Henry Scott Holland "Death is nothing at all"

"The Dawn That is Near' given 11/29

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 of faith, hope and love. The Apostle concluded that the greatest of these three is love, He didn't add that the rarest and hardest can be hope. There's a Hebrew word for hope whose root means to twist or to twine. Maybe that's the best sort of hope that we can come up with in the middle of this second decade of the 21st Century.

Maybe this bad thing won't happen, and this good thing will. Maybe this possibility will occur instead of that one.  A hundred little threads that we twist together to make a strand of hope. A hundred strands that we twine together to make a cable strong enough to pull us along through life-- or maybe just through the day.

Hope is more than a feeling that just comes and goes. To hope requires an act of will. Just getting out of bed every morning is an act of hope. What goes on inside our heads has a direct relationship to what goes on in our lives in the world.  When you and I dare to hope, we find our attitudes changing, our behavior changing, our lives changing, and consequently our world changes.

But it’s hard, very hard for us jaded denizens of this cynical age to hope for more than what appears to be at least possible-- or even probable.  We know all too well how fragile hope can be. To hope is to risk disappointment at the very least. And in order to risk hoping for something more than merely possible, we risk looking and feeling foolish. More than feeling foolish, we risk looking crazy.

To hope for something that doesn’t seem to be at least vaguely possible is a kind of craziness. It's to risk being labeled a crank, or a fanatic, a dupe, (or even possibly a Cubs fan). Like Charlie Brown— year after year choosing to believe that Lucy won’t pull the football away before he can kick it!

            We've been disappointed one time too many. We no longer dare to risk radical hope, and we fear its radical consequences.

But deep inside us, there’s still an empty place where our great and wild hopes used to reside. So even when we are too world-weary, too rational to hope great hopes anymore, perhaps we can still be Christian enough to scrape together a little belief in mystery and at least say "Maybe". Maybe it really is darkest before the dawn. Maybe the dawn is nearer than it once was.

Because the truth is that for some of us, "maybe" is the most that hope can ever verbalize. Maybe, maybe things will get better—just a little. Maybe I can do some small thing to help make them a little better. Maybe Jesus might return someday. Yes, He might come. After all, He said He would. Yes, He definitely will come again, someday, maybe soon. Come soon Lord Jesus-- Maranatha!

Who knows how long it will be until the Final Dawn? Who knows what absolute holiness will look like? Perhaps like the Triumphant Son of Humanity, riding on a rainbow colored cloud, with skin like bronze and hair like fleece, eyes like fire and a mouth with a two-edged sword. Or, if your taste in symbols runs that way, maybe on a chariot of fire that looks suspiciously like a flying saucer. Or Maybe the Cosmic Christ will one day walk into the General Assembly of the United Nations, turn over all the tables, and announce that he’s takin’ over.

Or maybe He (or possibly She will) come back as in the first coming-- as a child, not yet born. After all, who can put a limit on the possibilities open to God? Who knows what or when it may happen?

It takes a special kind of craziness to dare to hope such brave and extravagant hopes in our grim and bloody world. It's craziness to look beyond the realities of history for the fantastic impossibilities of our God. It's craziness to wait for the Dawn of God's Reign to finally break through the darkness of this world... And it's even crazier to actually expect it.

It's been, after all, over two thousand years, and Our Redeemer has still not returned to us. And yet, something inside us will not allow hope to expire. So, every year we run toward that football thinking how hard we’re going to kick it. Because year after year we believe Lucy has repented and forsaken her sinful ways. How can we stop believing that people can change? How can we stop believing in possibility?

And so every day we climb back into the cockpit of our Sophwith Camel believing that one day—maybe not today—but surely someday—we will shoot you down, Red Baron! How can we stop believing that good is stronger than evil? How can we stop believing that right will prevail? How can we stop believing that the dawn is near?

The Dawn is near. Our faith proclaims that reality in the face of all the suffering and grim realities of this world that seem to contradict it. How fantastic that after twenty centuries something in us still dares to say at least, "maybe" to the fantastic possibilities of our God-- that we should take seriously this craziness-- this crazy, radical hope that the future is indeed in the hands of God, no less than the past.

“Hope is the thing with feathers” wrote Emily Diskenson. It’s fragile and easily crushed, like a little bird we hold in our hands. Hold it too tight and it is crushed. Too loose, and it flies away. We must hold on to hope gently, but firmly, lovingly, but not let it escape..

We dare not lose that hope. For Jesus' sake, let us not give in to the darkness. For His sake let us pray that He will continue to keep our hearts firm. For His sake, let us claim for Him, and pray and work for the fantastic possibility of His New Jerusalem. Here—today—on this earth—in our own individual corner of it. For His sake, let us sally forth once again into the darkness-- determined to bring the light closer-- even a little closer

--through our everyday acts of compassion and simple commonplace               deeds of kindness and charity

--through our believing, our praying, our witnessing, our ministering, our                       giving, our loving, our striving—no matter how fantastic or distant the          long awaited Dawn may seem.

For His sake-- and ours-- let us pray—let us work—let us hope. Come soon, Lord Jesus. Maranatha!                                                                         Amen.

"Sing to the King" given Nov 22

            For years, every weekday morning after Donna and I packed Gregory off to Middle School, we were in the habit of sitting down for a leisurely cup of coffee, changing the channel from Cartoon Network to Channel 5  and getting  our daily dose of news watching the Today show. There was something about Katie Couric’s air of cheerleader perkiness combined with concerned- but-not-worried young mom that could sometimes make bad news a bit easier to take. 

