Matthew 3:1-12 NRSVUE

3 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord;

    make his paths straight.’ ”

4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance, 9 and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

How many of you know what winnowing is?

How many of you have winnowed?

I had never done this before I practiced it this week!

I chose to simulate winnowing with paper and candy, rather than trying to buy a sheaf of wheat.

So the idea is that rather than trying to shell your grain crop by hand, you first thresh the crop — basically beat it with sticks to dislodge the wheat from the straw.

Then rather than trying to pick all of grain out of the straw you toss it all in the air and let the wind do the work.

The lighter straw blows away and the heavier grain, falls onto the threshing floor, where it is swept up and placed into clay jars for storage.

Winnowing would have been a very familiar practice at the time today’s Bible reading was written, and for many centuries following, until the invention of the Combine machine, which cuts, threshes and winnows in one machine that leaves the straw behind for convenient bailing.

In modern farming the Combine leaves the chaff with the straw and it is used for animal bedding and garden mulch. 

But before Combines, the chaff was a mess of prickly, small, sawdust like stuff that was often full of bugs and mold – so the best thing to do with it was to burn it.  Burn it to kill the bugs and the mold to prevent the bugs and fungus from infecting the soil or getting into the grain.

So John the Baptist is saying a lot in verse 12!

Most of us just don’t have the agricultural context to hear it!

So John is out by the river telling people that God is up to something new — 

The Kingdom of God is among us, so repent — turn away from your sins – turn away from the things that harm others and harm ourselves.

And John was offering a ritual bath – Mikvah is the Jewish word for a ritual bath that involves full immersion into clean or flowing water.

Some Jews still do observe Mikvah — as a ritual of purification after illness, or childbirth….or as a ritual of transition or healing.

https://www.jewishportland.org/ourcommunity/rachels-well-portland-mikvah

So John wasn’t doing something brand new or distinctly Christian, when he began baptizing people in the Jordan.  John was inviting people into a ritual of purification and transition.

Right now, we are in a season of transition.

The post world war 2 era that was the second half of the twentieth century is over.

COVID didn’t start this transition, but COVID is a time marker – a sticker on the calendar of our imaginations that feels like it draws the line between how we used to live and how things are now.

Everything is being called into question.

Church membership.

Our form of government.

How we work and how much we work.

How or if we retire?

Most importantly – our values and daily choices are being called into question.

The first Century was also a season of transition.

A season of political change.

A season of religious change.

A season of social change.

That’s why people went to be baptized by John.

Their lives felt uncertain, so they came to John for a ritual of transition.

A ritual bath to help them commit to letting go of what wasn’t working in their lives and reorient themselves towards God.

When John saw the Pharisees and the Sadducees he didn’t believe that they were there to commit themselves to change.

John didn’t believe that the Rich and Powerful Rabbis and Priests were there to let God winnow their lives.  John thought the rich and powerful were there to use John’s baptism as a publicity stunt to justify themselves and keep doing what they were doing.

John yells, “You Brood of Vipers… do not presume to say to yourselves,” that you’re right with God just because your ancestors were members of the faith.

 That’s why John starts talking about fruit trees and axes and winnowing and burning chaff.

Because in seasons of transition…

When God is doing a new thing…

When the world has gone crazy….

There’s no room in our lives for chaff.

So with everything being too much right now, I’m asking myself 3 questions:

Is this mine to do?

This week a colleague asked me if I could participate in a climate action.  I believe that climate change is a critically important issue.  I care about climate change.  But that’s not the work I’m being called to do right now, so I said no.

Is this mine to do, doesn’t mean that something isn’t important or good, it just means that it’s somebody else’s work.

We are the Body of Christ together and God has called somebody else to do that work.

Is this mine to do?

Is this chaff?

Is this chaff that is infesting my schedule and eating up my time and energy, without producing anything good?

It’s so easy for me to get sucked into arguing with people on social media.  I try to be pastoral, but still, most of those accounts aren’t even people – they’re bots.  Spending time arguing with them doesn’t change hearts or minds.  It just sucks time and energy out of me that is needed for important things.

For me, that’s chaff and I need to let it float on by.

Is this chaff?

Is this fluff?)

Is this fluff?

I think it’s important not to confuse chaff with fluff.

We all need some fluff in our lives.

Fluff being the soft, comforting things that get us through hard times.

For me fluff is spending time with my guinea pigs, playing games with my family, or going on Star Trek the Cruise, and visiting NASA, February 19th- March 2.

For me the difference between chaff and fluff is that chaff drains my energy and fluff restores my energy.

Fluff is the harvest of cotton balls, that are lighter than the hard shells they are grown in, that can be woven into the warmth and shelter that we need to get through difficult times.

In times like these, I find winnowing helpful.

Is it mine to do?  Or someone else’s.

Is it chaff? That drains my time and energy

Is it fluff?  That restores my soul.

Matthew 2:1-14 First Nations Version

1It was during the days of the bad-hearted Chief Looks Brave (Herod) that the Chosen One was born in the village of House of Bread (Bethlehem) in the Land of Promise (Judea). After his birth, Seekers of Wisdom (Magi) traveling on a long journey from the East came to Village of Peace (Jerusalem).

2They began to ask around, “Where is the one who has been born to be chief of the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel)? We saw his star where the sun rises and have come to humble ourselves before him and honor him.”

3When Chief Looks Brave heard this, he and all who lived in Village of Peace (Jerusalem) were troubled. 4He called a council of all the head holy men and scroll keepers and asked them where the Chosen One was to be born.

5“In House of Bread (Bethlehem), the village of the great chief Much Loved One (David),” they answered. “This is what the ancient prophet said: 6‘But you, O House of Bread (Bethlehem), in the Land of Promise (Judea), even though you are small, you have a good reputation with the chiefs who watch over the land. From you will come a Great Chief who will guide my chosen people—the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel).’”

7Then Looks Brave (Herod) called a secret council with the Seekers of Wisdom (Magi) to find out when the star first appeared. 8He then sent them to House of Bread (Bethlehem) and told them, “Look everywhere for the child. Find him and tell me where he is, so that I may also come and honor him.”

9After listening to Looks Brave (Herod), the Seekers of Wisdom (Magi) went their way. 10When they saw the star rising in the East, they jumped with joy, and with glad hearts they followed until the star stopped and rested over the place where the child was. 11They went into the house and saw the child and his mother, Bitter Tears (Mary). As soon as they saw the child, they bowed down to honor him. Then they opened their bundles and gifted him with gold, sweet-smelling incense, and bitter ointment of myrrh.

12The Seekers of Wisdom (Magi) were warned in a dream not to go back to Looks Brave (Herod), so they returned to their homeland by a different road.

13After the Seekers of Wisdom (Magi) had gone, a spirit-messenger from Creator warned He Gives Sons (Joseph) in a dream. “Rise up!” he said urgently. “Take the child and his mother and go quickly to Black Land (Egypt) and remain there until I tell you to leave. Looks Brave (Herod) is searching for the child to kill him!”

14That night He Gives Sons (Joseph) took the child and his mother, and they fled for their lives to Black Land (Egypt).

 

I was volunteering at the Federal Court Housing, doing Clergy Accompanyment, when a young couple with the most adorable baby came to the door.  The baby was small and dressed all in Pink.  Pink dress. Pink carseat liner.  Pink tights with frilly pink socks to keep her brown little toes warm.  A Pink hat with a little pink bow on it.  The parents were young and lean, too lean, like they were putting everything they had into that little baby girl.

