the reign of God will be like, how the “kingdom of God” will unfold. This is a story about how the world might work and about how life might become if and when we choose to live it by the light of God’s love. This is a story about how God as you understand God or how the God spark in you and me might be operating.

And then it dawned on me. I can’t think of a single fair thing—as I learned about fairness as a kid, or as an adult or as we might think about it in terms of politics or business or our day-to-day lives—I can’t think of anything fair in the entire sweep of biblical history. Fairness is just not a biblical idea.

Let me tell you what I mean. If it were simply a matter of fairness, every one of us would always get exactly what we deserved every day of the week and then big time at the end of the line. If God were running the universe like a chartered accountant and keeping tabs on our actions and our attitudes like some sort of heavenly bookkeeper, then most of us would be a far piece up the wrong creek. Fair is what I expect from my banker, thank God, I don’t receive fairness from God.

How does the Psalmist say it? “God is merciful and gracious; slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”? (Ps. 103:8) Now, it is just possible, since I don’t know most of you, that there is a perfect person present here today. It is just possible that there’s someone here today who has never said or done something that they hope to heaven no one ever finds out about. It is possible that there is someone here today who hasn’t messed up big time or small time and who carries absolutely no regrets about anything. That’s possible, I suppose, but I doubt it.

God is not fair. God is gracious and operates with grace. It is God who is the landowner in the story of the workers in the field. It is God who gives to each one of those workers the means to live and to survive another day. It is God who gives me and you the next breath and who does not judge us based on our actions or our attitudes or our foibles or our imperfections. God begins from the place of grace, accepting us and renewing us and giving us the chance to be gracious and caring for one another.

And Jesus lays out the story of the workers in the vineyard to invite us to treat one another and this world with the same sort of grace. In my mind, this story says something about hungry children. It has something to say about the children who have never seen a dentist or the thousands of families right in our back yard who can’t afford houses or proper health care. It is a judgment on the pettiness of the political arguments that oppose universal health care. It says something about the grace we are called to show in our dealings with the world and our call to live justice.

In my heart I might argue that if the world were fair, every person would have a living wage, every person would have a place to live, everyone would have enough to eat and basic health care—but we all know the world is not fair.

Well, the idea behind this story is that God expects something a little more powerful than fairness from those of us who choose to become the servant disciples of Jesus—God is inviting us to embrace the amazing way of grace and become little outposts of an outbreak of the reign of God—tiny encampments of the mercy and caring of God, small settlements of justice doers reflecting the goodness of God in a world that defines fairness mathematically rather than mystically.

One more thing: Were you ever in love? If you were or if you are, then you know that love has absolutely nothing to do with fairness. Relational fairness is about quid pro quo. Relational fairness is about giving something to get something. You scratch my back and I will scratch yours. You invite me to you house for dinner and I will invite you to my house for dinner. I give you a present, you give me a present. I am nice to you so you will be nice to me—all a part of a very pleasant and very necessary social contract. Polite people do this sort of thing all the time and there is nothing wrong with it, it’s all very fair, but it’s not love.

Love is giving expecting nothing in return. Love is sacrifice without any expectation of reward.  If I love you only because I am hoping that you will love me, that may be fair, but it is not love, it is business. Love is giving yourself away, because it is really the only thing any of us has to give. It is the way of God.

Our little bible story ends with a very strange sentence. Jesus says: “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” That, too, is not fair. That, too, is not the way the world works; but then we have a different path to follow. We are called to follow the way of Jesus. We are called to love and we are called to forgive, we are called to work for justice and peace and we are called to give, because we are loved and we are forgiven, and we have received God’s grace in Jesus Christ. It’s not fair; it never was and never will be. We didn’t earn it, we don’t really deserve it, but it’s a free gift. Accept that gift and you will know abundant life on your journey today, and forever and in the process, together we might make this world a better place.
 
Amen.

