You can make a difference

Pentecost 11a

August 24, 2014

Exodus 1:8-2:10

We’ve seen this movie before. It doesn’t end well.  In 1830, the congress of the United States of America passed the Indian Removal Act, which decreed that members of the five Native American tribes which did not wish to assimilate into current culture, would be removed from their homeland and relocated to land west of the Mississippi.  The act was passed under pressure from those who wished to settle the lands held by those tribes.  Thousands of Native Americans died on what is now known as the Trail of Tears.   In 1930’s Adolf Hitler rose to power on a platform which would come to include a systematic genocide of the Jewish people.  The Jews, Hitler argued, were the reason that Germany had been unsuccessful in WWI and they were also to blame for the economic collapse of Germany that followed.  It only makes sense to rid the Reich of that enemy. 

If we can only get rid of this group or that group, we can get what we want. If you blame them for long enough, others will think there is something wrong with them and then they will rally with us against them.  They’re lazy, they carry diseases, they are driving the value of homes in our community down, they want to take our jobs, they are ruining this country, if we don’t get rid of them, they will ruin our economy again and we won’t ever get it fixed. 

The movie I am referring to is called Scapegoat…so named for the ancient practice of symbolically placing the sins of a community onto a sheep, but usually a goat, and then sacrificing that goat in order to satisfy the anger of the gods.  We can usually tell scapegoating is going to occur when the us vs. them language occurs…and experience tells us that it usually doesn’t end well.

Those Hebrews are getting too many in number, worried a paranoid Pharaoh in today’s version of the movie.  Forgetting their shared history with Joseph having saved the Egyptians from the famine and the then Pharaoh welcoming Joseph’s family as honored guests in their land about 400 years earlier, this Pharaoh now saw the ancient Israelites as possible terrorists.  If one person caused an uprising, he worried, those Hebrews would outnumber us Egyptians and certainly overtake us. So persecute them…enslave them, he said, but the Hebrews just kept increasing in number.  The more they were persecuted, the more babies they seemed to have. 

Under further stress of a growing Hebrew population, his new solution was simple, kill the male newborns.  A generation without members of the male gender would render this Hebrew threat powerless quickly. 

Little did he know that one act of civil disobedience performed by four women would have the power to change history. 

The midwives, Shiphrah and Puah ignored Pharaoh’s order to kill the male babies, playing off of Pharaoh’s own paranoia and prejudices about those Hebrew women, informing Pharaoh that these women were much different in childbirth than the delicate Egyptian women.  For the Hebrew women were forceful in childbirth and delivered their babies before the midwives even had a chance to arrive.  They just got their too late to carry out Pharaoh’s orders, Shiphrah and Puah said.  And though Pharaoh doesn’t realize it, we know they are lying.

Then we have a young mother, who, upon seeing the beautiful and healthy nature of her son, hides him in her home as long as she can and, when she can no longer hide him, she places him in a basket in the Nile.  Technically she did follow the orders of the Pharaoh to toss the male babies in the river Nile, but her baby had some protection from the pith and bitumen covering the basket.  Finally, we have Pharaoh’s own daughter, who finds this baby in the basket floating among the reeds.  Even though she knows that this little boy is the son of a Hebrew woman, she is moved by pity hearing him cry and spares his life, even taking him into her house…Pharaoh’s house and adopting him as her son after he is weaned by his own mother. 

Little did they know it at the time, but in these seemingly insignificant acts, four women would wind up changing history.

In those acts of civil disobedience, a young man was raised up in the house of Pharaoh who would be called by God to rescue the Hebrews from the hands of the Egyptians and return them to the land that God had promised to Abraham.

We don’t talk about this story much, we prefer the flashier stories in Exodus about the acts of God in bushes on fire but not consumed by fire, in rivers turned to blood, and staffs turned into snakes, in plagues…and we sometimes forget that the beginning of this story had a humbler origin.  It was this beginning, though, that would lead to an ending that turned out differently than what we would expect from the opening credits of the Exodus version of the scapegoat movie.

How are you going to change the world this week?  In what way will your actions change the course of history for the better?  Did you know that you have the power to change the world?

In 2012 when the National Youth Gathering met in New Orleans, each day we heard the theme song for the gathering…the chorus goes like this.

I want my life to make a difference

I want my life to make a change

I want my life to do some good here

I want my life to make a change

You have that power, children of God, to make a difference…to make an impact that could change the course of history.  For with God, nothing is too small or insignificant to have the power to do amazing things. 