They spoke only Spanish, so my clergy colleague, Scott, employed his fluent Spanish to tell them what we were there to do and make sure they had legal representation.  When Pastor Scott was done talking with them he told me their story.

They were from Venezuela.  They were at the court for their asylum hearing.  The legal process of seeking asylum is that you must first enter the USA, you cannot apply for asylum while physically in another country.  It takes money to get some sort of visa to come here in a documented way – like an education visa or vacation visa.  Many people seeking asylum are fleeing for their lives so many of them are undocumented.  It is not illegal to seek asylum, even if you are undocumented, despite what ICE says.  That’s why we do clergy accompaniment.  To be a moral witness and challenge ICE agents to follow the law and let families like this one follow the legal process for seeking asylum.

Anyway,  Momma, Daddy and Pink Little Baby were at the court for their asylum hearing.  

They are here because, before the Pink Little Baby was born they had 2 other children, a 5 year old boy and a 2 year old girl.  

One day, the drug cartel came to their house, to recruit the Father to work for them.  The Father said no.  The cartel members dragged the little family outside their home and shot their 5 year old and 2 year old right in front of them.

Matthew 2:18 reads,

“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

What do you do in times like these?

When bad-hearted leaders choose violence?

What can we do in times like these?

I think it depends on who you are.

And what your priorities are.

Mary and Joseph’s priority was their baby.  And like that young family from Venezuela, Mary and Joseph had no power or privilege with which to protect themselves.

When you are vulnerable or protecting vulnerable people sometimes the best thing to do is to seek safety.  To stay home or run to seek asylum.

The seekers of wisdom had privilege, but they also had the wisdom to know that it was not their business to interfere in the government of another country, no matter how bad that government is.  I mean, the Wise Guys *could have* organized a military operation to try to arrest Herod for being a bad-hearted King, but capturing another country’s head of state is an act of war.   They were wise enough to walk away from the whole situation and not assist Herod in his madness.

And the people?  The everyday people like you and I?

There were Jewish rebels – the sicarri, named for their long curved knives.  They ambushed trade caravans and travelers trying to disrupt the flow of taxes to Rome.  But violence justifies violence which leads to more violence, which eventually led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 69 AD.

There were some folks, some Pharisees who staged peaceful protests and publicly spoke out against Herod.

And there were people with privilege, like the Apostle Paul who used his Roman citizenship to try to argue for religious freedom under the Roman law… and Paul was executed by Rome.

The reality is that in times like these, even people with privilege, doing legal things, like Renee Good, who was acting as a Legal Observer – a Constitutionally defined role –  just like the people I serve alongside every month.

….even when we’re doing the legal thing, in times like these, our white privilege, our citizenship, our middle class-ness may not protect us from the Herod’s of this world.

My neighbor’s teen wants to visit the ICE building with me and I had to tell her mother, in all good conscience, that I am willing to accompany them to ICE, but I cannot guarantee my own safety or there’s  

And if you’re Herod?  

Just don’t.

Just don’t be Herod.

And please.  Don’t stand with Herod.

It’s never too late to change your mind.

To say, this isn’t what I thought I was voting for.

But the reality is…There’s always another Herod, because the system of Empire is designed to produce Herods.

The system of Empire is a system of Greed and Might Makes Right.

It’s a system that has always been… 

…since Cain killed his brother Able, thinking that his might would make him more right with God.

…since the people of Sodom and Gomorrah chose violence towards strangers instead of hospitality towards strangers.

…since Abraham grew up in a culture that made him think that God demands child sacrifice.

BUT God has shown us another way.

Abraham wasn’t ready to believe that his God didn’t need a sacrifice, so God substituted a ram instead of Issac.  And the sacrifices of the rich and privileged people trying to get something from God became free food for the poor.  Just as the monetary gifts we give to the church now, become food for Haven Dinner and will become Housing for the unhoused.

And Jesus showed us what the Prophets, like Amos and Micah had already told us – that God doesn’t want sacrifice, or violence of any kind!  God wants justice and mercy and Good News for the Poor and the Oppressed.

But of course, The Systems of Greed and Might Makes Right will tell us that good news for the poor is too expensive…

…and yet there always seems to be enough money for bombs and bullets.

The Systems of Greed and Might Makes Right will tell us that only the “worthy” have earned the basics of life, like shelter, food, clean water and air, healthcare and a future for their children.

And yet… God calls us to Dream of a Better World.

Luke 1:26-38

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.

Holy Mary Mother of God,
Prophet, Apostle, and Pastor,
pray with us now and at the hour of our death.

I have a special relationship with Mary.

I was baptized Roman Catholic at the age of 8, when my Dad married a Catholic.  So I attended remedial Catechism to learn the basics, like how to go to confession and learning the Hail Mary, prayer.

The language of the Hail Mary is from a Catholic translation of the Latin, or Vulgate version of Luke 1:28 – Gabriel’s greeting to Mary –  “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” Hail is an old English word that basically means, “Hey, Graceful Mary, God is with you!”

Then Luke 1:42, where Elizabeth (Zechariah’s wife) greets her cousin Mary as baby John leaps within her.  

42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

The usual version continues with,

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

I’ve adapted this prayer of my childhood, adding, “Prophet, Apostle, and Pastor,”  because I’ve learned through more intensive Biblical study that Mary’s leadership in the church was edited out by men who were trying to stop women from being in leadership in the early church, in order to make Christianity more acceptable to the Patriarchal Roman culture.

And I’ve changed my petition to asking Mary to pray with us instead of for us, because as Protestants we don’t pray to Saints.  But really, Catholics don’t pray to Saints either – they just speak about Saints the same way the apostle Paul spoke about Abraham and Moses – as ones who are alive in God, even though they are not walking the earth anymore.  Catholics aren’t praying to the Saints instead of God.  Catholics are asking the Saints in Glory to pray for them, since the Saints are closer in proximity to God.  

Kinda like asking your DS to put a good word in to the Bishop for your housing project!

I have a special relationship with Mary:

• Because of my Catholic upbringing.
• Because Mary was a mother who began her ministry career when her children were grown
• Because Mary was a woman in church leadership

But most of all, I relate to Mary because she was not in control of her life, and yet, 

Mary wrestles back her right to consent, her bodily autonomy, and her right to her very self, by answering a question she wasn’t asked.

Gabriel didn’t ask Mary if she consented to being impregnated by Spirit.

Mary took back her life by saying yes to God.

Mary didn’t choose to be born into the reign of Herod the Great.

She didn’t choose to live under Roman occupation!

She didn’t choose to live in a time of political unrest with Judean rebels protesting in the streets and Roman troops dragging people from their homes and businesses on the suspicion of association with the rebellion.

Mary most likely didn’t choose to be engaged to Joseph – most marriages were arranged between families at the time.

Mary didn’t sign up on Match dot com with a profile stating:

“Jewish girl seeking spiritual relationship with potential for birthing the Messiah”

Mary didn’t ask to be a central character in interesting times!

I mean,  Mary had political opinions.  One might consider her a rebel, at least in her views – just read Luke 1:46-55, where Mary is all about casting down the mighty and feeding the hungry!

But, Mary was just living her life, when God sends a messenger — Messenger is the literal translation of the word, Angel, by the way…

God sent a messenger to Tell, not ask, Tell, Mary that Spirit was going to be messing with her life.

And Mary said yes.

Mary said yes to a question she wasn’t asked.

Mary is kind of the opposite of the prophet Jonah.

You remember Jonah and the whale?

God tells, not asks, tells, Jonah to go to Nineveh – the worst enemies of Israel at that time, and give those enemies a message a grace.  A warning that they could repent and be saved.

And Jonah said, no.  

