"Fruit of the Vine"

Joshua J Sander
5/6/12
Fifth Sunday of Easter
“Fruit of the Vine”

Acts 8:26-40
John 15:1-8

Last week the Gospel of John provided us with a really good metaphor for our relationship with Jesus and with each other as Christians. We talked about how Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are his sheep. And we were challenged by the scripture to accept the others that Jesus brings into the fold as well as to follow in his example and become good shepherds ourselves.

This week we have another great metaphor for our relationship to Jesus and to one another. Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower… I am the vine, you are the branches.” I love this metaphor because it’s so… organic. Grape vines grow and climb and spread and send out these little branches that twist and entwine. It’s one of those mysterious things that happens so slowly that you can’t tell it’s happening when you’re watching, but when you turn your back for a while, suddenly it’s just everywhere.

Well in the grand scheme of things, that’s what healthy Christian communities are like. Everyone is all entwined together in communities that grow and spread and branch out into the world…

Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. This goes way beyond the idea of Jesus protecting his sheep, who hear his voice and follow him. If Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, then we are deeply, profoundly—I mean we are completely dependent on Jesus for life. I suppose it’s possible to have a branch all entwined with the other braches without it being attached to the vine any more, but that branch wouldn’t be getting any nutrients, right? It would die.

Now, of course I’m not saying that people who don’t believe in Jesus are zombies or something. But I do believe that Christian communities—and I mean churches, when I say that. I do believe that churches sometimes cut themselves off from the vine and wither and eventually die. And I believe that sometimes people withdraw from their churches in hurt or anger and they let that hurt and anger eat them up inside rather than working the problem out or finding a new church—and so they die inside a little.

Jesus said, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” I think it’s important to remember that if we really abide—I mean if we really eat, drink, breathe and live in Jesus—then we get all entwined with each other. We get all wrapped up in each other. We get so close to each other that it’s hard to tell where one branch ends and the other begins. I’m telling you that if you get close enough to Jesus, all the places where your brothers and sisters in Christ seem different simply don’t matter anymore.

One of my favorite examples of what I’m trying to tell you here is found in the Book of Acts. It’s the story we heard earlier this morning, where an angel went to Philip and said, "Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court treasurer of the queen of the Ethiopians.

Now, I have to ask, how many of you know what a eunuch is? Ok, how many of you know the difference between a stallion and a gelding? Ok, what you’re thinking right now? That’s right. If you’re lost, come ask me later.

So, this is important because in the ancient Jewish law—check out Deuteronomy 23:1 if you want to see for yourself—but in Jewish law eunuchs were not allowed to be admitted into the assembly of the LORD. Keep that in the back of your mind for a minute, I’ll come right back to it.

Now this eunuch had come to Jerusalem to worship and was riding home in his chariot. And as he was riding, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it." So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading and asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" The eunuch replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" So he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.

Now the passage he was reading says, "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth."

And the eunuch asked Philip, "Is Isaiah talking about himself, or someone else?" So Philip started with this scripture and proclaimed to the eunuch the good news about Jesus. Then they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look! What is to prevent me from being baptized?"

Well, Philip could have said to the eunuch, “Look, you seem like a nice enough guy, but you’re a eunuch, and there’s this one verse in Deuteronomy that says that eunuchs don’t get to be full members of the church. Sorry. You’re just too different.”

But then again, he’d just been teaching from Isaiah, which says, “thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”

In other words, Isaiah is saying that there are more important ways to please God than simply making babies, and if eunuchs do those things, they’ll be rewarded in other ways. Philip, of course, not only knew what Isaiah had to say about eunuchs, but also would have remembered the very core teachings of Jesus—that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. And that there is a second commandment which is similar—love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said that everything the Jewish law and all the prophets have to teach us is based on those two commandments.

Philip recognized that the eunuch was doing the things that please God. He recognized that the eunuch was his neighbor. And so when they come to the water and the eunuch asks if there’s anything to keep him from being baptized, Philip knows—he knows—that there’s absolutely nothing keeping that eunuch from being a good Christian. So they stop the chariot, and both of them go down into the water, and Philip baptizes the eunuch.

Jesus is the vine. Philip abides in Jesus. And now the eunuch abides in Jesus. They are both branches, even though they are very different in some very obvious ways. Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. Jesus said, “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit…”

Much fruit! Isn’t that exciting? I think that we all crave few things as much as we crave being fruitful. As uncomfortable as it is to preach about a eunuch, I have to admit that I want the kind of fruit Philip bore—one more member of the church gathered in, one more branch entwined with the vine—that’s good stuff right there.

I believe that we are blessed to be members of the United Church of Christ, because we can claim a great history of bearing some wonderful fruit. For example, did you know that Zion UCC of Allentown once saved the Liberty Bell? It’s true! During the American Revolution the British occupied Philadelphia and planned to melt the bell down to make cannon. But by the time they got to it the bell had been removed and hidden—under the floorboards of Zion Reformed Church in Allentown, which is now Zion UCC.

Or did you know that a Congregational minister named Joshua Leavitt was ordained at 1st Congregational Church of Stratford, Connecticut then went on to work for the freedom of the escaped slaves from the Amistad and edited the famous abolitionist newspaper The Emancipator?

Or did you know that the serenity prayer, “"God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other," came from a sermon given by Evangelical and Reformed theologian Reinhold Niebuhr?

Or did you know that the United Church of Christ once involved in Federal court case instigated by the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.? It’s true! Southern television stations imposed a news blackout on the civil rights movement, and Martin Luther King Jr. asked us to intervene. Everett Parker of the UCC’s Office of Communication organized churches and won a court ruling that the airwaves are public, not private property. That decision lead to a proliferation of people of color in television studios and newsrooms.

Now, I’m not telling you all these things because I’m a cheerleader for the United Church of Christ—although I suppose that’s true, too. I’m telling you these things because they seem like exciting good fruit to me.

