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.

1 Timothy 6:6-19 NRSVUE

6 Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it, 8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

11 But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. 16 It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

17 As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches but rather on God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, 19 thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

This month I’ve been preaching a sort of loose sermon series catching you all up on the things Spirit has been up to in my life over the summer.

The first Sunday,  September 7th, I shared about my experiences doing Clergy Accompaniment at the Federal Courthouse and the ICE Facility, and talked about the origin of the term Woke, from passages like Romans 13.

September 14,  I talked about Paul’s instructions in Romans 14 to not judge one another on how we each live out our calling from God.  Remember friends,  Boundaries are Holy!

Last week, I talked about how the word we translate as salvation, sothe, has a much larger meaning of holistic wellness and how salvation is something we participate in here on earth as it is in heaven.  And I shared the hilarious story of my Great Aunt Alice’s funeral. O Jerusalem!

All of these sermons are available on the church website if you’d like to take another look, or missed church that morning.

In July, I traveled to South Dakota to begin the Practical Church Leadership program at Dakota Wesleyan University.  Practical Church Leadership is basically ?’s of an MBA in Nonprofit Leadership designed for Pastors actively serving a congregation.  I signed up for this because it has a year long Applied Project where we learn how to use Project Management tools in our church setting, and they did not teach us how to  manage a Housing Project in Seminary!

So I applied for some scholarships and the program is very reasonably priced, and if I keep going next year, I’ll have a Masters in Business Administration in Nonprofit Leadership in July 2027, and more importantly, I’ll have access to experts from the College of Business to help us navigate this whole Housing Process!

I always have 2 classes, the year long Applied Project and another 7 week topical class.  My current topical Class is Financial Resource Development.  And it’s really pushing all of my money issues buttons!

First of all,  I want to issue a “Not A Trigger Warning,” because this is NOT a Stewardship Sermon.  I will NOT be asking you to give more, or to fill out a pledge card, or to consider moving towards tithing.

One of my money issues, as a Pastor, is that it genuinely makes me sad when I hear people say that they think their church only cares about their money.  I have also been in churches where I felt like I was just a “giving unit,” to them, not a beloved child of God, and I just don’t want to do that to anybody.  So I very rarely do a direct ask for money.

For me, Stewardship really is my favorite spiritual practice.  Tom and I have tithed our entire 32 years of marriage, not out of a legalistic or fundamentalist reading of the Bible, but because giving away 10% of our income is so delightfully, radically, countercultural.  It’s so countercultural that we have, in fact, been audited by the IRS twice for, and I quote, “excessive charitable giving.”  I find it deeply ironic that a nation that prints, In God We Trust, on our currency, finds tithing suspicious!

When we give, whether to the church, to charities that serve the poor, or to political campaigns that are seeking justice, it makes me happy that we are pulling money out of the systems of consumerism, capitalism, and patriarchy that reduce beloved children of God into units of labor, units of consumption, and units of dependants.  

Believe it or not, Tom and I are not members of the Socialist Party!  We enjoy giving our hard earned money away to causes that support the belovedness of all people, because we find joy in following the teachings of Jesus.

We’re not socialists, we’re Christians who actually read the Bible!

Today’s Bible reading is from First Timothy.

It’s important to realize that First Timothy, Second Timothy and Titus are “Fan Fiction.”  Paul did not write these letters, because Paul was dead at the time they were written, sometime around 100-120 AD.  We know it was written before 125 AD, because Polycarp alludes to 1 Timothy in his book, Letter to the Philippians, which was published sometime between 125-135 AD.  There’s a lot of inaccuracies in the first and early second century timelines because the Romans literally lost track of time in the midst of a series of military coops.

At any rate,  First Timothy is fan fiction, which explains some of the blatant sexism found in other portions of the letter.  The authentic Paul wrote letters to the women he placed in church leadership, so clearly he wasn’t sexist, but Roman culture was extremely sexist, and we are all influenced by our culture!