But that’s not so true anymore. We rarely watch the morning news—or the evening news for that matter. And can you blame us? Look at the recent news. Between natural disasters, nuclear disasters, a squabbling Congress, military struggle always threatening to re-erupt in the Holy Land,  terrorism at home and abroad, a squabbling do-nothing congress, husbands accused of murdering their wives, wives accused of murdering their husbands, respected leaders accused of inappropriate behavior, children and young women disappearing, and the lead-up into what promises to be the most divisive Presidential race yet, there’s not a lot of encouraging news to hear.  Even Katie Couric couldn’t make all that go down smoothly..

            Someone has dubbed our current era a time of “overwhelmed-ness." We have been so exposed, principally thanks to the media, to assorted evidence of tragedy, heartbreak, and despair that we are overwhelmed. The occasional natural or human-made disaster, which  in past decades we heard only vague reports of, long after the fact, has become our daily diet on the evening, morning and mid-day news.  I’m not saying things are necessarily worse than in any other era in the past—just that we learn about all of them  simultaneously as well as instantaneously. And as a result, we don’t have a chance to digest them before the next one comes around..

            There are people who spend their entire lives compiling statistics of humanity’s pain--: the number of deaths on the highway each year; the number of infants who die due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome; the carnage due to cancer, or AIDS, or other killing epidemics. In fact, they don't even call them “Epidemics:” anymore. We call it a "Pandemics" because the results are so massive. Small wonder that such vast numbers of us are so overwhelmed.

            Some of us attempt to defend ourselves from being overwhelmed by the pain. We turn off the evening news when it begins, or else we become numbed.  We cloud our minds with “Reality TV”, or gossip about “so called celebrities”. Call me out of touch, but I still don’t know who the Kardasians are or why I should care about them.. We lose ourselves in engagement with the sports section of the daily newspaper rather than the current events section. Or we immerse ourselves in the semi-fictional “factoids” or supermarket tabloids or internet blogs.

            And yet, in our better moments, we know that this numbness, this psychic turning away is an inappropriate response to the problem. Tragedy is and always has been a fact of human life. And we must face facts. If we are going to do anything about the problems that beset us, we have to confront the problems honestly. 

            During an age of overwhelmed-ness, however, it is difficult to look at things honestly or realistically.

            In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the young prince muses to himself, asking what he ought to do in response to the sin of his mother and his uncle who had killed his father and now have married one another. Young Hamlet wonders if it is better to take up the sword against "a sea of troubles," or whether it is better to simply pull the covers up over his head, to end his life, to sleep, perhaps even to dream, and end it all. A psychiatrist would call it “clinical depression” But what it boils down to is a young man utterly overwhelmed by crippling indecision.

            Presently, there are many people who feel they lack the capacity to even talk about the problems of our world—much less the future.. In this second decade of a new millenium, how do we feel? Do we feel exuberant, confident—or at least optimistic about what lies ahead? Or do we feel depressed, cynical, and overwhelmed? Our problems seem so large, so intractable, so resistant to our little actions. What can anybody do?

Like Hamlet, we wonder if the most prudent course is simply to quit, to anesthetize ourselves in some fashion, to pull the covers over our heads, to sleep, to dream. Where on earth would we get the strength to take up arms against a "sea of troubles" when that sea has become an overwhelming flood? As Jimmy Buffet puts it, “Indecision may or may not be a problem for me.”

            This morning, at the end of the church's liturgical year, when we traditionally celebrate the "Reign of Christ," our text is from the Revelation of John. This last book of the Bible arose out of a deeply troubled church. Only in the first two chapters does the writer give us a hint of the troubles that these fledgling congregations faced, but we know, reading between the lines, that here was a church clinging for its very life on the fringes of the Roman Empire. You can almost see them there, a little band of Christians, most at the bottom of the social scale--surrounded in the pagan cities. They seem so small, so overwhelmed, huddled in the catacombs, hiding. What are they to do?

            Where on earth would anyone find hope for the future in such circumstances?

            But, Revelation begins with great shouts of praise. One might expect the vision to begin in despair. After all, the church is in trouble, and the empire is stepping up its persecutions of Christians. What hope is there in that?

          Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, Revelation is filled with sustained outbursts of exuberant joy and praise. The holy vision begins, not in despair, but in Doxology, in praise, in cadences that scholars believe were derived in great part from some of the hymns of the early church. They certainly sound like hymns. Listen again:

Grace to you and peace

from him who is and who was and who is to come,

and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 

 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness,

the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and freed † us from our sins by his blood,

  and made  us to be a kingdom,

priests serving  his God and Father,

to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen

    Look! He is coming with the clouds;

          every eye will see him,

even those who pierced him;

          and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.

   So it is to be. Amen. 

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,”

says the Lord God,

who is and who was and who is to come,

the Almighty.

            John the Seer, exiled and imprisoned on Patmos-- a bleak, rocky island one mile by four, should have been overwhelmed by the great sea of troubles that faced him and his beloved churches. He responded instead with an overwhelming affirmation of the grace and triumph of God in Christ. In Jesus Christ, John proclaimed, God had already decisively entered the world and was at that very moment, busily reclaiming a lost world. Revelation begins with poetry that evokes images of invasion, of cosmic battles, then of decisive victory by the Almighty God.

            Cut off from home and family and community of faith,  John responded to the seeming overwhelming-ness of the evil of his present age with an affirmation of the overwhelming-ness of the victory of God in Jesus Christ.

            Sweeping claims are being made here. John makes it clear. What happens in Jesus is not just something that is solely personal or private, as some mistakenly categorize Christianity. To the contrary, our faith is also very public. Political even. Cosmic even. Matters of vast importance are addressed. Seemingly intractable problems are defeated. There is no corner of creation that is immune from this sweeping influx of Divine grace.