Or let me put it the way Kathryn Matthews Huey, who is on the Congregational Vitality and Discipleship Ministry Team on the national level of the UCC, when she writes:

“The question for the church today is whether we find ourselves speaking and acting a word contrary to the "comfortable" within us and around us, where we face together, not alone, the forces arrayed against justice and mercy. What would happen if our congregations spent less time talking and worrying and working on our survival and more time on putting ourselves in the line of fire…”

Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. And when we abide in Jesus and Jesus abides in us we get in the line of fire to bear good fruit. Why? Because the best fruit is the fruit closest to the vine, where the nutrients are more concentrated. I’m trying to tell you that the closer we get to Jesus, the closer we get to God, as we live in Jesus and Jesus lives in us, then we end up wanting what God wants.

The truth is that on my own, I couldn’t accomplish much of anything. But Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. “This is really good news for us, no matter how much it flies in the face of everything we're told about success and measuring up. It's not up to us to dig deep down inside and make happen what needs to happen.” Together we can accomplish great things.

All we have to do is get closer to the vine.

Amen.

"I Just Wanna Be A Sheep"

Joshua J Sander
4/29/12
Fourth Sunday of Easter
“I Just Wanna Be A Sheep”

Acts 4:5-12
John 10:11-18

In case you hadn’t noticed, Emmi and I are animal lovers. We were both happy to introduce Samantha the Guinea Pig to you last week. Emmi grew up with a Golden Retriever. My family had a Great Dane. We hope to someday have a dog of our own. And as we’ve been finding our way around Biglerville we enjoy seeing the animals of the area: cows, horses, and yes, sheep. And so as I read today’s scripture lesson I realized that all of you are either responsible for the welfare of an animal or know someone who is. I’m not an Israeli shepherd, but when the smoke detector goes off in the middle of the night, rescuing our pet is one of our first thoughts. We may not all keep livestock, but on a very real level we can understand the metaphor that Jesus is using when he speaks of shepherds and sheep.

Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

The way I see it there are two important things to pull out of this metaphor. The first of these is that we are sheep. And honestly, with a good shepherd, being a sheep is a pretty good deal. The shepherd knows the sheep individually, and they know the shepherd. The shepherd calls the sheep by name and they follow the shepherd. And the shepherd protects the sheep from all kinds of danger: from thieves and bandits who come to steal and kill and destroy—from wolves who snatch and scatter.

We know that God knows what it like to be stolen and killed and destroyed—we know that God knows what it’s like to be snatched up by a wolf—because God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ and lived a human life and was tortured to death. This God is the Good Shepherd and he is the one who protects us… I don’t know about you, but I find that to be a very comforting thing.

But asserting that we are the Good Shepherd’s sheep begs a couple of questions. First, how well do we hear the voice of the Shepherd? It’s actually pretty easy to make an idol of the cross as the instrument of our salvation, to shout from the rooftops that Jesus died for our sins, to ask our neighbors if they’re born again and therefore saved—and forget all about the things that Jesus taught and lived. It is important to wonder What Would Jesus Do, but perhaps is would be more to the point to ask What Would Jesus Say?

I still say that it’s pretty comforting to be under the Shepherd’s protection. But it’s challenging, too. For one thing, there’s something kind of screwy about human nature. We all want to belong, but we have a tendency to get jealous as well. Put more simply, generally speaking, we all want to be members of the flock but we have difficulty playing well with others. Perhaps this is why Jesus takes the time to build a little warning into his sheep metaphor, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

The truth is that human psychology strongly resists change. We want our communities to grow and be healthy, but we want everything to stay just the way it’s always been—do you see the problem here? “I have other sheep… I must bring them also.” Have you ever wondered who the other sheep are? I mean, what if they’re really, really ‘other.’ I mean, what if they’re really, really different from what you’re used to? I’m not talking about unhealthy, disruptive, antagonistic influences—those really can scatter a flock. I’m talking about those other sheep that hear the voice of the Shepherd. We each need to look deep into our hearts and wrestle with the idea of bringing in those sheep. Every church has a sign that says, “All Are Welcome.” This congregation has the vision to be a spiritually strong multi-generational congregation that reaches out to all. So look into your hearts. Are you prepared to live out that vision? What does that vision mean to you? How do you hear the voice of the Shepherd? Don’t answer me now. Pray on it. Sleep on it. And when the Spirit moves you, come tell me about, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The second part of the metaphor we should pull out, is the idea of being the shepherd ourselves. As challenging as it is to be one of Christ’s sheep, I think that attempting to live Christ-like lives is an even greater challenge. Take the example of Peter in the New Testament reading this morning.

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

So Peter spoke to the people. He told them that their God, God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of their ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus. He told them that he was talking about the same Jesus that was handed over to Pilate, the same Jesus for whom the very same crowd had cried out “Crucify him!” He told them that he was talking about the very same Jesus who had died and was now resurrected. And then he told them that the man who had been lame from birth had been healed by faith in the name of Jesus. At which point the priests—who were responsible for handing Jesus over—and the Sadducees—who didn’t believe in any afterlife, including the resurrection of the dead—promptly arrested Peter and John.

The next day, the leaders, scribes, and elders—including Caiaphas, the very same Caiaphas who handed Jesus over to Pilate to be crucified—questioned them, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” And Peter had the audacity—I mean he had the sheer nerve—to tell them exactly in whose name and with what power they had healed that man. And Caiaphas and all the other big-wigs couldn’t do anything about it in the end because nobody could deny that healing the guy had been a powerful and good sign. I think that if I’d been standing before Caiaphas I would have been afraid that tossing that in his face would be the same thing as laying my life down, wouldn’t you? But Peter strove to be Christ-like. He stood up to Caiaphas and won.

I know it’s difficult to put yourself in Peter’s place, so I thought maybe I should share a more modern example of good Christian folk following Jesus’ example as the Good Shepherd. And to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have run across it if it weren’t for Yom HaShoah. Yom HaShoah was one of the most powerful and most important interfaith services I had the opportunity to participate in when I was serving in Stratford, Connecticut. You see, Yom HaShoah is the official Jewish holy day for the remembrance of the Holocaust.