Seek out the lost, feed the hungry, heck – smile at the stranger walking down the street.  When school starts, sit next to the kid who is at a table all by themselves.

It took just one person, we really don’t know exactly who, to start the ice bucket challenge that would come to focus on Lou Gehrig’s disease and has so far raised over $40 million dollars for ALS research. 

Your impact may not be as big in the eyes of the world, but it is just as important in the eyes of God. 

So get out there.  Make a change.  

Jesus the jerk

Pentecost 10A

August 17, 2014

Matthew 15:21-28

I received a text this past Tuesday from a friend and fellow pastor which read “why is Jesus such a jerk this week?”  My first reaction was “what?” but then I read the Gospel text for today and my only response to her was “you’re so right, Jesus is a jerk this week.  I have no idea why.”

If what I just said makes you uncomfortable, you are not alone. 

The Jesus we have been brought up being trained to know and to love is the warm and fuzzy Jesus. The one who welcomes sinners and eats with them. The one who invites children to come sit with him so he can bless them.  The one who feeds people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.  I have never seen a picture of an angry Jesus. Even in the paintings of Jesus cleansing the temple, he still has more of a righteous indignation look on his face instead of straight up anger.  Who are you to call Jesus a jerk, pastor?  My Jesus is not a jerk. 

Except, in this case, he is. 

Let’s take a closer look at this story.  Jesus arrives in Tyre and Sidon, gentile territory, and is met by a Canaanite woman, a woman whose people were descendants of Ham, the son whom Noah cursed after the flood. The Canaanites were pagans and had not only been slaves of Israel, but were also considered to be their enemies.  Seeing Jesus and recognizing who he is, this woman pleads with him for help for her daughter but Jesus doesn’t answer her.  He ignores her.  He ignores her until she her cries for help become so annoying to the disciples that they ask him to send her away.  Then, after she once again pleads for help, Jesus speaks in such a way that she is equated with a dog. 

Let that sink in for a second.  The one who we proclaim as the savior of the world, the one who we call on in times of trouble, ignored this women and then called her a dog. 

If this story doesn’t trouble you…it should.

What is going on with Jesus?  Did he wake up on the wrong side of the bed?  Can’t we just go back to the Joseph story?  It’s a little bit warmer and fuzzier than what we are encountering here. 

If, however, we take a look at the news this week, and in the past few weeks, actually, it seems that warm and fuzzy is not what we need right now. 

Having Joseph tell his brothers that their attempt to harm him resulted in something good really doesn’t jive well when the photographs from Ferguson, Missouri look like an active war zone that has been easily compared with photographs from the Middle East and from our own country during the civil rights era.  When a mother and father are grieving the loss of a son whose life was taken by a police officer for a reason we may never really know.  When black parents all across this country are living in constant fear that their children will be treated differently by the police and the media simply because of the color of their skin. 

Having Joseph tell his brothers that their attempt to harm him resulted in something good doesn’t really jive well when commentators are referring to Robin Williams’ death as selfish and cowardly.  When they take no time to consider what it means for someone to be so lost and beaten down be a disease called depression that they become a victim of the demons living inside of them. 

Having Joseph tell his brothers that their attempt to harm him resulted in something good doesn’t jive well when only 0.2% of welfare recipients in Utah tested positive for drug use amidst allegations that welfare recipients are enabled by a government provided safety net which would allow them to use drugs without consequence.   

We don’t need warm and fuzzy right now.  Warm and fuzzy would just lead to complacency and that is the last thing that this world needs in this moment. 

What we do need is a very real and very human Jesus.  Right now we need a Jesus that is so human that even he isn’t immune to expressing a prejudice he was raised up with.  Right now, we need a human Jesus who will shake us awake to see all the terrible things in this world and the fact that, unless we say something, unless we stand up, unless we take action to rid the world of violence and injustice in our state, in our nation, and in our world, we are considered to giving our consent to the massive conflagrations taking place in this very moment in Ferguson, Missouri, in Israel and Palestine, in Iraq, everywhere where peace has been overcome by war. 

We need Jesus to be a jerk, sometimes, if we are going to look in on ourselves and see all of the places in which our prejudices get in the way of us looking like the little Christ’s that I spoke about two weeks ago. 