September 17, 2017  
Rev. Ron Patterson
Matthew 18:21-35
 
This morning I am going to venture into dangerous territory and beg your patience as I do so. I know a great deal about a few things and a little bit about a lot of things. That makes me a pretty good Trivial Pursuit player and an armchair devotee of the TV show, Jeopardy. I like to flatter myself with the belief that I received a pretty good liberal arts education. But...of all the things I do well and of all the things I do less well, the very bottom of the list is anything grammatical. When my grade school teachers asked us to open our grammar books, I must have been looking out the window. When they taught that lesson about sentence structure and pushed the importance of sentence diagramming—remember that (?)--I must have been absent that day and during the week they laid out the parts of speech, I must have had the measles or maybe the mumps. If I learned anything at all about adverbs, adjectives and gerunds it was because the people who did pay attention and did learn those lessons—have been patient with me and kind and caring. So, I ask for a bit of that same patience today, because my sermon idea is about the difference between a noun and a verb.

I think I know that a noun is that part of speech that includes persons, places and things and if I remember correctly a verb is a state of being or an action. Taken superficially, you and I are nouns. I am standing in a pulpit and we are sitting in a church, up there is the steeple and you are the people. There is the table which some call an altar. On the table are candles and there’s a cross. This is my sermon. And those are just a few of the nouns that surround us.

The subject of my sermon today is heaven and heaven is a noun. In classical religious terms,  some folks will tell you it is a place; and for some people who love Jesus, it is a destination. Some will tell you that have to do things to get there. I was taught (and maybe you were too) that if you live a good life, heaven is where you end up when this chapter of life is over. The streets are paved with gold, the houses there are mansions and even those of us who can’t manage a tune in a bucket get to join the heavenly host, pick up our golden crowns and harps and spend eternity hanging out. Does that sound wonderful to you?

There’s an old preacher’s joke about the preacher who got wound up one morning on the subject of heaven. He got his congregation all stirred up with his picture of heaven and then shouted at the top of his lungs, “If you’re ready to go to heaven, stand up.” And everyone stood up except an older man in the front row, who didn’t even stir. And that bothered the preacher and so he pointed to the man and said “Why aren’t you standing, brother?” And the man answered: “If you don’t mind, pastor, for the present I’m doing fine right here.” And I guess I feel the same way.

And while if you asked me about heaven, I would invite you to wonder with me about what it might mean to imagine a place of joy and reward and a destination where the pain and sorrow of this life will be replaced with something a whole lot better than what we have here, I do confess that I am not anxious to get there. I look forward to heaven, but heaven can wait, because life is good and I’m not quite ready to make the trip.

And that’s the thought that came to me as I looked at the parable we heard just now and at the whole string of little parables Matthew share about the Kingdom of God or the reign of God. Jesus did say a few things about heaven as a noun. He did offer a few glimpses of the other shore, but the funny thing I noticed as I was preparing for today is that most of what Jesus said about heaven had absolutely nothing to do with a place or a destination. He never talked about streets of gold. He never mentioned harps or halos. And when he did talk about the Kingdom of Heaven, he mainly talked about this life and this place, as if heaven was right here and right now and not up there or out there somewhere in a place a whole lot better than this place. He actually said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within—in the heart and in the mind and in the soul of every one of us.

And if I asked you now to open your heart and your soul and your mind do you think you would find heaven there? I took a look inside and I have to say that what I saw didn’t leave a whole lot of room for heaven. In fact what I saw was a little scary. I saw some fears about the future. I saw a bundle of worries over things I’ve done and said that I wish I had not said or done. I saw a pile of regrets and a swamp of inadequacies. I saw a dozen or two doubts and a dried out stack of disappointed dreams. Did you ever notice that when you go looking for trouble, you usually find it? That when you believe the glass is half-empty it usually is or when you think negative things, negative things happen?

Well, I don’t think Jesus looks at us in that way. I think when Jesus looks at your life and mine the first thing he does is look right past all of those negative things and Jesus sees heaven—not as a place, not as a destination, but as a living reality. Not as a noun, but as a verb. And here I am at the very edge of my grammatical ability and at the far side of my ability to understand or to communicate, but the heaven that is in you and in me is about loving, caring, serving, giving, forgiving, and living to make all of those things real possibilities in our own lives and in the lives of other people and out there in the world.