• Jonah said, I hate the Ninevites, so no I’m not going.
• Also, the Nivevites hate me and they’ll probably just kill me!
• And also, all my own people hate the Nivevites too, so they will all hate me if I go, and I get enough hate as a prophet already, so I don’t need more.
• No. Just no.

And being a prophet, Jonah knew that it’s hard to say no to God, so Jonah booked himself passage on a ship going the opposite direction, to try to avoid Spirit hijacking his mouth in proximity to any Ninevites.

And well, then there was a storm at sea and Jonah got swallowed by a whale who coughed him up like a hairball on the shores of Nineveh.

Have you ever noticed that God doesn’t really take no for an answer?

God is kind of like google maps.  Bridget,  I call the female voice of google maps, Bridget.

Bridget is like turn right in 200 feet.

And I’m like, no, I do not want to take the freeway today.

And Bridget is like,  turn right at the next road.

And I talk back to Bridget, that’s why I had to give her a name — “No, Bridget I do not want to take the freeway today”

And Bridget be like,  make a U turn.

And I’m like, no,  I can drive all the way down Stark street from here, I do not need to take 84,  84 traffic is always terrible!

And then there’s road construction, or a flooded street, or something on that end of Stark and I’m back to following Bridget’s directions.

Occasionally, I do know the area better, but, usually Bridget wins.

God always wins.

God always knows better than I do.

God always has a bigger perspective on what will work in the future and how every little thing in our lives connects to something else and something else and something else, until: 

• because we said yes to offering Rahab’s Sisters an office here
• and then Rahab’s Sisters needed a different place to operate out of, and we said yes, even though it meant getting used to sharing our building 
• and we realized we were tired of spending so much time on the building 
• And Rahab’s was looking to buy a building 
• So we thought what if we sell them the building 
• And Hacienda heard about it and said what if we build a new building with housing above
• And Rahab’s, being a good ministry partner brought that offer back to us 
• And we prayed and talked and prayed and talked and you said yes
• And we waited almost 6 months for the Cabinet to say yes.
• And none of this was my idea, or your idea, God is just doing a new thing.

I relate to Mary, because I am not in control.

I didn’t choose to live in interesting times!

I didn’t really choose to build affordable housing!

None of this was my plan!

I just said yes to God, because I don’t want to get eaten by a whale!

But seriously — I say yes to God because not just the stories of our faith teach us that saying yes to God is exciting.

But my own experience with God has taught me that when I say yes to God, God always has a better plan than I do.

How do I tell if it’s God or just me, or some other influence?

Partly because, as Jesus said in John 10:27, “My sheep know my voice.”  The more you say yes to God, the more familiar you become with God’s voice.

Partly because God’s messages are always in alignment with the teachings of Jesus.  Jesus is never going to tell us to hate our neighbors.

And mostly because God loves a Hail Mary moment.

God loves to make the impossible possible.

God loves to make small things exponentially more successful than they should have been.

God loves to raise up the lowly and bring down the proud.

God loves to feed the hungry and send the rich away empty.

And If you think I’m being woke – go back and read Luke 1:46-55, and Mary will set you straight.

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.

Holy Mary Mother of God,
Prophet, Apostle, and Pastor,
pray with us now and at the hour of our death.

Luke 1:5-13 NRSVUE

In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was descended from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. 7 But they had no children because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.

8 Once when he was serving as priest before God during his section’s turn of duty, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord to offer incense. 10 Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. 11 Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified, and fear overwhelmed him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.

Herod the Great, King of Judea, was an insecure and fearful leader.

Herod came from an important Idumaen family – the Idumaeans said to the the descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob, the grandsons of Abraham, who converted to Judaism when the victory celebrated at Hanukkah, restored Judea as an independent kingdom in 164 BC.  You can find that story in the Books of Maccabees, in a Bible that has those extra books.

Herod’s dad was chief Minister of Judea Under King Hrycanus II, but Herod’s Dad, and Herod rebelled against the King.  Herod went to Rome to ask for help from Mark Antony (yes that Mark Antony, from Antony and Cleopatra!) and in exchange for Rome’s help, Judea became a Roman province and Herod was named King of the Jews around 37 BC.  But then the Romans killed Julius Caesar and Antony married Cleopatra, and everyone was taking sides between Octavian (who became Caesar Augustus) and Mark Antony.  Herod chose Mark Antony.  So when Antony and Cleopatra died and Caesar Augustus became the Emperor of Rome, Herod was eager to curry favor with Rome.

• Herod was also not popular with his Jewish subjects. 
  Herod’s ancestry was of Edomite converts so that’s one strike against Herod.
• Herod’s mother was Persian, and Jewishishness is determined through the maternal line – strike 2. 
• Herod had helped topple the King of an Independent Judea and brought in the Romans — that’s a huge strike 3.
• But, Herod finished the 2nd Temple, which might seem like a good thing, except Herod refused to listen to the Priests about how the Temple was to be built — strike 4, and…
• Herod raised taxes very, very high to not only finish the enlarged Temple, but also to build himself two palaces, help fund the Olympic Games of 14 BC, and send more money to Caesar Augustus to keep himself in power — strike 5 — and why there’s so much complaint about heavy taxation in the Christmas story.
• Also, Herod divorced is first wife and disinherited his son, to marry Mariamne, the granddaughter of King Hyrcaus II, whom he had rebelled against, which did not make the Jewish people like him any better.

(much of the  history about Herod  is from https://historycooperative.org/king-herod-of-judea/ )

Herod was a deeply insecure and deeply fearful king.

• Fearful because he backed the wrong Caesar – Mark Antony.
• Very Fearful because his own people did not accept him or Rome.  So fearful that according to Flavius Josephus, Herod had a personal guard of 2000 soldiers to protect him from the Judean Rebels.
• So very fearful, that Herod murdered many of his own sons.
• So while there is no historical evidence of the Biblical account that Herod ordered the killing of all the babies, when he heard about the birth of the new king from the Wise Men, it sounds like something Herod would do.

In that political climate,  Zechariah is called to take his turn serving at the Temple.   Zechariah was a nobody.  Just an ordinary priest, who married a bit above himself, but he had no children, so people would have talked that maybe God didn’t like Zechariah and Elizabeth that much.  Back then, they thought that poor health or infertility was probably because a person had offended God.

So Zechariah and Elizabeth would have been afraid to travel to Jerusalem for Zechariah’s week of service at the Temple with Judean rebels attacking travelers on the roads.

They would have been afraid of the politics among priests as Herod often tried to meddle in the appointment of the high priests.

With no sons to help them make their living, they would have been worried about the high taxes in Judea.

And they may have wondered what they had done to offend God, what sin they had unknowingly committed, that was causing God to withhold the blessing of a child.

They were afraid, but they showed up anyway.

Showed up to serve God and to serve the people who visited the Temple.

They were afraid, but they showed up anyway and God met them there with hope.

Hope for a son – proof that God wasn’t mad at them.

And hope for a messiah  — an anointed one who would proclaim the Year of the Lord’s Favor and tear down tyrants from their thrones.

And as is so often the case when God gives us hope, they had no idea what God was actually going to do!

Zechariah and Elizabeth didn’t ask to live through interesting times anymore than we did!

And yet…

There they were and here we are.

In fearful times, it can be so tempting to hide, to distract ourselves with pretty things and entertainment.  It can be so tempting to say, “nothing I do, makes a difference,” so why show up at all?

And sometimes we do need to rest!

We can’t do everything!  

Boundaries are Holy!  That’s why God told us to take a Sabbath every week!