So, what I ran across is the story of the ten Boom family, which is told in the book The Hiding Place which was later made into a film by the same name. Corrie, Betsie, and their father Casper lived in the Netherlands, in the town of Haarlem, where they owned and lived in a shop that sold and repaired watches. Then, in 1940, the Nazis invaded Holland.

Due to their strong Christian beliefs, they felt obligated to help their Jewish friends in every way possible. The shop soon became the center for a major anti-Nazi operation. Corrie, who thought of herself as a middle-aged spinster, was suddenly involved in black market operations, stealing ration cards, and eventually, hiding Jews in her own home. In fact, The Dutch underground arranged for a secret room to be built in the shop, so the Jews would have a place to hide in the event of a raid.

It was a constant struggle for the family to keep the Jews safe, they sacrificed their own safety and part of their own personal space to give constant safety to the Jews. One day a man asked Corrie to help his wife, who had been arrested and Corrie cautiously agreed. As it turned out, the man was a spy, and the watch shop was raided. The entire ten Boom family was arrested, along with the shop employees, but the Jews managed to hide themselves in the secret room.

Casper was well into his eighties by this time, and a Nazi official offered to let him go, provided he made no more trouble. Casper does not agree to this, and was shipped to prison where he died ten days later. Corrie and Betsie were sent to Scheveningen, a Dutch prison which was used by the Nazis for political prisoners. Everyone else was released and the Jews who had hidden in the secret room were safe.

After four months, Corrie and Betsie were transferred to Vught, a Dutch concentration camp for political prisoners. The work was not hard, and the prisoner-foreman was kind. Betsie, whose health was starting to fail, was sent to work sewing prison uniforms.

When a counter-offensive against the Nazis seemed imminent, the prisoners were shipped by train to Germany, where they were imprisoned at Ravensbrück, a notorious women's concentration camp. The conditions there were hellish and it was there that Betsie's health failed and she died. Corrie was later released due to a clerical error, which is how their story survived to be told.

Hear the words of Jesus: I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

As for me, I love being a sheep. And I strive to be a good shepherd. And I hope and pray that you do too. Because that’s what being a Christian is.

Please be with me in the spirit of prayer. Oh Loving Shepherd, we pray that you protect us from the bandits and thieves and wolves of the world. We pray that you continue to speak to us so that we may recognize your voice. And we pray that you help us to be better shepherds to our brothers and sisters as we do your work here on earth. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

"Anatomy"

Joshua J Sander
4/22/12
Third Sunday of Easter
First Sunday as Pastor of Trinity UCC, Biglerville
“Anatomy”

1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36-48

Jesus was dead. He died on a Friday. Can you imagine? This man, this friend, this mentor and teacher—this great, great man tortured to death on a Friday. Gone. Just gone. Where do you go after something like that? How do you go on after something like that? Can you imagine being one of his disciples in the aftermath, waiting out the Sabbath and asking each other, “Where do we go from here?” We know that some of the women stayed in Jerusalem to take care of Jesus body once the Sabbath—when nobody traveled or worked—was over. And we know that the very same day at least two of the disciples decided to travel to a little village about seven miles outside of Jerusalem called Emmaus. And as they walked together they were talking with each other about all the things that had happened.

While they were talking and discussing, a man started walking with them. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days? ’

He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. It’s only been three days. But now, some women of our group were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they didn’t see Jesus.’

Then the man told them that they were missing something huge—that in fact Jesus was the Messiah and therefore needed to suffer through all those things. Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about the Messiah in all the scriptures. And although they didn’t admit it to each other until after the fact, their hearts were burning within them while he was talking and opening the scriptures to them.

When they came close to Emmaus, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they insisted that he stay with them because it was almost evening. So he went inside. When they had dinner, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized that he was Jesus; and then, just like that *snap* he vanished. Well, they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. And the eleven said that Jesus had risen and had appeared to Simon. Then the two of them told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

It is while they are talking about these things that we get to today’s scripture reading, where Jesus stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." And they were all startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

Which is understandable, right? After all, Jesus was dead and had just appeared quite suddenly inside of a locked room. On the other hand, Jesus’ reaction, “Why are you frightened?” is also understandable—after all, they’d just been discussing the fact that Jesus had risen and appeared to the women that morning, and to Simon, and on the road to Emmaus.

Speaking of Emmaus, there has always been something very powerful to me about the idea of not recognizing Jesus. It is all too easy to forget that we were all made in God’s image, or as the author of I John puts it: See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. It is way easy to look at yourself and say, I’m too fat, I’m too skinny, I’m too tall or short or hairy or bald. It is way, way too easy to forget that you are a beautiful creation of the divine.

I hope I’m not the first person to say that to you. You are one of God’s most beautiful creations. I don’t know about you, but I frequently find it difficult to behave as if that’s true. We live in a society where only one or two kinds of bodies are uplifted as the ideal—and that leaves the rest of us out, doesn’t it? I’m never going to look like a movie star, so why should I bother with my appearance? I should bother because I was made in the image of God, just like you were. The only good and true response is for me to make it as healthy an image as I can make it. I don’t know about you, but for me that means keeping track of what I eat and exercising—two things that I admittedly struggle with.

It is just as easy to not recognize the image of God in our brothers and sisters. I don’t find that person attractive. I find that person’s personality to be obnoxious. That person does not share my views on sexuality. I don’t agree with that person’s politics. Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t evil in the world. It’s just that I don’t believe that people are inherently evil. There are people who do evil things—in fact some people seem to choose evil more frequently than they choose good. But I refuse to refer to them as evil people because that implies that they don’t have a choice. As much as it pains me to say it, even Hitler was created in God’s image and there must have been something good inside of him. If I were to say that Adolf Hitler was pure evil I would be saying that God made him for the purpose of causing genocide—and I don’t believe that.

But what really pains me is when we manage not to see the image of God in precisely the kinds of people that Jesus himself told us to: for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me… Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

When we feed the hungry, when we give something to drink to someone who’s thirsty, when we give someone clothes, when we take care of the sick, when we visit someone imprisoned—and I mean anything from criminal prison to elderly shut-ins—when we do these things it’s exactly like doing them to Jesus. That’s why I always find it so striking that the followers of Jesus do not recognize him. We all fail to recognize Jesus every day. Every day.