However, there’s still some good stuff in First Timothy especially about our relationship with money.  The early second Century Church had grown enough that there were rich people in the church.  The Jesus movement very much started out as a group of people who were at the bottom of the economic ladder.  The first disciples were primarily working class, poor people, disabled people, women, and slaves.  So the Second Century Church didn’t quite know how to deal with success.

So the author of First Timothy is writing fan fiction for fellow Pastors, as if Paul was writing a letter to Timothy as a young leader.

In our reading for today, the author is trying to help us understand that money is not evil.  Money is just a tool that should be used for food and clothing and the basics of life.  But the lust for money and the love of money can plunge people into ruin and destruction.

I feel like the misunderstanding of this good teaching has caused a lot of money issues both within the church and in people’s everyday lives.

Too many people forget that verse 10 reads, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”  Verse 10 does NOT read “money is the root of all evil.”

This inaccurate reading combined with the also inaccurate idea that being content means that being content with poverty and suffering is somehow godly is exactly what Karl Marx was complaining about when he called religion, “the opiate of the masses.” 

Unfortunately Marx doesn’t seem to have read the Bible to find out that it doesn’t actually say that!

But when people think that being content with poverty and suffering is somehow holy, and that money is evil, that belief can be used to shame them into not asking for fair wages, not asking for safe working conditions, not joining a union, and even not taking a promotion because they have been taught to view bettering themselves as a sin.

What is actually written in First Timothy chapter 6 is that as followers of God, we are to shun wandering away from the faith in our pursuit of wealth.

The other problem with this bad interpretation where money is considered evil is that then we don’t want to talk about something evil in Church, right?

Which puts us as believers in a little bit of a pickle, because the secular world is dominated by money.

I absolutely believe in the pursuit of righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.  But my mortgage company does not accept them as valid forms of payment.

We live in a world where we need money.

And where money and our relationship to money massively impacts our lives!  But somehow we’re not supposed to talk about this very important part of our lives at church?

And then outside of church, we’re not supposed to talk about money either.

You’re not supposed to talk about how much you make with your coworkers.

You’re not supposed to talk about how much things cost.

You’re not supposed to comment on how rich people use their money…. although it seems perfectly acceptable to criticize how the poor use their money.

We’re not supposed to talk about money, and yet, in our culture, we are expected to admire those who have the most money, and despise those who have the least.

One of the guest speakers in my Financial Resource Development class posited a theory about the meaning of this cult of silence around money.

He said that people are typically silent before their God.

That just as Job and Elijah were silent when God appeared before them, this culture is silent before money.

We are afraid to question the evil that is done for the sake of money, because:

Money is the God of our culture.

So many of us have been left feeling divided by the silence of the Church when what we need is a healthy conversation about money.

We need to have money to survive – just physically survive in this economic system.

But we want to be good followers of God.

And Matthew 6:24 says that we cannot serve both God and money.

So how do we live as Christians in this money worshiping economic system? 

Look at verse 17 and following.

Money isn’t evil, it’s just not something to put your trust in.

We need to keep our focus on God’s abundance and be rich in what really matters.

• Doing good, 
• loving our neighbors, 
• And, going back to verse 8, IF we have more than enough to cover the basics, sharing what we have.

But if we don’t have enough to be content, then asking for more and working for more, in order to get the basics covered, is not worshiping money.  It’s just the daily grind of trying to keep body and soul on speaking terms!

So let’s not be silent about money.

Let’s be honest about money.

Money is not our God.

Money is not evil.

Money is just a tool.

A tool that we can choose to do good with.

Good for our own lives and good for the lives of others.

John 3:13-17 NRSVUE

13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Trigger warning.  This sermon mentions child abuse.  I won’t be going into any details, so it’s still suitable for all ages.