But when it’s our turn, like Zechariah, we can show up.

We can show up even when we’re afraid.

And those are often the times that God surprises us with hope.

It’s the week of Thanksgiving.  Personally my favorite food holiday because I am ALL about my Great Aunt Alice’s sausage Stuffing!  And the memories of spending the whole weekend with my cousins and eating as much as we wanted are happy ones.

In my household we celebrate Sweats-giving – where everyone gets new sweatpants and we all cook our favorite holiday dishes together, while listening to Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.  Then that Sunday afternoon we get our Christmas tree.

But Thanksgiving is also a deeply problematic holiday.

I was taught as a child that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and Indians helped them survive the winter by teaching them about native foods, like corn and squash.  Sometimes we made construction paper pilgrim hats and feathered headdresses.  Sometimes we made a construction paper cornucopia and filled it with paper fruits and veggies, to celebrate the “First Thanksgiving” when the settlers held a big dinner with the Wampanoag tribe to celebrate having survived the first year.  And we’ve been celebrating Thanksgiving in America ever since!

The problem is, none of that actually happened like that.

The Mayflower did land in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  And they did hold a 3 day feast in 1621 that was attended by members of the Wampanoag tribe, however the tribal members only attended because the settlers were having such a wild party that they were shooting guns in celebration and since Ousamequin, leader of the Wampanoag Tribe had agreed to a mutual-defense pact, they showed up to help defend the settlers.  Once this misunderstanding was cleared up the tribal members did stay for the feast, but they were not actually invited.

There were also several other Thanksgivings celebrated by various colonies, however, since they were primarily dour Puritains, they celebrated with 1-3 days of prayer and fasting, not a good meal.

In 1789 President Washington did declare Oct 3 a day of Thanksgiving and prayer for “giving the American people the opportunity to create a Constitution to preserve their hard won freedoms.” (Thanksgiving: From Local Harvests to National Holiday, Smithsonian Institution ) 

Most of the credit for our annual Thanksgiving feast goes to Sarah Josepha Hale, Editor of Ladies Magazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book, who campaigned for an annual Thanksgiving holiday in her magazines by publishing articles and holiday recipes, and in letters to politicians as a way of combating the divisions in the country by coming together to celebrate a day of peace and unity. 

(https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2023/11/our-national-thanksgiving/ )

But is wasn’t until 1863, inspired by the Union victory at Gettysburg, that President Lincoln proclaimed that November 26th would be a national Thanksgiving Day, to be observed every year on the fourth Thursday of November.

So the Pilgrims didn’t invite the Wampanoag tribe, and the reason for the national holiday has a lot more to do with the United State’s ugly history of slavery and colonization than it does with gratitude. 

So for the rest of this sermon time, I want us to Center Native voices by engaging with the First Nations Version of Luke 1: 67 – 79.  

• Listen to how Native Americans name people.
• Listen to how Native Americans talk about God.
• Listen with ears that remember the genocide of Tribal children in Methodist run Indian Boarding schools.
• Listen with ears that remember broken treaties, missing women, and reservations that don’t have clean drinking water because our Federal Government is still breaking treaties.
• Listen, and read along if that helps you listen, for one word or phrase that stands out to you.  Just a word or a phrase, for now… we’ll move into some discussion later.

Luke 1:67-79 First Nations Version

67 Then, with a glad heart, Creator Will Remember (Zechariah) spoke these words the Holy Spirit was giving him to say.

68 “All blessings to the Great Spirit of the tribes of Wrestles with Creator (Israel)! For he has come to rescue his people from a great captivity.  69-70 Just as the prophets foretold long ago in the land of our ancestor Much Loved One (David), he has lifted up his coup stick to show his great power to help us,  71 to rescue us from the arrows of our enemies and all who look down upon us with hate.” 

He lifted trembling hands to the sky and cried out.

72-73 “He has given to us the same pity he has shown our ancestors and remembered the promise he made in the great peace treaty with Father of Many Nations (Abraham). 74-75 He has come to free us from the fear of our enemies, so we can walk all our days in his sacred and right ways.” 

Then he turned to his newborn son, and from deep in his spirit he spoke these words of blessing to him.

76 “And you, my son, will be a prophet from the One Above Us All. You will make a clear path for the coming of the Great Chief, 77 to show his people that he will heal our broken ways by cleansing us from our bad hearts and releasing us from our wrongdoings.  78 Because Creator is kind and gentle, he will come to us as the sunrise from above, 79 to shine on the ones who sit in darkness and in the land of death’s shadow, to guide our feet on the good path of peace.”

The First Nations Version is available at many fine booksellers, including Powell’s Books, so you don’t need to break your Amazon boycott to get your own copy of this beautiful transliteration of the New Testament.

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

6 Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from every brother or sister living irresponsibly and not according to the tradition that they received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not irresponsible when we were with you, 8 and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it,w but with toil and labor we worked night and day so that we might not burden any of you. 9 This was not because we do not have that right but in order to give you an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 11 For we hear that some of you are living irresponsibly, mere busybodies, not doing any work. 12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. 13 Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: anyone unwilling to work should not eat. 

This verse has been misused to justify doing the very opposite of what Jesus taught for centuries.

Jesus taught us to feed the hungry and care for the least of these, so where did the author of 2 Thessalonians come up with “anyone unwilling to work should not eat”?

First Thessalonians, that is, the authentic Paul’s first letter to the Christ Community in Thessalonica in northern Greece is one of the oldest documents in the New Testament.  

2 Thessalonians is fan fiction, written about 30 or 40 years after Paul was executed by Rome in the 60’s.

But it’s good fan fiction.  Somebody who really studied Paul’s style of writing, Paul’s word use, Paul’s typical letter format.

But the issues discussed in 2 Thessalonians are the issues of the second generation of Christians, not the first generation.

There’s 2 main topics in 2 Thessalonians:

1. Why hasn’t Jesus come back yet?  The original disciples really thought Jesus would return during their lifetime, so it was kind of a big deal when all the Apostles were dead and Jesus hadn’t returned.
2. If Jesus isn’t coming right back, then how do we find a sustainable way to Be The Church?  

The early church practiced a share economy.  If you were a member of the Way and your fellow member needed a loan you were required to lend them money.  If your fellow member was hungry you were expected to share your food.  The authentic Paul advised people to not get married or have children, because Jesus was coming really soon and he didn’t think it would be fun to have kids during the apocalypse. 

The early church wasn’t worried about tomorrow, because tomorrow, Jesus could come!

But here they were, the Church in Thessalonica around 90 or 100 AD and Jesus hadn’t come yet. 

So maybe there was a letter written to the early church leaders by the folks in Thessalonica, asking something along the lines of:  Jesus hasn’t come yet and the working folks are getting upset with the folks just sitting around and waiting for Jesus to come.  Please advise?

So maybe this Pauline fan fiction was written to respond to a letter from the Christ Community in Thessalonica.   

Or maybe 2 Thessalonians is a sermon written by the leader of the Church in Thessalonica in the form of a letter from Paul?

We don’t know.

A fairly common 19th and 20th century interpretation of this passage is based on the idea that since Jesus hadn’t come back yet, the share economy of the Church wasn’t working very well.   Even progressive Christians like Marcus Borg describes the situation as, freeloaders within the Church who were taking advantage of the share economy of the Church, but not contributing. (Borg, Evolution of the Word)  The idea being that some folks were just sitting around waiting for Jesus to come, while others did all the work and provided all the food.

And that interpretation got twisted into the popular phrase:

“he that will not work shall not eat.” 