            British theologian David Ford finds an analogy to the Wesleyan revival in England during the 18th century. In the mid-18th century, John Wesley began his ministry in an England that seemed overwhelmed by social problems. The gin trade had led to huge problems with alcoholism—even among little children. The Industrial Revolution had lain waste the rural English countryside, resulting in a vast influx of people seeking employment in the cities. Child labor was the scourge of the land. British ships formed the backbone of the slave trade. There was vast social dislocation and chaos. Things seemed overwhelming.

            Eventually, God brought forth John and Charles Wesley, who countered these problems not necessarily with a new social program for human betterment, but rather with a revival. In Ford's words, they "responded to the problems of the day with an overwhelming affirmation of Divine grace." The Wesley brothers responded to the problems of their day with singing, with hymns. Among the great legacies of the Wesleyan revival are some of our most beloved hymns such as "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling."  (Read in our Hymnal “Instructions for Hymn Singing”  # vii)

            What good do hymns do? Do they put food on the table? Do they solve any of our economic or social problems? What good did the hymns of Charles Wesley do for England? Or for that matter, what good do the opening hymns of Revelation do for the church in the First Century?

I think they respond to the overwhelming-ness of evil with an affirmation of the power of God. And that is the only place to begin. If you and I lack confidence in the ultimate triumph of the will and purposes of God, then we will never have courage to honestly face our situation. Some problems and issues can loom so large in our minds and hearts that you and I find ourselves literally stymied. We can’t figure out where to begin.  And as a result, we never do start.

In order to grow, in order to claim the victories we must first of all have some-place to stand and fight. We need some great foundational affirmation that will get us moving and enable us to be realistic and truthful about our circumstances. Only secure, confident people can be truthful. Only in truth can you and I begin. Only after we’ve begun the battle is it possible to triumph.

            So, Revelation begins with a great shout of joy, a great, exuberant, confidant affirmation of the power of God.

            Therefore, this morning, if you and I really want to face our world’s problems squarely, if we really want to move through this new world with confidence, if we really want to deal successfully with the issues of our lives, the best thing we can do is to begin to sing. We need to sing some exuberant hymn about the triumph of the grace of God. We need to feel our heart pumping. We need to believe in our victory.

            We’ve all experienced this. You come here and, despite the preacher’s best efforts in the sermon, despite the clear reading of God's word in Scripture, what really moves you, what really fills you with power to go on is the singing. When we join our voices together in some great hymn of praise, then you know, in the very depths of your being, that Jesus Christ reigns, that he shall rule until all things have been put under his feet, that the enemies of God will ultimately be defeated, that good will have the last word over evil, and that all shall be well. 

            You know this, not in some rational, intellectual way, but rather in the deepest, most profound depths of your being. Worship enables you to go on. And every honest preacher knows it to be true in his or her own life as well

            May I suggest that’s a major reason why we’re here this morning? You and I are looking for hope and strength to go on in an "age of overwhelmed-ness." We know very well that the only way to go on is to counter the seeming overwhelmed-ness of evil with a counterbalancing affirmation of the overwhelmed-ness of the power of God.

            Our God is not some distant, aloof, cosmic clockmaker, uncaring deity. Our God isn’t some empathetic but essentially powerless being. Our God not only cares, but also acts. Our God has power to heal the brokenness within each of us, and among all of us. The battle is not waiting to be joined. The battle is already won! And that's why we sing.

            Friends, sing boldly! Sing to the King!

Edith Piaf - La vie en rose (Officiel) [Live Version]

"Religion 101" given 11-15-15

            Class, take out paper and pen. Pop quiz time. This quiz consists of one multiple choice question. Listen carefully. Which of the following is not a religion?

            a. High Fiber Cereal

            b. Golf

            c. The Wall Street Journal

            d. The Christian Faith

            You may only pick one.  You got it right if you picked (d.) The Christian Faith. You say you always thought Christianity was a religion? No. Sorry. Christianity is not a religion.

            Robert Capon says that  “Religion” is the attempt by human beings to establish a right relationship between themselves and something beyond themselves which they think to be of life-giving significance.

            So  “Religion” is our feeble human attempt to get a handle on the key to life, to plug in to cosmic power, to find the program that leads to happiness, meaning, self-esteem, or whatever it is that gives a person life. The program may be about God, sobriety, the good life, good relationships, wealth, health, fitness, or whatever else a person thinks will give life significance, but it’s still religion.

            The Vegan who gulps down great quantities of cereal with the consistency of sawdust in order to hedge his bets on good health, the anxious observer of the Dow Jones average, the duffer on the links six or seven days a week – all can be said to be “religious” in a way that a Christian is not.

            Religions have creeds – formulae for thinking about whatever it is outside ourselves that is said to tune us in to the power. Creeds are intellectual recipes which, if you get them right, will give you an edge over whatever it is outside yourself that will give you life. Religions have cults – practices evoked by their creeds.

            I don’t jog anymore, but back when I did, I didn’t jog for the fun of it. Nobody eats oat bran because it tastes good, for heaven’s sake. We do it for our-selves and that something beyond ourselves – a low cholesterol count, a house in Winnetka – which leads to eternal life, or at least an entry into “Who’s Who.” Religions have conduct, prescribed and proscribed behavior which, if you get it right, lands you in Nirvana, or Wall Street, or wherever you think life ought to land in order to be home free. Creed, Cult, Conduct.