As for the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ sudden appearance *snap* “Peace be with you,” the Gospel writer goes to great lengths to describe all the ways Jesus proves to the his followers that he is not, in fact, a ghost, but rather a fully resurrected man with a transformed but still undeniably human body. You can’t put your hands on a ghost. You certainly can’t play with their wounds. And despite what a certain slimy green ghost did in that movie with Bill Murray, ghosts don’t eat food. Jesus clearly isn’t quite the same—after all, he seems to be able to appear and disappear at will—but he is also very clearly not a ghost.

Have you ever wondered why? Why resurrection, I mean, because God clearly could have sent visions of Jesus’ spirit to the disciples as proof of life after death, kind of like Obi-Wan Kenobi allowing Darth Vader to kill him with the promise, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” I know, I know, it’s a little silly to imagine the voice of Jesus echoing from beyond the grave and saying, “Use your faith, Peter.” But you get the idea—why not that instead of this whole rigmarole of having to prove that Jesus isn’t a ghost?

Well, the truth is that ever since the days of Plato we’ve been taught that there’s a physical realm and a spiritual realm and that the spiritual is the better of the two. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that in today’s day and age, we spend an awful lot of time in the physical and tend to neglect our spiritual selves—that there’s a balance to be had that we frequently have out of whack. I think that maybe that’s why the ways we get caught up in the physical realm are so unhealthy so much of the time—but that’s another sermon for another day. Let’s talk for a minute about the dangers of getting out of balance the other way—where only the spiritual matters and the physical isn’t important.

Martin Bell, an author and Episcopal priest, puts it this way:

Something like an eternity ago, human beings got all caught up in the illusion that being human is a relatively unimportant proposition. Here today—gone tomorrow. A vale of tears—that sort of foolishness. 

What’s more tragic, of course, is that in the wake of this basic error there quickly followed the idea that human beings are expendable, which easily degenerated into the proposition that some human beings are expendable. Really bad guys are expendable. Guys with low I.Q.’s are expendable. Any who disagrees with me is expendable. A long time ago, human beings got all caught up in the illusion that being human is a relatively unimportant sort of proposition.  

Well, that’s not true. It’s wrong. All wrong. And it has always been wrong. From the creation of the heavens and the earth, it has been—wrong. There is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one—absolutely no one—is expendable.  

Jesus was dead. He was dead and buried. It was expedient that he should be dead and buried. Caiaphas had explained that to himself and to others over and over again. It is expedient, he said, that one man should die for the sake of the people. Jesus is expendable. Caiaphas suffered from the illusion that being human is relatively unimportant. And so Jesus was dead.  

What happened then wasn’t so remarkable, really. God simply raised Jesus from the dead. He merely walked into the tomb that we call insignificance and absurdity, and meaninglessness, and other such names as that—he merely walked into this tomb and raised Jesus from the dead.  

There was nothing very spectacular or remarkable about this. God revealed himself to be the same God who created the heavens and the earth and called his creation good; the same God who led his people out of Egypt to be a light to the nations; the same God who affirmed David in his weakness; who called forth the prophets; who kindled the heart of John the Baptist; and who reached out to touch his tiny children in the person of Jesus Christ.  

God raised Jesus from the dead to the end that we should be clear—once and for all—that there is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one—absolutely no one—is expendable.

Please be with me in the spirit of prayer: God of ceaseless new beginnings, we rejoice that through your powerful love Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. In the resurrection you have shown that neither trouble nor persecution, hardship nor poverty, danger nor death can separate us from your love. Free us to trust in you that we may live in the confidence of your children.

In the resurrection you were victorious over sin, violence, and oppression. Free us to risk ourselves in the struggle for justice and peace that we may be your partners in restoring all creation to your will.

In the resurrection you have opened the gates of eternal life. Free us from the fear of death that we may serve you with courage.

In the resurrection you bring new possibilities out of hopeless situations. Free us from all despair that we may bring your hope to those who have lost heart.

Through the presence of Jesus Christ among us, draw us into a community of freedom, hope, and love. Work your new creation among us that we may serve you without fear.

God Most Holy, God Most Loving, God Most Knowing, we praise your name for ever; through Jesus our risen Christ and Savior.   Amen.

"All The Paths of God"

Joshua J Sander
2/26/12
First Sunday in Lent
Candidating Sermon at Trinity UCC, Biglerville PA
"All The Paths of God"

Psalm 25:1-10
Mark 1:9-15

Good morning!  I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I am to be here worshipping with you today.  I hope you’re excited, too.  And I recognize that it’s probably a little weird to have a new guy preaching and leading worship--after all, you don’t know me all that well yet.  It has been my experience, however, that there is a space between what the preacher thinks they’re saying and what each member of the congregation hears.  I believe that God uses that space no matter who is standing in the pulpit.  In fact, Mr. Rogers once referred to it as “The God Space” and it is my most sincere prayer that you find God working in that space this morning.

On the other hand, I do want to get to know all of you, and want you to get to know me.  So aside from trivia about Mr. Rogers, here are some things that like:  I like movies and television.  I like all kinds of games--card, board and video.  I like an extraordinarily varied amount of music.  I like to read poetry and fiction.

I love my wife.

And she and I share a love of words.

So it should come as no surprise that one of my favorite parts of the Bible is the Book of Psalms.  The word Psalm comes from a Greek word, “Ψαλμοί” (Psalmoi), which literally means “songs sung to a harp.”  The songs we find in the Book of Psalms are both songs and prayers and can be read as poetry, just like any song lyrics can.  I know that “Bang a Drum” has probably never been sung to a harp, but I still think that it’s a modern Psalm.  I bet that if you stop and think about it for a while, you’ll find that some of the music you listen to might also be a modern Psalm--and if you think of some, I’d love to hear what they are!

But there’s more to my love of the Psalms than just the fact that they’re songs and prayers and poems all rolled into one thing.  I also love the Psalms because they show us that the ancient Hebrew people struggled with the same big God questions that we do.  There are Psalms of thanksgiving, Psalms that praise God, and lots and lots of Psalms of Lament.  We don’t use the word “lament” much in our everyday language anymore, and when we do we usually mean “sad” or “in mourning.”  But laments are really much more than that--they are a way of expressing much bigger emotion.