2 Thessalonians verse 10 does not read:  “he that will not work shall not eat.”  

That’s not anywhere in the Bible, that’s part of the rules of the James Town Colony delivered to the colonists by Captain John Smith in 1609.  Here’s the full quote:

You must obey this now for a law, that he that will not work shall not eat (except by sickness he be disabled). For the labors of thirty or forty honest and industrious men shall not be consumed to maintain a hundred and fifty idle loiterers.

The problem in James Town was that there were some folks who felt that manual labor was beneath them, but the colony would literally not survive without everyone pitching in!

There are those who try to use Captain Smith’s version of verse 10 to justify a compassionless world where only those who are gainfully employed deserve to eat.

But not even Captain Smith advocated for that!  

At least Captain Smith made an exception for those who are disabled!

Another interpretation is grounded in the writings of other early church apostles.

This interpretation proposes that the rich church members were the busybodies mentioned in verse 11 of our reading, telling everyone else what to do, but not doing anything themselves.  The rich were unwilling to work and expected the poor to serve them in the Church, just as the poor served them in everyday life.

 1 Corinthians chapter 11, an authentic letter of Paul, recounts a story where the rich people were coming early to the church potluck and eating all the good food they brought before the poor people were able to get off work.  Paul gives them a talking to about sharing the Lord’s Table by waiting for everyone to arrive before anyone eats.

James, chapter 2 also addresses this kind of dishonoring of the poor (James 2:6) by expecting those who are poor to do all the work of serving at Church because the rich donated the food.  James reminds the people that the Kingdom of God is not the Roman Empire and that the poor of the church do not need to show extra honor to the rich, because, after all, the rich treat them badly during everyday life!

Jesus also speaks to the reversal of privilege in the Kingdom of Heaven in the parable of Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31.  A story that Jesus made up on the spot to challenge some rich religious leaders who were mocking Jesus for his economic views.

Jesus tells this story:

There was a poor man named Lazarus, who lay outside the gate of a very rich man’s mansion.  Lazarus was so hungry he couldn’t even get up and the rich man’s dogs would lick the sores on Lazarus’ body.  (I know, eww Jesus, that’s gross)

So Lazarus dies and is carried away by angels to be with Abraham.

The rich man also dies and is tortured with flames in Hades because… he didn’t get rich by being nice!

So the rich man looks up and sees Lazarus sitting beside Abraham in the good place, and the rich man calls out to Abraham and says,

Hey Abe – send Lazarus down here to drip water into my mouth with his fingers, because I’m kinda tied up.

And Abraham says,  “Child….”

And when I read this I hear it in the tone of voice of a Black Preacher where that one word “Child,” just drips with, “you have got some nerve to be asking me to tell Lazarus, whom you didn’t lift a finger to help, to be commuting to hell and using his literal fingers to help you, now that you are experiencing the consequences of your actions!”

But in Jesus’ story Abraham says in Luke 16:25, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.” 

Which brings us back to this second interpretation that the writer of 2 Thessalonians was not telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or starve.

Perhaps the writer of 2 Thessalonians was telling those busybodies who were unwilling to lift a finger to help those in need by at least doing their share of the work of the church, were not worthy of a seat at the Lord’s Table?

I kinda think that maybe it was a little bit of both.

Both folks who needed to stop just waiting around for Jesus to come.

And folks who needed to stop being irresponsible busybodies thinking the poor should be waiting on them inside the church, just like it was out in the Roman Empire.

But I lean more towards the second one because Jesus and the Hebrew Prophets talked a lot about how it is unjust for the rich and the powerful to store up more treasures on earth than they could ever use, while they fail to pay a living wage to the workers who are the source of their wealth.

Which brings us to today.

Because we’re going to share in the Lord’s Table – communion – in just a moment.

The early church was really strict about who got to receive communion – only baptized members in good standing were allowed — because communion was not just a sacrament, or a reenactment of the last supper to them.  

Communion was a pre-enactment of the Kingdom of Heaven.

They believed that when Jesus’ reign would come and God’s will would be done on earth as it is in Heaven, that everyone would eat.

That ideas like wealth and status would no longer matter in the Reign of Jesus.

When Jesus’s Reign comes it won’t matter if you’re Jewish or Greek, man or woman, young or old, gay or straight, Cis gender or Trans, dog or cat lover.

Everybody belongs in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So the Communion Table – the community potluck that the Baptized would share together was a Table where Christians would recommit themselves to working towards cooperating with God to bring God’s reign to earth.

A table where divisions like Wealth, Race, and Gender did not belong.

But what we have learned in the centuries since then, is that we are not better than the Pharisees, who mocked Jesus’ radical economic ideas.

Systems of hierarchy, economic injustice and bigotry are how the world works.

And it’s hard to take seriously what Jesus said about helping the stranger, when we live in a world that teaches us to fear one another.

But Jesus welcomed Judas to the Table, knowing that Judas was going to get Jesus brutally executed.

So this table is a Table where everybody eats.

Because we change hearts and minds not by excluding them, 

but by actively inviting people to the table where everybody eats.

Actively inviting people to be a part of a sharing and caring community.

Actively teaching people who serve too much to learn holy boundaries and do less.

And actively teaching those who do too little to care for their neighbors to experience the joy that comes from helping others.

In our Methodist Tradition, all are welcome at this table…

Haggai 2:1-2:9

1In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying:

2″Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say: 3Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?

4Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts, 5according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.

6For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land, 7and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts. 8The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts. 9The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts, and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.”

Today’s sermon is the stories of 3 faith communities.  

Two United Methodist Churches and the faith community in Jerusalem in 520 BC.

The first Community closed because they had to do it their way.

The second community got stuck for a while because they got distracted by life.

The third Community said yes to God and God did things they did not expect!

The First Community is North Mason United Methodist Church.  North Mason was the first United Methodist Church that I served in, and they are the reason that I am a Methodist today.  I served there as Music Director when my daughter was 3 years old, so that was 22 years ago.  I will never forget the day that I made an announcement at the end of worship asking for volunteers to support a Kazoo Marching Band program at the Boys and Girls Club.  Yes, I thought that up all by myself.  Yes.  I’m still that crazy.  Anyway, I asked for folks to come talk to me up front after worship if they were interested in helping, and this little church, who worshiped 50 on a good Sunday, surrounded me with support!  I literally could not see the walls because nearly every member of that little church crowded around me to support my wild idea to direct a Kazoo Marching Band.  

North Mason UMC taught me the meaning of Sanctifying Grace.  

We have 3 types of Grace in Methodist theology.

• Prevenient Grace – pre, meaning before.  We believe that God loves us before we love God.
• Justifying Grace – Which refers to the knowledge that we are saved, or justified – which is to say:  now we know that God loves us.
• Sanctifying Grace – which means that now that we know we are loved, we start to live like we are loved.  So we practice neighbor-love.

North Mason was a plucky little church who didn’t just talk about love, they practiced love in their community.

Which is why I was so surprised to find out that North Mason UMC closed a few years ago.  But also, not surprised.

I remember a memorial that I was a part of, as the music director.  The memorial was for one of the founding members of the church.  A “self-made”  man, who had defied the odds and taught himself how to walk after surviving polio as a child.  A man who made a lot of money in his business ventures.  A man who donated a lot to the church, and expected to influence the choices of the Church in return for his money.  

His family insisted that we play a recording of Sinatra singing My Way, at his memorial and it seemed apt.  Everything had to be his way.

That was the other side of this grace-filled little church.  

They wanted to serve.  

They wanted to be involved.  

They wanted to welcome new people.

But they wanted to do it on their terms.