Do you want to go to heaven? Let me say it simply: if you want to get the noun, become the verb. If you want to lead your life in the sure and certain hope of eternal life right now and in the world to come whatever that looks like, don’t worry about heaven the place, be heaven, become heavenly, live your life ‘heavenescently.'

Forgive me, I think I just created a new word. I think you know the word: “effervescent”—it means bubbly, sparkling, engaging, thrilling, lively—the sort of person who makes an entire room come to life with their joy. Well, ‘heavenescent’ is living so fully in the present that nothing this life can throw at us can cloud the powerful reality that we are God’s children called to be Jesus to one another in every part of our living.

And so Jesus, a little earlier in Matthew, says the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed—that little wonderful spark of the divine in you and in me. Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast--that tiny miracle of life added to the ordinary substance of life that transforms every moment with life renewing possibility. Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field—and the hidden treasure is the power of love to make everything worn out and weary in our hearts into something bright and beautiful. Jesus says, the Kingdom of Heaven is like the pearl of great price—a treasure so precious that just having it puts every single thing in your life and mine in perspective. And then finally in answer to Peter’s attempt to build the reign of God into a noun bound box of religious rules and regulations about how often we need to forgive, Jesus tells a wild tale of extravagant love known as the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant that breaks open life with grace that is amazing.

And all of that is an invitation to live heaven and do heaven and in our very humanity become heavenly.

Heaven is not a noun, it’s a verb. When you dreams are dashed and you keep on dreaming, that is heaven. When you think you can’t forgive and you forgive anyway and keep on forgiving, that is heaven. When you know that despite what you have done in the past, you hear Jesus promising you that you can begin again, that’s heaven. When you come to believe that even your worst nightmare will have a happy ending, that’s heaven. When you lay your head down at night and never worry whether you’ll wake up or not because you know God loves you, that’s heaven.

When you come to realize that you can be the missing piece to another creature’s puzzle, that’s heaven. When you give someone else the permission to be themselves in your presence without pretense or phoniness, that’s heaven. When you realize that because God accepts you as you are and you come to accept others, that’s heaven. When you give another person the strength and the courage they need to take an unpopular stand and join them in letting the love of God get a hearing in this cold cruel world, that’s heaven. When you overwhelm another person’s cynicism with understanding and compassion, even if you disagree with them, that’s heaven. When you give yourself away without any thought of return, that’s heaven. When you become an answer to another person’s problem or their prayers, that’s heaven.

When we look around this place and realize that our job as the church of Jesus Christ is not to judge but to care, that’s heaven. When we get together to make a difference in this community in our mission and in our service, that’s heaven. When we pray together and trust the power of our prayers, that’s heaven. When we speak the truth in love to one another, that’s heaven. When we sacrifice our cherished opinions and love our enemies beyond any logical expectation, that’s heaven. When we stand up for the poor, or those who lack health care or confront the haters and the hoarders with powerful love in action, that’s heaven. And even when we feel like we’re walking the very streets of hell and know that on that walk we are not alone, that’s heaven. Heaven is not a noun, it’s a verb.

Let me end now with a story you may have heard before. It was told first in the writings of the poet and scientist Loren Eiseley. (The Star Thrower)

“Once upon a time there was a man who was walking along a sandy beach where thousands of starfish had been washed up on the shore by a storm. He noticed a boy picking the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. The man observed the boy for a few minutes and then asked what he was doing. The boy replied that he was returning the starfish to the sea, otherwise they would die. The man asked how saving a few, when so many were doomed, would make any difference whatsoever? The boy picked up a starfish and threw it back into the ocean and said: ‘Made a difference to that one….’”

“The man left the boy and went home, deep in thought of what the boy had said. He soon returned to the beach and spent the rest of the day helping the boy throw starfish into the sea…”

God in Jesus Christ is calling us to life. Who we are is whom God loves and heaven is in our loving.
​
God give us the strength to be heavenly. Amen.

August 20, 2017
Rev. Ron Patterson
Matthew 15:21-28
 
Many years ago there was a popular book, based on a love story that I never read, that resulted in a movie I never saw, that included a memorable sentence that caused me to wince the first time I heard it and every time I’ve thought about it since. Do you remember the sentence? Can anybody call it out?