            Needless to say, an inevitable byproduct of most religion is fatigue. But wait! There’s more! Because every religion insists that you’ve got to do the whole thing absolutely right, we’re forever flunking religion.

            There are uptight, terribly difficult to get right religions like golf. Even after you’ve mastered a nine iron, there’s a Mashie or a Niblet staring at you from the bag demanding that you get it right, too.

            There are seemingly relaxed religions, like psychotherapy, telling you that all you’ve got to do is relax, let go, and free associate about your relationship to your mother. But in every religion there is always some creed and conduct that simply must be gotten right if you are going to get hold of the keys to the universe.

            In other words, the relationship to that “something beyond ourselves” which would give us life is always (according to religion) up to us. No matter how much we watch what we eat, gobbling up large amounts of brown rice, there’s always someone on the Today Show to tell us we got it all wrong and should have been eating bulgur wheat instead.            “Sorry, bub.. No relationship with the source of ultimate meaning for you.”

            As a result, Religion is inevitably a one way ticket to failure. The harder you try, the more conscientious you are, the more often you’re impressed with how you got it wrong.                

            Religion will sometimes tell you that it loves the something beyond ourselves with which it is trying to establish a relationship. In fact, it’s not love that motivates religion, it’s appeasement. We can eat broccoli and brown rice only to be clobbered by an asteroid. Nobody ever got an A+ on the exam called “Religion”, but since A+ is the only score worth having in get it right or lose it religion, religion becomes a one way ticket to failure.

            And here’s the cosmic catch 22. We’re all born religious. That is, we all come into this world desperate to find the key to establishing a right relationship between ourselves and that some-thing outside ourselves that will give us life. Prevenient  Grace, original blessing, a hunger for meaning, an inborn drive for intimacy with the ultimate is not a bad thing. It’s a gift that can lead us from broken-ness to joy and wholeness in communion with our Maker.

            But we don’t know what to do with it. Noticing one day, quite by accident, as we are lying in our bassinet, that certain facial movements send our parents into paroxysms of glee (“The baby just smiled!”), we do it again, thinking this may be the key to managing them.

            Later, finding that Aunt Hildegaard will hand over a fiver when we curtsey and bow, we drop to our knees whenever the old dear enters the room. But then one day it doesn’t work. One day, Aunt Hildy’s peeved with mom—and doesn’t give us any money. Dang! Just when we thought we had that scam figured out!. Despite our changing creeds, cult, conduct, we can never seem to get it quite right.

            Now here’s where you and I get off that cosmic hook.  Jesus came to this earth in order to put an end to religion. Religion as something that human beings must get right in order to have a correct relationship with God interested Jesus less than golf. Religion – as that which we do when we get serious about our cholesterol, or when we really hunker down and give all we’ve got to our career, or when we really clean up our act morally speaking, separating the good from the bad, the saved from the damned, the in from the out – was something that Jesus couldn’t have cared less about.

            Jesus didn’t get into religion.  Our anxious, tiring, ultimately futile attempt to get it right. He didn’t run around desperately trying to make things right. Because, in him, God made it right. Jesus freely and lovingly made the only act—the only sacrifice needed to be right with God. In the temple, the priests stood before God and offered sacrifices for us. Why? Psalm 50:14-15:

            “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High.          I will deliver you.”

            Temple religion was all about making  a sacrifice as a payment for our sins.The Temple was off limits to Gentiles, and women and the maimed and disabled—because they weren’t perfect. Most of it was off limits to men--

 the laity. Only the priest was holy enough to go up into that Holy of Holies and place our gift into the hands of God. Every Yom Kippur, when the High Priest stood before the altar, holding before God our little lives, it was “an annual reminder of sins” (Hebrews 10:3).

            That’s religion for you. No sooner have we finished our sacrifice than it’s next Sunday, and we start the whole thing over again. You come out fresh, clean from being made right at Yom Kippur. On the way out the door of the chapel, somebody bumps into you. “Hey, watch it buddy!” He nudges you back; you shove him.     How long did your post repentance cleanness last this year? Five minutes? Sorry, back to the temple and start the whole process over again.

            The priests were instructed in Numbers 16:9; and Deuteronmty10:8. to stand before God in the temple Of course they stood. I don’t know about you, but If I’m counting on some poor priest is going to be setting things right between God and my sin, no way he’s ever get a chance to sit down, much less a day off.

            No matter how beautiful the service, no matter how utterly sincere the sacrifice, the poor priest will be kept perpetually busy running back and forth between my sin and God’s justice. The very busyness of the priest, the fact that there’s no chair for him to sit down  in the Holy of Holies is, for the writer of Hebrews, testimony to the utter ineffectiveness of our “religion.”

            “And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins” (Hebrews 10:11).

            In contrast to the posture of standing priests (See? I’m standing even as I speak to you.), Jesus sits.

            “When Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.”  Okay,  Job done. Jesus could be seated.

            The veil in the temple, separating us from God, was torn in two at his death. In his great gift, he put religion out of business. Now, there was no point in getting on some treadmill of right thoughts, right words, right action, because that right relationship we so desperately seek was made right in him. We had only to trust that he had indeed done what needed to be done.

            In contrast to all those elaborate instructions for Temple Religion in Deuteronomy and Numbers, we read in Revelation 21 that in the New Jerusalem yet to come, there will be no temple. No need. No religion.

            Now class, I’ll admit that Christianity, in its attempt to trust what Christ has done, has long made use of the forms of religion to present its radically nonreligious message. So there’s good reason that many of you answered A, B, or C when you were supposed to say D. Look at today’s service; you can find creed, cult, conduct. But there’s nothing here that can get you right with God.