It’s just that their way – which was to recreate a nostalgic version of the past – 

 was not God’s way, in that time and that place.

So now.  North Mason UMC is no more.

Our second Faith Community is Jerusalem sometime between mid-August and mid-December of the year 520 BCE, which is when the book of Haggai was written.  Forgive me for Geeking out a little bit over how precise the dating of this book is!  The date is important because it gives us the context that isn’t in the book!

Here’s the back story!

The nation of Judea was conquered by the Babylonians and the first Temple was destroyed in 997 BCE.  Then the Persians conquered the Babylonians, King Cyrus told the Jews they could go home and rebuild their city and their Temple in 538 BCE.  

During the Reign of Cyrus the people had begun reconstruction of the Temple, but for some reason they stopped.  Maybe they got distracted. There was a lot to rebuild, homes and markets and streets and bakeries… all the necessary stuff of life.  And as happens, life went on and the next thing you know it’s been about 10 years since construction halted and the Temple is still an unfinished construction site in 520 BCE.

So in chapter 1, the prophet Haggai feels called to ask for a meeting with Governor Zerubbabel Ben Shealtiel and High Priest Joshua Ben Jehozadak at the Temple construction site, to tell them that God has noticed that while they are living in fine houses, God’s house – the Temple is lying in ruins.  Haggai feels called to tell them nothing is working well because the Temple is in ruins. 

This is why your harvests are failing. 

This is why no matter how much you have, nothing feels like it’s ever enough.  

Nothing will be right until you finish the Temple!

It seems like what Haggai is saying is that your lives feel empty because you are spiritually empty without the Temple.  But the Temple was more than a place of worship.  

The Temple was a soup kitchen.

The Temple, like most Temples that practiced animal sacrifice, was an all day, every day, BBQ and soup kitchen.

Except when people sacrificed to Athena or Baal, only the rich person who made the sacrifice and the priests ate.  

When people sacrificed at the Temple, everybody ate.

The Prophet Ezekiel, who was present for the destruction of the Temple, wrote a description of a new plan for the second Temple in Ezekiel chapters 40 and following, where Ezekiel just like our foremothers in the faith, imagined a new Temple kitchen that was 3 times the size with big ovens to bake bread and multiple stew pots, so that all the small offerings could go into the soup.  Like the 2 birds that Mary and Joseph sacrificed to celebrate the birth of Jesus, because they couldn’t afford a lamb, all those small offerings would go into the stew pots, so that there was always soup and bread available to anyone who was hungry, at the back of the Temple.

So by not finishing the Temple, the people had not only forgotten God’s House. They had forgotten the People’s Table.

Without the bread and soup and BBQ, the widows and orphans, the poor and the disabled, were going hungry.

In our reading for today,  Haggai calls Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua to meet in the abandoned construction zone of the Temple and remind them that when God wants to do something, God provides.  God is going to shake down the nations for the money to get the construction project going again.  It’s time for them to release their fear, to be courageous and trust that God.

It’s not about doing it “my way,” because if we’re doing it my way, I don’t know how to build a new church any more than Haggai knew how to build a Temple.  But if we’re doing it God’s way, then God will provide.

So the people got unstuck, and after a 10 year pause Temple construction began again, and the Temple that Jesus walked in was built.

The Third Community is a little United Methodist church in the Desert Southwest Conference, that I learned about at the conference I went to in Vegas.

This is the story of how they went from a little congregation of 5 faithful saints, with a little building that was falling apart around their ears, who were struggling to pay ¼ time clergy salary, to being fully funded and having a full time appointment!

It began with the Cabinet telling them that since they were struggling to even pay ¼ time salary for a clergy person, that their church would have to become a part of a Ministry Cooperative.  A Ministry Cooperative is where several churches share one or more clergy together, like Open Door Ministries in Salem.

Some churches get defensive when the Cabinet tells them they have to share their Pastor and jump to the conclusions that maybe somebody doesn’t like them, or “the Conference” is trying to shut them down.  But these faithful folks, all 5 of them, knew what their reality was.  

So they approached collaborative ministry with an attitude of prayer.  They met with their Pastor and had conversations about their reality and tried to dream about the future, but they just didn’t know what to do.

But God was already at work in their community, through the Mayor of their small town.  You see, there had been an influx of immigrants seeking asylum from Venezuela, so the Mayor asked all the churches in town to help with sheltering the asylum seekers.  These 5 faithful Saints had been in prayer for a few months when the Mayor’s call came, so they said yes.

And they were the ONLY CHURCH in town who said yes.

So they sheltered about 20 asylum seekers in their building, and the people from the city and the other nonprofit organizations who worked with these 5 faithful saints, began to dream of more permanent housing.

That led to a connection with an affordable housing developer, who proposed a land swap where the affordable housing build got the back lot of the church to build 9 units of housing in exchange for building the congregation a new, energy efficient church building.

This faithful congregation of 5 saints, also stewarded a parsonage that they had rented out for 20 years without any maintenance, and it was an absolute mess, so through all the friends they were making in the community, they managed to sell their dump of a parsonage that happened to be in a desirable neighborhood for $1.2 mil!

So this little church of 5 faithful saints, because they said yes to God, when every other church said no, is getting a brand new building and is having a full time church planting clergy couple appointed to start new vibrant ministries in a brand new ministry space that is flexible, with a big kitchen, no pews, showers, and a rule that all furniture must be movable by one person, so that it’s easy to reconfigure the space for whatever ministry God surprises them with next!

All because they said yes to doing it God’s way.

So I sat there in classroom 8 of the education wing of Henderson United Methodist, in a suburb of Los Vegas, thinking.  I need to share this story with my church!

I need to tell them that we are not the only ones with whom God is doing a new thing!

Church, I want to honor the fact that it’s not easy letting go of something we love.

These walls are soaked with the prayers of the faithful Saints who have come before us!

All the non-church folks who visit this sanctuary comment on what a good “feel” this sanctuary has.

But God is doing something here.

Something similar to restoring the soup kitchen at the back of the Temple.

Something very similar to giving up a beloved old building so that people can be housed in Arizona and new space can be made for ministry.

Something that I did not plan or imagine.

Something that I don’t even know how to lead you in, but God does.

God does!

And today, after worship, you get to vote on it.

So lets be in an attitude of prayer.

God, may your will be done, not my way, God, but your way be done.  Amen.

1 Thessalonians 1:1-4;11-12

1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

2 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.

11 To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today we celebrate All Saints Day.

As Protestants, we don’t canonize Saints as people with a special level of holiness.

We believe that everyone trying to follow God, however imperfectly, is a Saint.

Those who have gone before us…

All of us gathered here…

Those who are yet to come…

We’re all Saints.

We are the ones whom the author of First Thessalonians prayed for.  

Because Paul, Silvanus and Timothy didn’t write 1 Thessalonians, it’s another Pauline Fan Fiction letter, but it’s a good one.

But I bet that the real Paul, Silvanus and Timothy did pray for us and all the Saints to come.

Wild huh.

But it also makes sense.

I think back to all the people, living and dead, who have influenced me, and they all had flaws, and things they weren’t so good about, and yet, they made a difference in my life and my faith.

I also think about our forebearers in the Faith who contributed both wonderful and terrible things to Christianity.

Like, Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church.  Luther wrote beautiful and important theology about the expansiveness of God’s Grace… and Luther was also deeply antisemetic. 

Or our own founder, John Wesley, whose “Method,” was to actually practice neighbor-love towards the poor, the prisoner, the child laborers, the factory workers, instead of just talking about loving our neighbors…and Wesley was a terrible boyfriend and husband.  He excommunicated his ex-fiance for marrying somebody else, and he and his wife separated shortly after their marriage because there was just no living with that man! 