It’s kind of an odd thing for a Pastor to say, but I am the Black Sheep of my family of origin.  As in, when I entered the church for my Great Aunt’s funeral, the whole room went silent and all eyes were on me.  As if I was going to grow a second head, or breathe fire, or say something really uncomfortable.  Probably the last one… I mean, if I was going to grow an extra body part, I’d choose to grow another arm, wouldn’t you?

I didn’t… say or do anything uncomfortable, that is.  I also didn’t grow any body parts or breathe fire.  

It was still a weird day.

The center aisle of St John’s Lutheran Church in Salem, Oregon, is very narrow.  

Too narrow for the rolling cart that is usually used to transport the casket to the front of the church after the viewing.

So the male members of my family took on the job of pall bearers.  Three short men on each side of the casket, shuffled sideways down the narrow aisle, but the aisle was so narrow that they didn’t really fit.  So each time they shuffled past a pew, each of these short men would rise up onto their toes to shift their behinds over the backs of the pews.  

Shuffle, shuffle, lift.  

Shuffle, shuffle, lift.

Shuffle, shuffle, lift.

We’re all standing as the casket slowly processes. 

Shuffle, shuffle, lift. 

Shuffle, shuffle, lift.

And I’m thinking… If Aunt Alice was next to me, she would have been making the most inappropriate comments!  It was all I could do to keep a straight face.

By that time in my life, I had already been a Church musician for many years and been a part of many services, so I knew that something going sideways is very normal for services.

But then, it went further sideways.

Do you remember those old preprinted funeral bulletins that would leave a blank space for you to type in the person’s name and pronouns?  They used one of those, that’s fine, it was the mid 2000’s, but many churches were slow to adopt computers.   But I didn’t know you could actually do that verbally…

So this Pastor who sounds Rev Lovejoy from the Simpsons, gets up to welcome the mourners and says,

“Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the life of, Alice Christine Dahlen.  We come together in grief, acknowledging our our loss of, Alice.

May God  grant us grace, that in pain we may find comfort, and sorrow hope, and in death resurrection…

And on and on he went. Every dang time her name came up in the liturgy, it was the verbal equivalent of “insert name here.”

I could practically hear the Times typewriter font.

By this time, I am trying so hard not to laugh out loud that I’m shaking with repressed laughter.         

Fortunately I sat in the front so my family couldn’t see my face.

Then the organist began to play.

Something you may not realize is that being a musician is a very physical job.

I play flute, guitar, auxiliary percussion, and piano – very badly.

I have carpal tunnel, so bad that my hands go numb while playing guitar, and I’m only 53.

Alice planned her own funeral, decades beforehand, and she asked that the old organist be brought back to play for her funeral.

The old organist was in her 90’s and, as many organists do, she had severe arthritis in her hands and feet.  Playing a pipe organ is a whole body workout.  The base notes are played with your feet and there is no sustain pedal, so you have to hold down the keys to keep the notes sounding.

Combining arthritis, age and the full body workout of playing a pipe organ meant that she played very, very, very slowly.  Which was understandable.

But then, Alice had also requested the old soloist be recalled from retirement.  As a singer,  I can tell you from personal experience that as we age, we lose range and we lose control of our pitch and vibrato. 

Alice had chosen that old chestnut, “Oh Jerusalem,” and friends, those old musicians did their very best.  I mean, they gave it everything they had left.

The soloist warbled, “Jer-uuuuuuuu – sa -lem.  Jer-uuuuuuuu – sa -lem.”

And I just could not hold it in any longer.  I covered my face with my hands and I laughed so hard under the cover of the booming organ that that whole pew shook.  I heard someone say,  “look, she’s crying so hard that she’s shaking!”

I’m glad they assumed that.

By the time the service was done, I was laughing so hard that I actually did cry from laughing so hard, so quietly.  Alice had a great sense of humor. She would have loved her funeral!

Fortunately, after that pew shaking performance, my family left me alone.