When I was a child there was a playground song that went, “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I guess I’ll go eat worms!”  And that’s a lament.  When something happens that’s so bad that all you can say is, “How could this happen?” that’s a lament.    When Jesus is dying on the cross and he says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” that’s a lament.  In fact, Jesus is quoting the opening verse of Psalm 22, which is about persecution as well as the mercy and salvation of God.  The Psalm for today, Psalm 25, is another good example of one which both laments persecution and uplifts the goodness of God.

We’ve already heard the first half of Psalm 25, the rest of it goes:

For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.  Who are they that fear the Lord?  He will teach them the way that they should choose.  /  They will abide in prosperity, and their children shall possess the land.  The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes his covenant known to them.  My eyes are ever towards the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.  /  Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.  Relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress.  Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.  /  Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me.  O guard my life, and deliver me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.  May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.  /  Redeem Israel, O God, out of all its troubles.

If you think about it, this Psalm is all over the place.  It bounces from “save me and punish them” to “you’re so good and I’m not, please forgive me and teach me to be good.”  It ricochets from “all God’s paths are steadfast love and faithfulness” and “God will reward us” back to “forgive all my sins” and “Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me.”

Yup, this Psalm is all over the place, and honestly that’s one of the reasons I love it.  Because I know that I’ve had days when it felt like the world was out to get me.  I’ve had days where it felt like I could do nothing right.  I’ve even had days where I felt like I must have done something to deserve the trouble I was having.  And I found it comforting to know that whatever I was feeling, the Psalmist has felt it, too.  Not only did the Psalmist feel it, but they made it into a song--and then they prayed it.  And then it was written down.  And then it became Jewish scripture.  And then Christian scripture.

Think about it this way.  There are places in the Psalms where the Psalmist says really horrible things to God.  And they didn’t get punished.  Far from it!  Their words got recorded in the Bible!  And if they can say those things to God, there’s nothing we can’t pray.  In fact there’s no wrong way to pray.  “If you want to tell him somethin’ you ain’t got to fold your hands, just say it with your heart, your soul, and believe it, and I’ll say ‘Amen.’”

On the other hand, prayer is a conversation.  It’s a two way street.  You can say anything you want or need to say, but it’s only fair if you listen to the answers as well.  When I read today’s Gospel lesson, one of the first things that strikes me is the way that Jesus listens.

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."  This message comes first and foremost:  You are my child.  I love you.  I’m proud of you.

And this message is accompanied by the image of a dove.  Today the dove is a symbol of peace and has been for so long that sometimes we forget why.  The symbol goes back to the story of Noah and the ark.  The dove is peace, yes, but it is the peace that follows a great and terrible storm.  It is the peace of flood waters receding after the destruction is done but before the rainbow covenant to never destroy us with water again.

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.  Jesus is Baptized and then he spends forty days and nights in the wilderness fasting and praying.  Why?  Because the Spirit drove him there.  The whole thing is pretty awe-inspiring.  I imagine that seeing the heavens literally torn apart so the Holy Spirit can fall on you and force you out into the wilderness with nothing but your wet clothes on your back would be--overwhelming at least.

So I find it easy to imagine Jesus in the wilderness, having a long and intense conversation with the Spirit of God about what Jesus was supposed to be doing with his life.  Hopefully we all know enough of the story of Jesus’ life and teachings to know that it wasn’t at all easy.

What the Spirit was insisting that Jesus do was going to be hard and often thankless work.  Not only that, but it would be violently opposed by both the religious and secular authorities of the day.  It was going to hurt.  Worse than we can imagine.  So yes.  Jesus must have been tempted to run in the other direction--to just go home and quietly do carpentry, start a family, have a normal Jewish life.  It’s almost exactly like the image of having Satan on one shoulder and an angel on the other giving you the pros and cons of both sides of the choice you have to make.  And of course, the angel wins out in the end.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."  Jesus emerges from his time of fasting and prayer with a new message from God.  The Kingdom of God is nearly here.  Repent and believe.  The word “repent” literally means “to turn around and go in the opposite direction.”  It’s what you do when you figure out that you’ve been going exactly the wrong way.  After all, it’s better to go in the direction God teaches us:  All the paths of God are steadfast love and faithfulness.

So how do you know when you’ve stepped off the path?  Once again, Jesus is the example to look toward.  Jesus didn’t stop praying after that first trip into the wilderness.  He made time and space for prayer throughout his life--it’s mentioned over and over again in the Gospels.  I know that it’s easy to let your prayer life slide as you go about your busy lives.  But there are so many kinds of prayer.  I’m officially challenging all of us to find one--or two, or three--that work for you.  Tell God whatever you want or need.  And then take the time to listen for the Spirit.

How will you know when you’re hearing the Spirit?  The Spirit is insistent.  The Spirit forces you into uncomfortable places, places that stand outside of society.  And it is all too easy to succumb to the temptation to do, well, anything else besides what the Spirit is insisting that we do.  And if we’re honest, we already know what those things are.  Deep in our hearts we know what steadfast love and faithfulness is.  We have examples of humans with all their failings puzzling it out in the Biblical witness.  We have the life and teachings of Jesus.

So let me say it again:  I’m challenging all of us to sing songs, to write Psalms, to say words given to us from long ago or merely yesterday.  I’m challenging us to talk with God out loud or in our own heads or to simply bang a drum.  I’m challenging us to tell God whatever we want or need to in whatever language comes easiest to us.  And I’m challenging us to listen, always listen, because the Spirit is speaking to us.  And once we’ve heard what the Spirit is saying, I’m challenging us to repent, to turn around and go in the new direction we’ve been shown, and believe in the Good News.  Amen.  And amen.