The Saints that came before us were deeply flawed and also deeply holy.

And so are we.

We are all in need of God’s grace, and we all have a calling to offer the world.

So I’m going to ask you to think about some of the Saints, famous or not, who have influenced you.  

I’m going to give you a minute to think.

Now turn to a neighbor or 2 and share what you remember about the Saints who formed your faith?

I’m going to ask you to share something about what your neighbor said, so listen well!

Let’s bring up our online friends, so they can share too.

What do your neighbors remember about the Saints who formed their faith?

It’s interesting what we remember and what we hear, isn’t it!

As most of you know by now, we are in the process of trying to build affordable housing — we’ll be having a congregational vote on that next week, but more on that later…

I have loved asking our older members what it was like the last time this Church decided to tear down their building and build something that better met their ministry needs?

I ask them,

What do you remember about that time?

Spill the tea!  Tell me about the drama!

Who said what?

Who did what?

Who do you remember about that time?

The story is that in the mid- 1950’s the congregation’s faith was growing so abundantly that they no longer fit in the old white church.

It was too small and didn’t have enough space for all their Sunday School classes. The old white Church just didn’t meet their needs anymore, and this is a small lot, so they had to tear something down to make room for anything new.  

So they raised the money, they tore it down, and they built… this!

A big sanctuary, and lots of Sunday School rooms downstairs for all the kids – with those cool little slidy windows for delivering snacks.

And storage rooms and bathrooms, although why aren’t there any bathrooms on the same level as the Sanctuary?

And a full on bank-style vault to store old papers in… I mean, it’s really cool… but why a bank-style vault?

They dreamed it, they funded it and they built it!

It’s interesting to me that nobody seems to remember any drama!

I haven’t heard any stories of people who left the congregation because they wanted to keep the old white church.

Or stories about arguments over the carpet or the kitchen.

Or stories about paint color drama.

I was beginning to think that generation were truly the greatest generation!

I just kept hearing how so many of them donated their time to work on the building.

How they put in a time capsule under the plaque on the front of the building.

How much they loved one another and how their families were all friends.

The stories of who taught Sunday School and who served in the nursery.

And then I heard about the car.

Apparently a certain Saint owned an auto-body shop?

Please correct me if I’m wrong!

And this certain Saint may have decided to help the Congregation save on cement costs for the foundation by “contributing” a car frame to the foundation.

And then I started to hear about the people who did not feel welcome.

The people whose differences were just not considered acceptable by mid-twentieth-century standards.

And then as time went on, I heard about people who weren’t happy about what that one Pastor said that one time…

Or people who wanted things to stay the way they were in 1956, despite the fact that it’s not 1956 outside anymore.

The truth is that the Saints who built this building were not any more or less Saintly than those who came before them or we who come after them.  They were simply faithful to their calling in their time.

They were willing to support their Pastor in meeting new people in the community, rather than only taking care of members.

They were willing to give up what was no longer working – a building that was too small and had the wrong spaces for the ministry they were being called to do.

They were faithful with what they had – their time, their expertise (or not so expertise! – have you seen the wiring down there!), their prayers, and their witness.

They were faithful in responding to all the changes and challenges of the post- WWII world they were living in.

Their faithfulness was their gift to God.

And now, about 50 years later, God is calling us to be faithful to respond to the changes and challenges of this post-pandemic world.

And honestly, I thank God for you, siblings in Christ.

I see your faith growing abundantly!

I see the love that every one of you has for one another expanding like a group hug to include people that the 1956 youth group never would have imagined would ever go to this church!

Not only do I boast about you, but our District Superintendent holds you up as an example of Congregational Development because of Haven Dinner and She is so delighted with our collaborative involvement in our small church coalition:  East Portland In Connexion – known as EPIC!

Saints — I see you faithfully stepping up every week.

Working hard to hold this old building together just one more year until we can tear it down and build something that fits the ministry we are being called to do now!

Creating new groups like the Sewists, and adapting old groups like the group formerly known as United Methodist Women to respond to the real issues of our lives today.

I see you glorifying the name of Jesus by practicing what he taught us – to love our neighbors as ourselves, especially the neighbors who might be considered the Least of these.

I see you supporting your Pastor, me, in being out in the community in different ways than what worked in 1956, because you know that it’s 2025 outside the  church, so it needs to be 2025 inside the church!

I believe that future generations will remember you as faithful.

Luke 17:11-19 NRSVUE

11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with a skin disease approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine? 18 Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Back in the 1900’s, when I was a teenager, when somebody said the word, “foreigner,” my first thought was the late 70’s early 80’s rock band, Foreigner, who’s hits:

Urgent (urgent, urgent, emergency!)

Cold as ICE, and

I Want to Know What Love is

Which all seem like important discussion topics here in 2025.

God help us!

But in First Century Judea, when Jesus walked the earth calling someone a foreigner was a serious religious distinction.

Biblically, the distinction between foreigners and God’s people is explicitly stated in Deuteronomy chapter 7, as a part of Moses revealing what we now call the 10 commandments, which are in chapter 6.  So according to the author of Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people:

• Do not make any treaties with the people already living in the promised land
• Do not intermarry with them!
• The directions given in Deuteronomy 7:5-6 for dealing with foreigners are: “5 But this is how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, and burn their idols with fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”

So.  According to Deuteronomy:

We don’t negotiate with foreigners…which means no peace treaty, just total war.

We don’t marry foreigners…so their children don’t matter.

Hulk Smash foreigners.

Yikes!

When did this start?

If you look back before Moses in the Bible, the Family of Abraham is just one family, so they definitely married outside the faith.  So what happened to make them so anti-everybody else?

First of all, Deuteronomy is not a Live at 5 reporter’s account of what happened.  

Most scholars agree that  Deuteronomy was written and edited by many people over time.  The earliest writings dating from the time of King Josiah around 621BC with the later writings from the return from the Babylonian Exile during the time of the Prophet Nehemiah, who wrote extensively on his campaign to get all Jewish men to cast out their foreign wives and children.

Exodus chapters 20-23 is an older, but still not an eyewitness reporter account of the giving of the commandments.  And while Exodus 23 does have a passage in Exodus 23:20-33 that says that God is going to displace the Canaanites, Hittites, and the other peoples from the promised land, and the Hebrew people are not supposed to make any treaties with them…  

Exodus 23:4 also reads:  “When you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back.

And more importantly Exodus 22:21-24 reads:

21 “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. 22 You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. 23 If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; 24 my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans.”

In Exodus we’re returning lost animals, and doing no wrong to resident aliens and in Deuteronomy we’re smashing and burning foreigner’s stuff.

That’s quite a contrast between the Exodus version and the Deuteronomy version isn’t it?

When people criticize the Bible for being contradictory, this is the kind of stuff they are talking about!

As United Methodists, we take the Bible seriously, not literally, therefore we know that only the Tablets themselves were carved in stone by the hand of God.  

The Bible was written by people.  

The Bible was written by many people, in different places and times with different theological axes to grind.  Sometimes Prophets were writing at the same time and arguing with one another on what they thought God was up to.

As United Methodists we believe that the Bible is inspired by God, but not written by God, and certainly not infallible in translation and editing!

But we also look to scripture for guidance in difficult times like this!

And when scripture is saying two very different things about how  we should treat the foreigner among us… well, we know exactly what happens because we’re living through that right now.

A perspective that has been helpful for me, is from Professor Emertis of New Testament, John Dominic Crossan. Crossan wrote a little book called, “How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis Through Revelation.”