And so this morning we stand toe to toe with a very real, very human Jesus.  A very real human being who was taught to avoid those pagan Canaanites.  A very real human being whose purpose was to bring salvation to the lost sheep of Israel.  Period.  And we watch as this very real, very human Jesus, who is also very God, do something that happens time and again throughout the biblical witness.  He changes his mind. 

In this exchange between Jesus and the Canaanite woman, we are seeing Jesus changing his mind about the mission that he is on.  It is no longer just to save the house of Israel…now salvation is even available to the pagans.  Jesus changed his mind and his attitude about the Canaanites all because of the faith shown forth by a mother crying out on behalf of her sick daughter.

What if, though, part of the purpose of Jesus’ interaction with the Canaanite woman was to point out to the disciples just where their prejudices lay so that they could see where they are getting in the way of the Kingdom?  What if part of the reason that Matthew didn’t just jump to Jesus healing the Canaanite woman’s daughter is that he wants us to search ourselves and see where we are getting in the way of the Kingdom?  Because if Jesus is just a jerk, whatever the reason may be, it shows us that we very real human beings are much worse.  That we all have prejudices. 

Some come from how we were raised, others come from negative life experiences that we have had, while still others come from negative perceptions expressed in the public forum.  But regardless of where you picked it up, prejudice is not ok.  Prejudice blinds us to seeing the children of God-ness in others and therefore their value in this world.  It is very painful to admit that we are people of prejudice.  It is even more painful to fight our prejudices and rid ourselves of them.  If we do, though, our eyes and our hearts can be open to giving and receiving so much more love that our lives will be changed for the better. 

Because of Jesus’ interaction with the Canaanite woman, salvation was not just limited to the lost sheep of Israel, it became available to the whole world.  When Jesus went to the cross, it wasn’t just for a specific group, but for everyone…for all people. And Jesus’ mission didn’t just stop once he had defeated sin and death. There isn’t a big “the end” after the resurrection.  The mission goes on. The work continues and it will not end until God’s love wins and sometimes that means we have to endure a little bit of discomfort or some mild pain so that our kinks can get worked out so that when we sit at the eternal banquet table, the person sitting next to is someone whose company we can enjoy regardless of the color of their skin, their religious or political affiliation, or who they love.  In the kingdom of heaven, a KKK member will be able to enjoy the company of a black man, an anti-Semite will be able to enjoy the company of a Jewish woman, Trayvon Martin will be able to sit next to George Zimmerman and Michael Brown Jr. will be able to sit next to Officer Wilson in peace, because in the kingdom of heaven there is no prejudice.  There is no hate.  That means, though, that we have work to do getting rid of it all here.  It’s not going to be easy…but it will be worth it.  

What's your name?

August 3, 2014

Genesis 32:22-31

Pentecost 8

“Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me”

“I’m rubber, you’re glue. Your words bounce off of me and stick to you”

Two of the worst sayings that we are taught as children because they are not true.  Words hurt.  They sting.  They inflict internal wounds that cannot be seen in the day light like the black eye you might wind up with in a fist fight.  The healing time from wounds inflicted by words often takes longer than the black eye, too.  It’s often the names that inflict the most pain.  Bully.  Geek.  Loser.  Four eyes. Brace face.  Tattle tale.  Ugly.  Fat.  Cheat.  If someone gets called a name often enough, they begin to believe that they people calling them by that name are right.  So there are organizations out there that are working to reverse the trend so that if surround people with positive names that describe them, beautiful, smart, funny, etc., folks will believe this about themselves and begin to have a better outlook on who they are.  Because the names that we use to refer to one another are important, they do give us a sense of who we are and what we are about.

In the bible, names carry a great significance.  They still do today, but not in the way they did in ancient times. Today we often pick out babies names before they are born.  We want names that flow, that fit well with a middle and a last name.  Sometimes, out of tradition, we give family names.  We talk about how a name fits a person. Often, though, we forget about the meaning behind names.  This is what differentiates our culture from the Near East cultures of biblical times.

In ancient times, your name described who you were and, often, who you were destined to become.  Adam was the dirt man.  Abraham was the father of many nations.  Esau was the red one.  Eve was the one from whom life was born.  Jacob, we have learned, was the deceiver, along with his mother, Rebecca, whose name means “the snare.”