"Known"

Joshua J Sander
1/15/12
Second Sunday after Epiphany—Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Neutral Pulpit at Zwingli, East Berlin, PA
"Known"

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
John 1:43-51

Good morning! Instead of jumping directly into today’s Scripture I thought it would be appropriate to acknowledge that things are a little out of the norm this this morning. I am a guest in this pulpit today and that means a couple of important things: first, it means that I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to preach for all of you and secondly it means that you don’t know me yet. So let me see if I can put you a little bit more at ease. I am Rev. Josh Sander. I grew up in Connecticut. I have a BA in Philosophy and Religion from Culver-Stockton College and I went to Seminary at Andover Newton Theological School. I love reading and creative writing and my personal heroes are Jim Henson and the most successful televangelist of all time: a Methodist minister known to the world simply as Mr. Rogers.

The good Reverend Fred Rogers once referred to a space that lies between what the preacher is saying and what the congregation hears as “The God Space” and it is my most sincere prayer that you find God working in that space this morning.

Psalm 139 reminds me of a story that circulates the internet every so often. As the story goes, the children at a Catholic elementary school were lined up for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples.  A nun made a note, and put it on the apple tray, "Take only ONE. God is watching." As the children moved further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. A child had written a note, “Take all you want. God is watching the apples.”

Now, I for one believe that God is more interested in watching the children than the food. But that story still reminds me of today’s Psalm because it’s so easy to read it as if God were a scary, all seeing combination of Santa Clause and a hall monitor: He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He saw that bad thing you did and boy, are you in trouble because you can run but you can. Not. Hide.

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? 
If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”

Despite the kind of creepy overtones of the inescapable God, Psalm 139 is one of my all time favorite Psalms. And there’s a strong argument that I like Psalm 139 so much because of Mr. Rogers. I’m one of the two generations or so who grew up watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and in the midst of traveling by Trolley to the Land of Make Believe or visiting with a concert pianist or a crayon factory I was learning that making mistakes is a part of learning and that I make the day more special just by being me and--most importantly--that God loves me just the way I am.

When it hits you that God knows you better than anyone else, that God knows all your dirty little secrets and loves you anyway this Psalm suddenly becomes a whole lot less creepy. When you realize that God loves you unconditionally, it suddenly becomes okay that you can’t get away from God. Even if you make mistakes, even if you decide to take those extra cookies, even in those times when you don’t particularly deserve it, God loves you. And nothing--absolutely nothing--can separate you from the love of God. Knowing this truth is an amazingly powerful thing. In fact, this special truth has it’s very own word: it’s called “Grace.”

I can’t begin to tell you how tempting it is to make this one of the shortest sermons of all time and just leave us here, basking in the Grace of God’s love. But it’s just not enough. It’s not enough because it is possible to respond to Grace poorly. Luckily we have plenty of examples of how we should respond to the fact of God’s unconditional love. One of these examples is the story of how Jesus called the Apostle Nathanael to follow him.

The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." Then Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found the man that the law of Moses and the prophets wrote about. It is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth."

"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" replied Nathanael. Philip said, "Come and see." When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said, "Here comes a truly honest Israelite!" "Where did you get to know me?" Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you." Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"

I think that this may be the least flashy miracle Jesus performs in the Gospel, and yet if feels the most Godlike to me. When Jesus sees Nathanael coming and says, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” he is referring to what Nathanael had said about nothing good coming from Nazareth. Jesus overhearing that conversation is a little bit like if there were two guys standing on a street corner. One guy says to the other guy, “I hate Pittsburgh. I hate it so much. There’s absolutely nothing good about Pittsburgh.” Then he turns around and sees a third guy standing there in a Steelers jersey.

So in the Gospel story, Nathanael is the guy bad-mouthing Pittsburgh and Jesus is the guy standing behind him in a Steelers jersey. But Jesus doesn’t respond with hatred. Instead, he praises the man’s honesty. Why?

Think about it this way: any dabbler in the art of illusion can appear to see or hear something they couldn’t possibly have seen or heard. In fact, most simple card tricks create that effect. But what Jesus is doing here isn’t a trick, it’s an actual miracle. He didn’t simply overhear Nathanael talking underneath a fig tree--he searched him and knew him. Before the words were even formed on Nathanael’s tongue Jesus knew what he was going to say. And even knowing that Nathanael would say those unkind words, Jesus loved him anyway. Faced with these truths, Nathanael chooses to respond by saying, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" and then he follows Jesus.

So what does that mean for us, today? What does it mean for us to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the King of Israel? What does it mean for us to follow the teaching and the example of Jesus in the year of 2012? Well, those are big questions that go beyond the scope of one sermon. Those very questions are a big part of why we come to worship together and learn together every week instead of once or twice a year. But I can give you an example of how Grace works when we show it to one another.

Mental Floss Magazine writes, “According to a TV Guide profile, Fred Rogers drove a plain old Impala for years. One day, however, the car was stolen from the street near the TV station. When Rogers filed a police report, the story was picked up by every newspaper, radio and media outlet around town. Amazingly, within 48 hours the car was left in the exact spot where it was taken from, with an apology on the dashboard. It read, “‘If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it.’”

Now, even though this story has been widely reported, nobody seems to be sure if it ever happened. Or if it did happen, that it happened quite like the story. I for one have no problem believing, however, that a car thief would have no trouble stealing a stranger’s car but think twice about making off with Mr. Rogers’ Impala. I’ve never known a car thief personally, but I suspect that there aren’t a lot of people crowding around to tell them how special they are, or that God loves them. But Mr. Rogers did.

Yes. I believe that this could have happened. And you don’t even have to try to fill Mr. Rogers shoes to make it happen. You can simply emulate Julio Diaz. According to a National Public Radio interview in 2008, the 31-year-old social worker habitually ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner. But one February night as Julio was walking toward the stairs from the nearly empty platform, a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife. He wanted Julio’s money, so he just gave the boy his wallet and told him, “Here you go."

But then, as the teen began to walk away, Julio told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim and asked, “Why are you doing this?'"

Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me... hey, you're more than welcome.” So Julio and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

The manager came by, the dishwashers came by, the waiters came by to say “Hi” and the teen said “You know everybody here. Do you own this place?"

"No, I just eat here a lot," Julio says he told the teen. “But you're even nice to the dishwasher." the teen replied. "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?" "Yeah, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way," the teen said.