That’s it: “loving is never having to say you’re sorry.”

Now, I confess that I probably misunderstood the intent, but Baloney, I thought the first time I heard it, Baloney! Maybe I’m odd, but my experience has been just the opposite.

Were you ever hurt by the actions or attitudes of someone you admired and held in highest esteem? Did you ever find yourself embarrassed or shocked by something someone close to your heart said or did? Have you ever noticed that the biggest problem with putting yourself or another up on a pedestal is that pedestals are precarious?

That’s a common human dilemma, I suppose. Some nights when I lay down and review the things I’ve said and done and thought about and give my day to God so I can get some sleep, I find myself full of regrets and needing to seek forgiveness. And I don’t think I’m alone in those feelings, but that’s the subject of another sermon—something about your personal foibles and mine. Something about how we need to forgive one another and ourselves for being human. Something about loving one another that leads us to greater sensitivity. Something about how that’s what Jesus wants us to do and how its the only healthy way to live and that we shrivel up and die of pettiness if we don’t manage to do it—but that’s another sermon for another day.
​
Today I have something else in mind. I want to stretch that idea of getting along with one another and with our selves past the boundary of me and mine and here and now into a bigger idea way beyond the personal.

Here’s my idea for today: if the nations and the people of this earth are ever going to get together and seriously face the problems which threaten to undo us and overwhelm everything that is good and just and beautiful in this thing we call humanity, that includes our physical environment and the intricate web of connectivity that we are part of, then people of good conscience and religious faith had better find a way to get together and discover some common ground and begin act as if the future matters.

It is enough that life on this tiny planet brings us things like tsunamis and hurricanes and plagues of locust and famines. It is enough that accidents happen and diseases attack. All of that is enough.

To say it simply, we have a sufficiency of pain and problems, but when you pile on top of those unavoidable points of pain the things we might be able to avoid, things like war, and duplicity in government, and policies that rely on fantasy and fear more than science and integrity and add in the injustices that create pollution and encourage terrorists driving cars into crowds and blowing themselves up, it is not only more than enough, it is frightening and depressing. It’s been a tough week!

And I have to tell you this sermon began as I reflected on our Gospel lesson for today and with my embarrassment about few things that Jesus had to say. I put Jesus on a mighty high pedestal and our text for today is that troubling little event of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman. Were you listening? The woman is hurting. Her daughter is suffering. She throws herself on the ground before Jesus and pleads for help.

And the one we call savior, the one in whose honor this building in built, the one in whose name we gather today, turns her away and in effect calls her a dog—a common insult in the Middle-East and in cultures around the world. He tells her that his mission in life is narrow and well defined. In effect, he tells her that he is only about the business of helping those who look like him and who happen to share the religion of his birth and his particular point of view. He appears to tell her that foreigners need not apply and needn’t bother knocking on the door of that pathetic and vengeful deity revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai for the sole benefit of the Hebrew nation.
​
And here I see in the Jesus I love, the mirror image of the nasty person people who love me have sometimes seen in me at my worst moments. And I am shocked and I am offended and I want to scream at Jesus: “Jesus, what a dumb thing to say!” You’ve got God way too small! You’re giving God a bad name and limiting your love way too much the same way I do it sometimes when my anger or my fear or my politics get in the way. Did you every catch yourself majoring in the minors when it comes to loving?
​
And then I thought about how this happens in the religious community. I thought about religious leaders from many traditions who think their way of believing makes them right and others wrong, or who figure that they understand Jesus or Mohammad or the Buddha, so fully that they can condemn others or fence the freedom of the individual conscience or who try to turn their views on human sexuality into laws which bind the rest of us to their view of reality.

I find myself wanting to get really wound up about those religious folk who want to lead us back to the dark ages on virtually every issue, masking their ignorance and fear and male control issues behind innocuous sounding slogans like intelligent design or family values, or sanctity of life; seeking to bring back the good old days of back alley abortions and transform this nation or other nations into self-righteous,

freedom-denying holy empires where they are in charge and where anyone who disagrees with them is going to hell.