All of this is here as a joke’s on you reminder that Jesus has done it all for nothing. Now he is seated.

            Prayer is not a con job to get God to be gracious. God gave us grace on the cross. We don’t baptize, break Eucharistic bread, read scripture, or listen to sermons in order to beg God to show up here.. God’s already here. God’s work is done even before the service begins.

            That’s why Jesus sits. That’s why we call it “Gospel,” good news.  “Religion” is irrelevant for us. If it were religion, it would be the bad news that there is still some secret to be unlocked, some ritual to be gotten right, some little sin to be purged. No. In Jesus, this thing between us and God has been gotten right.

            You might think what with the “Gone Out of the Religion Business” sign on our front door, the world might be beating a path to us.  But that’s not the case. We’re human beings can’t get away from that religious impulse.. So we breathlessly try to find the key or batten down God’s door. But the joke’s on us-- the door’s already open. Look at Jesus and look at us. We’re so busy trotting back and forth to our altars of good health, right conduct, correct thinking, and there he is, seated, for heaven’s sake.

            But someone may ask: isn’t there good (revealed, God certified, true) religion and bad religion? There certainly are benevolent religions, like Kiwanis or scientific research---that work to make this a better world. And there are sinister religions like racism or greed--that inevitably yield only pain and despair. And there are dispassionate religions, like golf or running—that don’t make the world better or worse. But none of them—benevolent, sinister, or dispassionate—no religion can help us get right with God.

            Forget about religion. Jesus didn’t tell us to be religious—he invited us to follow him. He never told us to do anything in a quid pro quo, do-this-get-that sense. Our puny human attempts to control reality cannot be substituted for his grace. If we are going to be rightly related to him, it will be because he does what needs to be done, not us.

            And the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says that he has. The One who promised is faithful.  Christ’s work is done. God’s got no more quarrel with us. We come up to the cash register only to discover that our bill has been paid. Jesus, the great priest, is sitting down, seated at the right hand of God.

            His work is done.  You and I are forgiven.  And we are free. Free from the effort to “be religious”. Free from the sometimes ridiculous expectations of others. Free from living our lives based around stern duty and fear of hell. We are free to simply “let go and let God.” We are free to answer his call to “Follow me” simply because we yearn to be more like Him.    

            We are free to live lives of integrity and authenticity. We are free to live the life of meaning, the life of joy, the life of hope—for its own sake, and for the sake of our love for Him. Because we have come to realize that ultimately, life in Him, lived in the here and now, is really the only life worth living.

Do not be daaunted

"Bitter and Sweet" given Nov. 8

            The Book of Ruth is one of the most beloved tales in the Bible. And some of the language and elements of it have made their way into popular culture—precisely because the story is so timeless and human. It’s a beautiful story—it’s written so that it reads like a novel— but it’s more than that. The Book of Ruth is a narrative of faith, but it’s also a love story.  Not a paperback romance novel sort of love story. Not a “Christian fiction” kind of love story. No it’s truer than either of those could ever be. Just as love expresses itself in more than one form in this world, so the story of Ruth portrays more than one expression of love—on more than one level.

             Once upon a time, a woman of Bethlehem, Naomi, and her husband left their home during a famine to live in the land of Moab. Their sons married Moabite – pagan – women, but tragedy struck the family when the father and both sons died, leaving their three widows bereft without husbands to look after them. Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem, where she had only a tiny field, as part of her dowry.

            At first, the daughters-in-law went with her, but on the road, Naomi urged them to go back home to Moab and find new husbands there. Orpah wept, but turned back. Ruth, however, refuses to part with this foreign woman who has become like a mother to her. She is willing to risk a familiar and comfortable life for the sake of compassion and her love for Naomi. Ruth is remembered for her exquisitely beautiful response to Naomi: "Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go, where you lodge, I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God…."

            Naomi allows Ruth to return with her, but she remains bitter and full of despair. When her old friends, the women of the village come to greet and console her, Naomi (whose name means “pleasant”) tells them from now on to call her "Mara," a name that means “bitter”.

            But even in her deep despair, even if she isn’t aware of it—God is walking beside Naomi offering comfort and care. God is working in Naomi’s life—using Ruth the pagan daughter-in-law whose faithful love won’t be deterred. Ruth loves Naomi despite her bitterness, and looks after her needs. 

            That’s how God works in this world—through people ministering to other people out of love. Our Creator has a marvelous way of taking our pain, and walking with us through our suffering, and forcing it to serve us. When we open our hearts and eyes, we can see God behind the scenes of life, taking our suffering and bending it, redeeming it, using it to bring new growth—new opportunities and relationships into our lives—sanctifying them, and us.

            Now Naomi has an in-law, Boaz, a cousin of her late husband, and a rich landowner..   It was the custom that widows and poor women were allowed to follow the harvesters in order to glean the bits of grain they leave behind. Naomi sends Ruth out with the women into the fields that Boaz owns, hoping he will notice and protect her. And indeed, Boaz notices Ruth working hard, finds out who she is. She has lunch with him, revealing their relationship. And so Boaz makes special arrangements for these women, his shirt-tail relatives, to have extra grain.

            God is using Boaz to feed them. And Boaz finds himself admiring Ruth for her loyalty to Naomi. Things are starting to look up for Naomi and Ruth. But then maybe it's just human nature for us to miss the blessings that are right before our eyes sometimes.

            Naomi is so caught up in her bitterness and depression, she at first misses this tiny spark of hope. We so easily get caught up in so many trials and challenges that we miss God at work in our lives. Like Naomi it might be self-pity, or the struggle for survival or self-pity.  But it could be envy or anger, or grief, or fear of the future, or some other emotion. Or it might be just simple survival—either personal or institutional.