When the bill arrived, Julio told the teen, "Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you."

The teen "didn't even think about it" and returned the wallet. Then Julio gave the teen twenty dollars... in return for the teen's knife.

I’d like to leave all of us, myself included, with some difficult challenges. When life is difficult to bear, take comfort in the fact that God knows you and loves you just the way you are--and nothing can separate you from God’s love. I know that there are times when it doesn’t seem that way, but it’s still true. By the same token, when the people around you--and I’m including the folk you see on TV and whose words you read on the internet--when other people are being unloveable we should remember that God knows them and loves them for who they are, too. And finally, knowing that God has given you Grace, show Grace to everyone you meet.

"He's Everywhere!"

Joshua J Sander
7/17/11
5th Sunday after Pentecost—16th in Ordinary Time
Pulpit Supply at Olivet Congregational Church
"He's Everywhere!"

Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24

Have you ever spent any significant time digging around through the Psalms? Maybe it’s because I’m something of a poet myself, but I love the Psalms--there’s so much good stuff in there--beauty and tragedy, victory and strife--it’s all in there.

From “Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth / Worship the Lord with gladness,” to “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?” From “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog” to “I hear the whispering of many--terror all around!--as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.” It’s all in the Psalms.

But I have to admit that today’s scripture lesson is quite possibly my very favorite Psalm. “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the shadows shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the night is not without light to you; the night is as bright as the day, for night is as light to you.”

Absolutely beautiful! Unless you think about it for too long, and then it gets kind of creepy, right? The Inescapable God! Sometimes it feels a little bit like when an old high school buddy of mine put a photograph up on the wall opposite his toilet with the caption “Jeff Goldblum Is Watching You” underneath.

Or worse, it’s kind of like something I noticed in the Halo video game series. Sometimes, as the sci-fi war hero charges the enemy lines, the alien Grunts break rank and flee--and every once in a while you can hear one cry out in terror, “He’s everywhere!”

Fortunately, we are not members of an alien alliance at war with humanity, God is not a cybernetically enhanced super-soldier in SPARTAN-II armor, and life is not a video game.

You see, the other point that Psalm 139 makes is that God knows us intimately. “O God, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O God, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.”

People are often frightened to let themselves be known so completely. Letting somebody know who you really are leaves you open to being hurt. But when I stop to think about the people who have known me the best--the people I could always talk to, the people I could go to for honest advice, the people I could expect help from--I wind up reliving a lot of very good memories.

Many of those memories are centered around Silver Lake. In fact, Silver Lake Conference Center is well loved by many generations of people because it has always been a place where folk felt comfortable revealing their true selves without fear of getting hurt.

Once, when I was a conferee at Silver Lake, I was standing around with several other youth talking about how great it is to be in such a safe place, a place where we could truly be ourselves, when one of our counselors joined the conversation. Instead of simply agreeing with us, she gave us a challenge--figure out a way to bring that Silver Lake Feeling with us out into the real world.

I think I know what to do to accomplish that--and even though it’s simple, it isn’t always easy. We need to recognize that God knows us and loves us completely and that God is everywhere.

God has searched us and knows us. God knows when we sit down and when we rise up; God knows our thoughts from far away. God searches out our path and knows where we’re going to sleep tonight. God is acquainted with all our ways. Even before we can say a single word, God knows it completely. God knows everything about us, good and bad, and loves us anyway. And we can always talk to God, always go to God for advice, always expect help from God--because God is always there. God is everywhere. And I don’t just mean in you and me--although I do mean that. And I don’t just mean at Silver Lake and in rainbows and butterflies--although God is surely there also.

I’m telling you that if you really look and listen and pay attention, that God is in EVERYTHING--a pair of sneakers, a video game, a pocketful of change, a professional wrestler, a song on the radio--

Here, let’s use a song on the radio as an example. I’m going to play a song for you by the Dixie Chicks. The words are in your bulletin, if you want to follow along. Actually, I’m going to end up playing it twice, so don’t get too hung up on getting all of it the first time through.

On this first listen, I want you to pretend that you aren’t in church--you’re wherever you might be listening to the radio--in your car stuck in a traffic jam, laying on the beach--just a normal day and this is a song on the radio...



On an average, normal day, what would be your first impression of what the song is about?

Ok, now, on this second listen through, I want you imagine that the Dixie Chicks are actually prophets or angels--messengers from God with an important message just for you. In other words, I want you to imagine that God is speaking the words that they are singing.



Do you see what I mean? Do you see how much better life can be when you start looking for God outside of this building? Because God is everywhere. And God does know you. And God loves you very much. Don’t worry about it if people think you’re a little crazy when you start seeing God in George the Animal Steele and Dixie Chicks tunes.

God will be there although you might not see God--it's never easy for God to get through to us when we aren’t listening--but when the laughter dies away, then God will take care of you.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

"The Beast"

Joshua J Sander
7/10/11
4th Sunday after Pentecost—15th in Ordinary Time
Pulpit Supply at Olivet Congregational Church
"The Beast"

Genesis 25:19-34

When I was a child, my brother Matthew and I would wake up on Saturday mornings and camp out in front of the television. I have a lot of hazy memories of short-lived cartoons. And I have some very distinct memories--like eating Pillsbury cinnamon rolls in front of “The Smurfs” and my Mom interrupting the WWF broadcast to make us promise never to try what we were seeing on each other. “They know how to do that stuff without killing each other,” she insisted, “I never want to see you doing any of that.”

Even though that moment was a little bit like learning how, exactly, Penn & Teller forced you to pick the Three of Clubs, it didn’t stop Matthew and I from enjoying watching Hulk Hogan, and Randy Savage, and Tito Santana and all those guys wrasslin’ on Saturday mornings. And one of our favorites to watch was George “The Animal” Steele.

“The Animal” had a bald head and a clean-shaven face, but the rest of his body was completely covered in hair. He somehow dyed his tongue green--which we know because it was frequently hanging out of his mouth as he stalked around the ring. And our very favorite part was his finish--where he would tear the turnbuckle cover open with his teeth and strew the stuffing around the ring before bashing his opponent’s face into the exposed turnbuckle!