It is our dear friend, the deceiver, that we find in a moment of stress.  He has fled from his father in law, Laban, taking with him Rachel and Leah and their maids, most of Laban’s flocks and much of Laban’s fortune.  Laban had overtaken the caravan that Jacob fled with, but they wound up coming to a peaceful agreement and Laban agreed to leave them alone.  Now, however, Jacob learns that the brother whom cheated out of a birthright and stole a blessing, and from whom Jacob fled in order to save his life, has assembled 400 men and is planning to meet Jacob at the other side of the River Jabbock.  For a man whose last interaction with his brother involved a death threat, this cannot be good. 

In panic, Jacob divides all that he has in two.  If one half doesn’t make it, he believes the other half will.  He then attempts to appease his brother and sends him a gift of 200 female goats and 20 male goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams, 30 milch camels and their colts, 40 cows, 10 bulls 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys.  A lovely menagerie of animals if there ever was one. Across the river Jabbock the gift goes, along with Jacob’s entire family where they will be safe until morning when Jacob will join them again.  

The actions that Jacob took to secure what he had and to attempt to make peace with Esau, however, was not enough to keep Jacob from pacing and worrying about what his first interaction with his brother would be like the next day.  He tosses and turns, playing all of the possible scenarios in his head.  The good ones, the bad ones, the ugly ones.  That is when the attack happens.   

The wrestling match between Jacob and his attacker is epic, lasting all night and into day break…until Jacob’s opponent realizes that Jacob is going to win, so his puts Jacob’s hip out of socket, but that doesn’t keep Jacob from continuing to struggle. 

“Let me go” demands the opponent. 

“Bless me first,” demands Jacob, recognizing that his opponent isn’t an ordinary attacker.  Jacob’s request is answered with an unusual response.  It’s not the blessing that Jacob asks for, it is not a denial of the request, but simply “tell me your name.” 

If Jacob is going to exit this wrestling match, he must share his name with his opponent.  So he does, and with the sharing of Jacob’s name, Jacob also shares his confession.  The one who has survived for so long by cheating, deceiving, usurping, and taking what wasn’t his, and therefore living up to his name, confesses all the wrongs he has done to the man who wrestled with him all through the night and into daybreak all in one word…his own name. There is nothing left to hide now.  All the cheating and the lying and the deception are all laid on the table for all to see.  He has been exposed for who he is.

We wait for the attacker to dish out to Jacob what he deserves.  For vengeance.  For punishment.  That’s not what happens, though. 

Instead of dealing out to Jacob what he had coming to him, the man gives him a new name.  Israel.  The one who wrestles with God and with humans and prevails. 

That day the man who paced and worried and wrestled all night long walked away a different man.  He was no longer the deceiver. No longer the cheat.  No longer the one who took what wasn’t his.  With the new name came a new character, a new purpose.  To be the one who would father the twelve tribes of Israel.  To be the one through whom the promise to Abraham was passed down.  To be the one who would reconcile with the brother he so badly wronged on the other side of the river.  Jacob may have walked away from the wrestling match with a limp, but he still walked away victorious, for he had seen God face to face and yet his life was preserved. 

We all have our given names, our nicknames, the “I wish he would never bring that one up again” names, that our family and friends us to identify us.  However, then there are the names that have seemed to define who we are.  Some of those names build us up and others break us down. Parent, spouse, lawyer, runner, writer, softball player, doctor.  Divorced, infertile, exhausted, depressed, broke, broken. Coward, liar, unfaithful.  Lonely. 

God has a different name for us, however.  A name that we were given in baptism.  A name that, once we have been baptized, cannot be taken away from us.  Christ.

In baptism, we put on Christ and we become a part of Christ and so, while we don’t use the word Christening that often, it’s actually a good word to describe what is happening.  We are joined to Christ in the waters of baptism.  We are given a new name and a new destiny, to live lives as children of God, heirs with Christ in all of the blessings that God has to bestow.  We have become little Christs! And though sin and the powers of evil in this world would have us think that we are not worthy to be put into the same category as Christ, God deems us worthy, simply because he loves us and wants us to thrive and have life.  

So as you go out into the world today, remember, you are a little Christ.  You are a child of God, called and claimed and sent into the world to spread the message of God’s love and God’s justice to the world. And you are not doing this alone, for you are surrounded by little Christs.  In the grocery store, at the farmers market, at the Ronald McDonald house and the God’s Works meals.  There are little Christs everywhere.  And we work together as people renewed by water and the Spirit to be Christ for the world.  Let’s get to work.