            For many of us in the church, it’s easy to get caught up in  the busyness of life, the business of life, even the busyness and business of church itself. When we let that happen, we can miss what's right before our eyes--the blessing of a loving, courageous, supportive community of faith – a gift from God, to each one of us, and to the world that God loves, the world God calls us to serve.

            Read the story of Ruth and Naomi, and it’s easy to see that old Naomi can't seem to recognize that God has blessed her in a most amazing and unexpected way. Okay, maybe we can't blame her entirely: she's had one misfortune after another – hunger, poverty, dislocation, living as an alien in the land of Israel's mortal enemy, the Moabites. Things got even worse when her husband and both sons died. Now she’s back in her home village with no protection, and no one to work the tiny field that is her only inheritance.

            She is now – officially – a  nobody. How ironic is that: a pagan foreign widow, about as low as it gets in those days. provides Naomi with a glimpse of undeterred, faithful, stubborn love – the dogged, determined love that someone once described as "the kind of fierce, fiery love by which God pursues us." The Bible, you know, is just full of that sort of love from God. 

            So, these two widows are living on the edge of society and the edge of survival. They're not aspiring to luxury or riches; they're struggling just to get through one more day. Ruth goes out every day and works hard in Boaz’s fields to provide for Naomi, and under the warmth of that kind of consistent, persistent love, Naomi's heart slowly begins to open up. She actually starts to think about someone else's welfare – she thinks about Ruth, about Ruth's future.

            We all know you can’t even begin to think about the future unless you have hope that there's going to be one. When you're trapped in despair, you can only think about yourself and "the right now" in front of you, the now that you're sinking in. But it's amazing what love—God’s love brought to us through the care and generosity of others-- can do-- even – especially – in the face of hopelessness and despair.

            Out of love, Naomi finds herself saying what mothers have said to their daughters through the centuries: "We need to find you a man."  How many single young women in college or  grad school or pursuing careers, or simply  more interested in books or other things in life rather than in cooking, have had their mom say something like “So honey, are you seeing anybody?” 

            “Mom I just got my PhD and have been offered a tenure-track professorship at Northwestern.”

            “That’s great honey. I’m proud of you. So are you seeing anyone?” Bless their heart, moms are still concerned about their children’s  future, no matter how old they get.

            Things hadn't changed that much in several thousand years. In Naomi and Ruth's day, the only safety net that society provided for widows was requiring a man to marry the widow of his dead relative in order to inherit her dowry. And  guess what! Boaz is that next-of-kin candidate for Ruth.  Just for dramatic license, it happens that there’s another available male kin who’s actually more closely related, but unwilling to take on a foreign wife and a crosspatch of a mother-in-law, he bows out.

            So, in the midst of this patriarchal system and this situation she finds herself and Ruth in, Naomi is perking up and taking the initiative. She plays match maker and sends Ruth out to snag her cousin-in-law at the after harvest party—I love that this part of the story is included in the reading:

            “Take a bath. Fix your hair. Put on your best dress. Wait until he’s full of food and had a couple of drinks and in a good mood and then go get him girl friend! Catch him in a dark corner. If you don’t know what to do then, honey, trust me, he will.”

            And that’s exactly what does happen. Boaz’s admiration for Ruth blossoms into love and he does indeed buy Naomi’s field,  stepping up to his responsibilities to the two widows.  When we hear that Ruth and Boaz eventually marry and have a child, that alone would be a happy ending, but Wait!  There's still more, a twist that's too wonderful for us to have imagined.

         When Naomi’s well-wishing friends, the women of the village, joyfully place her new born grandson in her lap, the old woman’s life has indeed been transformed and her spirit has been renewed and sanctified. And the twist is that the baby, the son of a pagan foreigner, will be the grandfather of David, the greatest king in all of Israel, and, we Christians say, the ancestor of Jesus himself!

            Little Obed, the grandson of Naomi the-no-longer-bitter, represents God working to bring good out of loss, redemption out of despair, new life out of death-- using human love. Little Obed  represents hope, for the future, not just for this old woman and her daughter-in-law, but for all Israel itself, and for us, today.

            That’s what I call a great love story—on more than one level

            Remember Ruth’s pledge of faithfulness to Naomi?

"Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go, where you lodge, I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God…."

            We hear often hear that passage at weddings.  And that’s appropriate because it’s a pledge of love and faithfulness.. But marriage is not the only way that love is expressed in this life.  Ruth and Naomi, Naomi and the women of the village, Ruth and Boaz, Naomi and little Obed, God and all of them. It's amazing what love can do!      

            If it’s  true that love can do amazing things, and God works behind the scenes of life then in a certain sense, generosity is the way we make that love real-- generosity with our time, our talents, our money, our hearts, our selves, our love.

            Generosity inspired Ruth to follow Naomi, to give her loyalty and love even when Naomi was cranky and mean. Generosity inspired Boaz to make sure the two widows had more than enough grain to live on. Generosity inspired the other village women to rejoice at Naomi's blessing of a daughter-in-law who was more to her than seven sons. The depth of concern and care that Ruth and Naomi and Boaz (and the village around them) had for one another is the kind of concern and care that builds churches, communities, and a better world.

            It’s amazing what God can do through our love and generosity. In every church I’ve served there have been those going through a difficult time in life, and yet they always  knew, despite all the challenges that they were not alone. Their  church family was walking beside them,  loving them every step of the way, helping out in every way they could.