I have to admit that when I read about Jacob and Esau, my brain immediately jumps to George “The Animal” Steel ripping open the turnbuckle cover with his teeth. And there’s probably some good reasons for that. The text says that when Rebekah’s time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first came out red, and his entire body looked like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau. Esau means “Hair,” but like the hair of a goat--fur if you will. Afterwards his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob, which means “Heel Snake.”

So not only is Esau hairy like a beast from birth--in fact, Jacob uses a goat skin to trick their father Isaac into giving him the dying blessing intended for Esau, but that’s later in the story--not only is Esau literally hairy, but he was also named something like “Beasthair.” And I’ll admit that I’m a little superstitious about how children live up to their names. I have a second cousin once removed named Maverick. I’ve never met him, but the only thing I know about him is that he once got in trouble for pulling down a ceiling fan while trying to hang from it. On the other hand, that sounds like something I might have tried as a child--so let’s go back to the text and see what kind of a beast Esau turns out to be.

When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents. Well, here Esau sounds like a real Good Ol’ Boy. I’ve known my share of Good Ol’ Boys. Some of them are pretty cool. Others really do behave like animals.

Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. Esau said to Jacob, "Gimme some of that red stuff, I’m starving!" But Jacob replies, “First sell me your birthright."

Well, just like any story, we could see both sides of this. It’s actually kind of interesting, my wife immediately sees it from Esau’s perspective--just imagine you’ve been out working in the sun, hunting for food to put on the table. You’re hot. You’re tired. You’re really, really hungry. You drag yourself home and there’s the wonderful smell of fresh baked bread and lentil stew--Mmmmm! Gimme some of that! Only to have your brother say, “Huh-uh, not so fast, you have something I want...” The little schemer.

I always find myself seeing things from Jacob’s perspective. Gentle and good--but gentle and good rarely go hand in hand with popularity. No-no, you have to be a bit of a beast to be popular around here. You’ve been slaving over a hot stove, baking bread, cooking stew--with no meat in it, by the way, the mighty hunter has not lifted a finger to help you, when in he rolls with his green tongue hanging out and bits of turnbuckle padding in his chest hair and grunts out, “Gimmie some of that red stuff!” Neanderthal.

In all honesty, I’m not in love with either character at this point in the story. Neither of them is completely in the right--neither completely wrong. Esau said, "I’m about to die; what good is a birthright to me?" Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

I think that last sentence is where the crux of the matter is. “Thus Esau despised his birthright.” The word “despised” seems awfully strong to describe someone essentially behaving like a teenage boy, “Whatever, I’m hungry.” But what if his birthright is something more important than a physical inheritance when his father dies? I think that there must be something more to this story than a moment of hungry weakness.

It becomes more and more clear that God favors Jacob over Esau as their story progresses. Jacob steals the dying blessing of their father from Esau, so Esau vows to wait until Isaac has died and then kill Jacob. But word gets back to Rebekah, who sends Jacob off. While in hiding from Esau, Jacob sees the vision of the ladder going up to heaven, gets married, makes his fortune and more enemies before returning home.

Meanwhile, Esau stays at home and gets married--but even that has the taint of vengeance all over it. He intentionally marries a Canaanite woman because he knows it’ll anger Isaac. Esau let’s himself be ruled by his passions--hunger, rage, vengeance--like a beast. Perhaps that’s what the text means when it says that Esau despises his birthright.

Think about it. What are birthrights? What rights do we all have, universally, and based on the simple fact of our birth? Today we refer to these as human rights, and most of us ascribe to the 27 outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations on December 10, 1948.

Politicians and philosophers are still arguing over what human rights are, how they work, and whether a specific right actually qualifies. I believe that those kinds of arguments are necessary and important--and beyond the scope of this sermon. So let us not miss the forest for the trees. What we know in our hearts, what politicians and philosophers struggle to describe in detail, is that when those rights are violated we descend into the realm of inhumanity. People are treated like animals. And people behave as if they were beasts. The best positive description of the point I’m trying to make comes from an Episcopalian priest named Martin Bell, who writes:

“Something like an eternity ago, human beings got all caught up in the illusion that being human is a relatively unimportant sort of proposition... What’s more tragic, of course, is that in the wake of this basic error there quickly followed the idea that human beings are expendable, which easily degenerated into the proposition that some human beings are expendable. Really bad guys... Guys with low I.Q.’s... Anyone who disagrees with me... Well, that’s not true. It’s wrong. All wrong. And it has always been wrong. From the creation of the heavens and the earth, it has been--wrong. There is nothing more important than being human... God raised Jesus from the dead to the end that we should be clear--once and for all--that there is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one--absolutely no one--is expendable.”

I think that is your birthright. And it is not something to despise.

But I bet you’re wondering if Esau ever learned that lesson. As Jacob drew closer to home, he sent out messengers to tell Esau that he had been living a life of exile, that he had made his fortune, and that he was coming home. The messengers returned with the news that Esau was riding out to meet Jacob with four hundred men.

So, fearing for his life and the life of his people, he split his people and his belongings into two groups, so at least half of them would have a fighting chance to escape his brother’s wrath. Then he sends out an extravagant “please don’t kill us” gift to Esau. And then, finding himself alone, he has that famous wrestling match with the angel who puts his hip out of place and renames him Israel.

So limping, fearful, and blessed by an angel, Jacob finally comes face to face with his brother Esau. And Esau strides up to him and--hugs him. And tries to refuse the “don’t kill me gift.” But of course Jacob insists--and so what could have been a blood bath turns instead into what it looks like when my father argues with a house guest over who gets to pick up the check in a restaurant.

The text does not tell us why or how Esau was changed. And maybe it’s not important. Maybe it’s enough to notice that when Esau stopped behaving like a starving, wounded beast all manner of good things fell into place. Simply being human is enough of a birthright. There is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one--absolutely no one--is expendable.

That is your birthright. And your neighbor’s birthright. Do not despise it.

Thanks be to God. Amen.