Hate and intolerance is a poor platform upon which to build the future, unless the future we want is one of war and human misery.

And there it is: in this little story, Jesus calls the Canaanite woman a dog. And in this one passage, the human side of Jesus, the time-bound part of the man Jesus, the Jesus who was born in the first century, the part of Jesus who believed that the world was flat and that disease was caused by demons is revealed.

But the Canaanite woman persists, and she pleads, and she pushes and by the power of God, her daughter is healed.

And in my mind, this little healing is a sign of the in-breaking of the Holy. God in this passage is not in Jesus where you and I might expect her to be. God in this passage is the woman—the foreign woman, the other, the one who ambushes the earthly Jesus with the power of Amazing Grace. In her, I believe we catch a glimpse of the eternal Christ, the one whose love is boundless and whose grace is transformative. Here we see a tiny sign that the violence and stupidity that separates people by gender and tribe and race and class is not the final word.

Here it is revealed in a way most simple that any religion or political system that blesses violence and feeds on fear is a human creation, a human invention that will not stand up to the power of caring love wherever that love finds a home.

Like all of you I am appalled by terrorism. Like all of you, I am shocked that in the name of religion, radicals can find the courage to drive cars into people or pick up guns or blow up subway trains or burn crosses or commit hate crimes or destroy abortion clinics.

But believe me when I say it, bad religion, tying your hopes to an image of a God too small and too time bound or too based on an ancient book—whether that book is the Bible or the Quran is the foundation for much of the sorry misery that besets this world of ours. Bad theology causes bad behavior; rotten religion props up the thought world of al-Qaeda cells just as much as it does the Klan. It motivates the sort of anti-abortion fanatic who killed Dr. Edward Tiller in Wichita, Kansas a few years ago. All of them are siblings operating under the same delusional faith system—that skims the polluted surface of the same stagnate pond.

And as I see it, the way forward is a different way. Not so much in a political sense, because as far as I’m concerned, the political realities and politicians of this world will find a way to catch up with the movement of the human spirit.

I believe that each time people of good will develop new ways of looking at the world through the eyes of faith—the politicians will find a way to follow. I believe that democracy was a faith idea, a philosophy, a religious idea, a way of believing, centuries before the first free election was ever held.

What we need is a new way where the followers of Jesus and the followers of Mohammed and the followers of Moses and the followers of the great Hindu and Buddhist sages and all of the rest of those amazing points of positive energy in the history of humanity begin to discover that what all of them are saying is the common nudging of a single Divine Spirit toward a way of light and truth and hope and love and mutual respect.

Bishop John Spong, who spent time with our congregation in Florida, wrote some time ago that too many of our leaders are engaged in “an assault on both intelligence and learning. They deny global warming, they oppose stem cell research, they are closed-minded about end of life issues, they express uninformed negativity about homosexual persons and they attempt to blur the line between church and state.” (Spong, “A New Dark Age Begins”) Now, those are big words and big ideas, but let me suggest a few simple things you and I can do.

Ask yourself this question: Who, in your life, qualifies as being less than human? I hate to insult the animals we love by using the word ‘dog’, but like the Jesus who wandered this earth back in the first century, every one of us, including yours truly, is a prisoner of our own time and our own prejudices. I have my dog list and so do you and so did the earthly Jesus, but the amazing thing about Jesus was that Jesus was open to the divine.

The power of God moved through that Canaanite woman to save Jesus. She reached out to Jesus in her pain pushing him to abandon his first century Palestinian Jewish mind-set and heal her daughter from the demons who tormented her that day.

And here’s the thing: You and I carry that same spark of the divine. Like the Canaanite woman, we are the children of God’s love: fully and wonderfully created to transcend our time bound nature and reach for the stars.

Love someone, find a way to care, speak up when and where you can. Search for the deepest truth God might reveal to your heart and then live it. Find common ground with other people of good will.
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Pray for guidance. Invest in the future. Plant a tree whose shade you will not live to enjoy. Open your mind. Forgive. And above every other thing, love your neighbor and do all that it is in your power to do to expand the circle of just who you believe your neighbor to be. Amen.