The main idea of Crossan’s book is that the Bible is not only a discussion between the various authors and editors, but that the Bible is a discussion between God and Humanity.

God demonstrates the value of hospitality to foreigners (often translated strangers) when Abraham welcomes the strangers who turn out to be Angels.

But then people are like – the Egyptians were totally mean to us, so we get to be mean to foreigners like them, right?

But then God says,  “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” You know how awful it is to be treated that way, and don’t do it to others!

But then people – the authors of Deuteronomy write their own version of the story that totally justifies oppression of foreigners.  Because they wanted to re-establish Temple Judaism.

But then God, through the Prophet Isaiah calls the foreigner Cyrus, the Anointed One who saves the Jewish people.  Because Cyrus told them to go home and rebuild their Temple and cities.

Then people – the Prophet Neihemiah tells all the Jewish men to divorce their foreign wives and cast out their foreign children.  While rebuilding Jerusalem under the rule of Cyrus.

Then God shows up subtly in the story of Ruth, the Moabite – a foreign widow of a Jewish man who converts to Judaism and who ends up being an ancestor of Jesus.

And in today’s reading, God godself, Jesus honors the Samaritan – who were the people who constructed the sacred pillars for worship (the ones Deuteronomy says to smash!) rather than going to the Temple. The Samaritan foreigner is the one who gives glory to God.  

The Samaritans who were actually the descendants of the people of Northern Israel who were not carried into the Babylonian Exile.  People whom the writers of Nehemiah and Deuteronomy may have considered to be their religious competition.

But Jesus doesn’t see the Samaritans as the religious competition.

God isn’t insecure like we are.

Jesus extends the invitation to participate in the Kingdom of God to, “whomsoever will.”

Or as the Apostle Paul, and this was the actual Paul, not Pauline fan fiction, wrote in Galatians 3:28:  “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Lamentations 3:19-26

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

19 The thought of my affliction and my homelessness

    is wormwood and gall!

20 My soul continually thinks of it

    and is bowed down within me.

21 But this I call to mind,

    and therefore I have hope:

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

    his mercies never come to an end;

23 they are new every morning;

    great is your faithfulness.

24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

    “therefore I will hope in him.”

25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him,

    to the soul that seeks him.

26 It is good that one should wait quietly

    for the salvation of the Lord.

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

    God’s mercies never come to an end;

23 they are new every morning;

    great is your faithfulness.

24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

    “therefore I will hope in Them.”

25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Them,

    to the soul that seeks them.

26 It is good that one should wait quietly

    for the salvation of the Lord.

This declaration of hope in the middle of an entire book of Lamentations is like a bright blue patch of batchelor’s buttons flowers in the midst of a field of manure.

Tuesday was a manure kind of day for me.

When my feet hit the floor my left ankle was sore.  Did I sleep wrong?  On my ankle?  How???

Then I had my shift at the Federal Courthouse doing accompaniment, and there were so many people on the court docket that I chose to stay an extra hour, which was fine, but being on alert, scanning the area for ruffians in gators, is intense.  

And Google translate was not being my friend!  A young man asked me if I was government or something, and in the process of using google translate to explain that I am a Pastora here to protect you from Immigracion thugs – well, I didn’t realize that thug would translate to murderer!  

So sorry! 

Did not mean to scare you!

Let’s try, Immigracion jerks… jerks translates into Idiots!  

Much better!

After my 2 hour shift that turned into 3 hours on hard pavement,

I limped back to my car with my ankle tendon still hurting.  

$19 for parking!  

Sigh.

And went to work.

I just didn’t have the creative energy to write my sermon, so I figured I’d work on my homework for the MBA in Nonprofit Administration that I was telling you about last week.  Remember how I told you that the Fundraising class I’m in is kinda uncomfortable for me?

Well, it’s not just because we’re talking about money.

I got an email from my Fundraising Professor telling me that she had taken my post down because she felt that my response to the discussion prompt was not humble enough.  And she sent me a post by another student as an example of how she would like me to post.

The post that she held up as an example was a fellow clergy student, posting how he does not know anything about how to receive donations of complex assets. and that he doesn’t even know if his church finance team knows anything about donations of complex assets.  I love that for him!

Complex assets, by the way, are things like – donations of stock, real estate, or even a harvest of soybeans.

I was surprised by the idea of a donation of a harvest of soybeans, because the only crops I’ve ever seen donated are hazel nuts or strawberries that were packaged and sold in the community.

But, I am quite familiar with donations of stock, real estate and even a Charitable Lead Trust – where the Trust is willed to a series of family members until the last one dies and then the church gets what’s left.

And, might I say, Church, that your Finance Team, and your Board are very smart and experienced and do a great job managing donations of complex assets!

In my original post, I addressed the lecture and readings on the topic of donations of Complex Assets from the point of view of how we already handle those assets according to United Methodist policies.  But  apparently that’s bragging!  She wanted me to pretend that my Church isn’t awesome and that I don’t know anything about complex assets.  Apparently it’s arrogant of me to be an experienced Pastor.

This is not the first time she has taken down or edited my posts, but it will be the last, because this class ends this week.  Hallelujah!

Then… after editing and resubmitting my work, and copying the head of the program on all that nonsense, because that’s what one calls academic censorship and I’m not having it…

Then… my beloved daughter Gwen is mad at me because I overcooked her noodles.  

I’m sitting at the table at 8:30 at night, finally eating dinner when she thrust a cold, leftover, gluten free noodle under my nose and demanded that I taste it.  (I thought it tasted fine.)

Then she proceeded to ask, with barely restrained rage, that I NEVER cook her noodles again, because I ALWAYS overcook them.  And noodles should NOT be a liquid, which I thought was a little overstated, because it was still noodle shaped, just rather soft.

So, I apologized and promised to never try to cook her noodles again.  

I get it.  

She had gotten home from a long day at work, which takes a lot out of her as she lives with chronic, constant pain, and she was looking forward to leftover gluten free noodles, one of the few things she can eat with her Crones disease, and she likes her noodles al dente.  Mushy noodles were just too much to deal with while tired and in pain.

I know that.  So I don’t argue, I just apologize.

I’m sorry that I made my baby girl’s day harder.

And that’s on top of all the usual stuff.

You know, the erosion of Trans and women’s rights.

People starving and dying in Gaza.

Troops being deployed to our city.

Climate change…

Tuesday was just a manure filled day.

But then my husband got home and suggested that we go swimming, because Tuesday was the last day of the community pool being open.  

And yes.  

It was cloudy and cool and sprinkling.

But the pool is heated and it’s not like the rain was going to make us wetter.

So we swam in the rain.

And my Very Patient Husband quietly listened until my annoyance had run its course.

And we swam laps and looked at the heavy clouds backlit by the glow of the moon.

And there was some peace in the steadiness of the rhythms of creation.

There was mercy in the rain after a long, dry summer.

There was reassurance that tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow; 

the sun will rise again.

There is love between people, even people who overcook the noodles.

Love that flows like water unceasing, 

from God our source, through us and among us…

Love that cannot be stopped, even by death.

Hope flowers like bright blue bachelor’s buttons.

Not in spite of the the field of manure,

but because of it.

Hope blossoms ever more brightly among that which needs to be composted.

That which needs to be apologized for.

That which needs to change.

And now, a judge has ordered the deployment of troops unconstitutional.

And the head of the program acknowledged that my professor had engaged in academic censorship and gave her a talking to.

And the sun is shining.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

    God’s mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

new every morning;

new every morning;

    great is your faithfulness, Oh God

Great is your faithfulness.