            Even in the midst of grief, or illness, or hard times, or disputes everyone of those saints could say:  this is the place where I'm known, This is the place where I’m accepted. This is the place where I’m loved.

         Those quiet, almost invisible everyday saints who do the most for all of us through their faithful ministry in the church, inevitably will end up discovering their own hearts filled with gratitude for what God was doing for them  there, in their own beloved  community of faith.

            And it is here in the church, where we nurture the vision of a better world, where we work together to bring it to reality, to live out the gospel ideal of the beloved community. The church is where we renew our spirits, and receive love, and hear God's call.  It is the church where the work of God in this world begins. The church is the body of Christ in the world. The church is you.. and me.

            Our God is an awesome God of abundance and generosity, not a God of scarcity and fear. Scarcity happens when we don't trust in God's abundance and generosity, when we think that “we”– not our community, and certainly not God – are the source of our own security.

Scarcity happens when we refuse ton risk, to go into the unknown future—like Orpah.

Scarcity happens when we lose hope and turn inward toward ourselves and forget about the future, when we turn back, and give up, instead of facing the future with steadfast faith in God's generosity.        

            Scarcity happens when we think that we’re in charge and responsible for managing God’s realm on a human basis of profit and loss, income and outgo—rather than trusting God to provide and opening ourselves to the possibility of generosity based on the joy of giving rather than numbers and spreadsheets.  Scarcity happens when we keep on doing the same old things in the same old way—and expect a different result. Scarcity happens when we fail to notice and appreciate the abundance right before our eyes, here in the love and care of this church, like Ruth standing before Naomi, offering persistent, generous, undeterred love.

            I love the story of Ruth because the miracles in this story are "ordinary" ones – the miracles that happen when everyday, ordinary people like you and like me decide to open our hearts and our lives to others, when we firmly resolve to let nothing and nobody deter us from the dream of a better world. When we decide to trust the future to God instead of our own cunning plans and schemes and instead, jump into life, and ministry and love. Stubborn, faithful, undeterred love – it's a miracle, and you can see it every single day.

The Dali Lama

"Lazarus. Come Forth" given Nov. 1

             John tells us that Jesus had a friend named Lazarus. It’s only in this Gospel, only in this chapter that we meet Lazarus.  Oh, there are other stories about Mary and Martha, his sisters. We’ve met them before—as followers of our Lord, and as personifications of two different styles of Christian servanthood. And there’s Luke’s parable of Lazarus and the rich man.   But the real human being: Lazarus of Bethany, we haven’t met.

            John tells us that Jesus loved Lazarus. Apparently, rather than following Jesus around the countryside, Lazarus and his sisters remained in their home in the village of Bethany. There they provided a refuge for Jesus—a place to drop in when he was in the neighborhood, a place of retreat--what we would call today a support system

            There must have been a lot of love and laughter in that humble cottage. It must have been a place where Jesus could come, and brush the dust of travel off, and put his feet up. It must have been a place where Jesus could for a time relax, just be a man and a friend, and perhaps temporarily at least, lay down the burden of  being the Messiah.

         Here, Jesus could just be himself. Lazarus and his sisters were people Jesus  could share a joke with, have a meal with, laugh with, trusted freinds to whom he could unburden himself.  We all need someone like that in our lives. We all need a safe place where we can simply and honestly just be ourselves in our lives. I’d like to believe that Lazarus and Mary and Martha’s house must have been that place for Jesus. And I hope each of you has such a place.

            So when word came to Jesus of Lazarus’s illness, it  touched him deeply. But John tells us that Jesus did not immediately rush to his friend to heal him.

            For anyone of us to put off visiting a dear friend on his or her deathbed would be foolhardy. But for Jesus,  it became a unique and wonderful way to glorify God.  In order to have purposely waited like that, Jesus must have known with a certainty that you and I cannot even imagine that the Divine Power within in him could and would awaken Lazarus.

            In any case, when Jesus finally arrived in Bethany, he found the sisters so grief-stricken that they didn’t know what they were saying. With one breath, they reproved him for not having come in time to save their brother’s life. And with the next breath they proclaimed their faith in Jesus’ ability to still save Lazarus.

            Then, for the first and only time in the Gospels, our Lord broke down himself. “Jesus wept. It’s the shortest verse in the Bible.  Jesus wept for his friend, and for himself. He wept for the sisters, and for the world. He wept for Lazarus, and for all who stand beside an open grave, their souls filled with grief.

           Grief is important for us in this unfair, broken creation. It gives closure to sundered relationships. It helps us accept reality. It sweetens our memories. Its’ tears cleanse our spirits and allow healing to begin.

            For, just as he loved Lazarus, Jesus loves each of us.  As Messiah, and Son of God, Jesus knew with utter certainty that he had the power within him to save Lazarus. But as a man—as Jesus Bar-Joseph, Jesus grieved for his dead friend.

            Lazarus, whose very name literally means “helpless”, lay there in his tomb, completely bound in his shroud, bandages wrapped around his arms and legs, his eyes covered with stones, his mouth stuffed with cotton, a cloth surrounding his head.  Lazarus lay lifeless in that cave, a stone sealing him in with the stink of his own decay.

Lazarus, the friend of Jesus—was loved by Jesus.  Just as we today, are loved by Jesus.  When Jesus finally arrived at that hole in the ground, and found that friend he loved so much, he was also finding us.

After all, isn’t humanity pretty much in the same boat with Lazarus?  Aren’t we all just a heartbeat away from lying in our own graves, helpless, frustrated, bound, smelly, blind, deaf, decaying, full of maggots, and dead? Aren’t all, aren’t each of us continually either in the process of growing, or dying?

             So “Jesus wept.”  Perhaps Jesus wept for the endless futility of war upon war—wars that would all too often waged in his name. Jesus wept and perhaps lying in the future he saw Auschwitz and Dachau and Dresden and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Jesus wept, and as he wept, perhaps he saw the before him the countless stream of mothers and fathers weeping for their babies, dead of starvation, or violence, or neglect.

            Jesus wept for Lazarus and for Mary and Martha, and for the welfare mothers in Waukegan  and on the south and west sides of Chicago, for the families of KIAs and MIAs. Jesus wept for the prisoners of conscience and the refugees and for all the victims of genocide and discrimination and exploitation and terror yet to be born. 

Jesus wept for all those confined to cold institutions. Jesus wept for all the children growing up in shelters or on the streets. Jesus wept for the imprisoned and the enslaved, for the “undocumented” and the mentally Ill and mentally challenged, for the sick and infirm. Jesus wept for all the victims of AIDS and Cancer and other killing, crippling diseases, for the addicted and abused and lonely and lost.

Jesus wept for you, and Jesus wept for me. Jesus wept for a universe that as Paul says “groans like a woman in labor”, a broken and incomplete creation that for all of us must sometimes seem to echo with emptiness as we call out to God and appear to get no answer.

Then he arose. He wiped away his tears and walked to the edge of the tomb.

“Roll that stone away” he commanded.  But Martha protested, pointing out that Lazarus had been decaying in that cave for four days. The stench would be unbearable. “Lord, he stinketh” is the way she puts it in the King James Version

But Jesus commanded again. “Roll the stone away.” So they did.  They probably shook their heads and held their breath and grabbed their noses with their fingers.  They believed in Jesus, but after all, four days!

Then Jesus commanded. “Lazarus, come forth.”  And he did. But there was no stink. Just a dead man, who got up from his grave and walked out.  Lazarus was no longer bound, no longer sightless or deaf, no longer at a loss or helpless. No worms, no maggots, no stench, no longer dead—but resurrected—not only spiritually, but  physically. Not in heaven—not on the last day—but on that day, in that place on this earth, at that very moment—Lazarus was alive.

            And Jesus wants to do for us, for all of humankind, the very same thing.  Life—new life can be ours—in body as well as in spirit—beginning now—beginning here—beginning even at this very moment.  Jesus invites us to step out of the tomb of our everyday existence, to break the cords of fear and sin that bind our arms and legs, to take the stones of apathy and indifference from our eyes and spit out the cotton of prejudice and hate from our mouths.  Jesus invites us to heed his command, and like Lazarus to come forth, and turn and give ourselves to Him, live with Him, and in Him and  follow.

            We can do it, you know. The seeds of new life—of everyday sainthood lie within each of us. That’s what we were made for, after all. Genesis tells us we were made in God’s image.  That’s our nature, and that’s our call to His service.  To live our lives in harmony with our Maker’s will—to become disciples—to carry on His ministry—to grow into saints—to become resurrection people—to become beloved friends of Jesus. 

In the resurrection of Lazarus is the promise of new and abundant life for all humanity—now and in the life to come. It’s a promise offered to all of us—to you and to me. In the resurrection of Lazarus is the promise of our resurrection. 

.Few on this planet become high church saints in the sense of someone who has achieved extraordinary spiritual perfection, or a particularly high state of holiness than is apparent to other believers. But we all have it within us to become everyday saints in the New Testament sense—faithful believers gathered together in prayer and praise and service—going on toward perfection together in this life, and joyfully into whatever is yet to come.

If Jesus had only resurrected himself, we would still have cause to wonder at the sheer miracle of it and proclaim Him as Son of God.  But Jesus resurrected Lazarus first—even before his own Passion and Resurrection.  In that act, Jesus proved his love for us—and gave us cause to worship Him as our Savior and Redeemer. In that act, Jesus showed his ultimate power over sin and death. In that act, Jesus offered to anyone who believes the precious gift of life—abundant life—new life--sainthood—life now as well as in whatever reality lies beyond this plane of existence we cling so desperately to. And that gift is at the very heart of his Gospel.

 ”I am the Resurrection and the Life.”

The offer is there for each of us for us to reach out and take. And all that Jesus asks of us is our hearts—our selves—our total commitment—all that we have and are. 

“Follow me”, as He told the fishermen by the Lakeshore. As Peter and Andrew and James and John, as Mary and Martha and Lazarus came to know and love Jesus in their friendship with Him,  so we too can come to know and love Him as well--in honest and open sharing, in growing with those who love and support us, in the joy of our most intimate relationships.

As Lazarus encountered Him at the very edge of the grave, so too can we encounter our Savior in our lives—at our most profound moments of grief, in the realization of our fondest hopes, in our deepest inner searching and seeking. 
            Any time, any day, in our homes, in the workplace, in the classroom, the office our Redeemer’s touch can move and change us. But this time, this day, this morning in particular—you and I are invited to encounter Jesus here—in the Bread and the Cup..

Here at his Table, He offers himself openly to us. Here our sainthood is nurtured and empowered. Here, we are fed. Here, He offers us the strength to go on in our times of trial. Here, He offers grace sufficient for all our needs. Here, He offers us His abiding presence among us.  Here, our discipleship begins. Here, Our Lord’s promise of Abundant and Eternal life begins.

Here at the Table. Here in prayer. Here in communion with Him and united with one another and with all His people around the globe and down through the ages. Here—this is where you and I encounter Him and His redeeming love right now—as His saints have encountered Him for the past two thousand years. Amen.