You see, the reason that I am the black sheep of my family is because I and my cousins are survivors of child abuse.  I did grieve very hard for my Great Aunt Alice, because she took me in when I moved out of my parents house at age 14.

I became the black sheep when my daughter was born.  I told my family that I would not allow my uncle, the pedophile, around my children, so either he could come to family gatherings or I and my children could… well, they chose him.

In their eyes, you either towed the family line… that line being, all families have their problems, so get over it.  Or you were out.  So because I would not accept child abuse as normal, I was out.

This idea of dualism –

People are either right or wrong.

People are in or out.

People are bad or good.

People are saved or unsaved.

Dualism is problematic.

Because it doesn’t make space for the complexity — the nuances of life.

Or the nuances of faith.

Our reading today is from the gospel of John.  The gospel of John was not written by the Beloved Apostle, but it was written in Syria, around the year 90 AD in a community founded by John the Beloved.  

The gospel of John is full of metaphorical and allegorical language, as the authors, we think there were at least 2 authors, seek to “give flesh” to deeply spiritual ideas.

And poetic language is really, really hard to translate.

Today’s reading contains two of the most problematic translations in the book of John.

If you look at verses 15 and 16 you will see the phrase, “eternal life.”

The Greek phrase that is often translated “eternal life,” actually reads something closer to, “the life of the age to come.” (Borg, Evolution of the Word, p307)

That Greek phrase, “the life of the age to come,” means basically the same thing as, “God’s Kingdom Come.”  It represents the hope that God will transform our lives through faith and that our faith will transform the world.

Our United Methodist Mission statement expresses a very similar idea.

“To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”

Basically, to know God, that is, to be a disciple which means “student” of Jesus, is to enter into the life of the age to come.  To live according to God’s Reign here on earth as it is in heaven, like we say in the Lord’s Prayer.

That changes how we read John 3:16 doesn’t it. Makes it sound more like this:

16 “For God so loved the world that They gave Their only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but enter into the lifestyle of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.

Also the word that we usually translate as Believes  ???????? (pisteu?n), has a little bit more meaning to it.  It does mean to believe, but also to put your faith in, or put your trust in.

So we might more accurately read John 3:16 as:

God loved the world so much that God sent Their only Son, so that everyone who puts their faith in him will not be a part of this death-dealing way of life, but enter into the lifestyle of the Kingdom of Heaven here on this earth.

The essentials are still there — God loves everyone so much that anyone who is willing to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven is welcome.  But the definition of believe is expanded and the concept of “the life of the age to come,” is put into more modern language.  We’re still talking about Heaven, but also this life too.

The second problematic translation in this reading is in verse 17.

17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

???? (s?th?) — healed, well, cured, saved, wholistic wellness)

The word in question is saved, or ???? (s?th?) in Greek.

So the is a word that is pregnant with meaning.

It is often translated as healed, well, and cured, as well as saved.

The concept of sothe is wholistic wellness.  Being well in mind, body and spirit.

Being spiritually, socially, physically, and mentally healthy.

So these verses aren’t just talking about the afterlife.

John 3:13-17 are talking about All of Life.

Life here on earth becoming like life in Heaven.

Which doesn’t mean that all of our problems are supposed to go away when we put our trust in God.

I wish, but no.

It means that we change when we put our faith in God.

Our values change.

Our words change.

Our behaviors change.

And when we change, we change the world around us, for everyone.

It was only by putting my trust in God that I found the courage to hold boundaries with my family of origin.  And those boundaries were costly.

I never spent another holiday with my family of origin again.  And my grandmother took all my pictures down off her walls.

But multiple generations of child abuse ended with me.

My children grew up safe.

Because safety for children is a part of the values of the Kingdom of Heaven.

But they grew up with only Tom’s side of the family as their extended family.

And I became the Black Sheep of the family, because in their minds, the only option was to either accept that abuse was normal, or reject the abuse which they defined as rejecting them.

They couldn’t see the third way that the Kingdom of Heaven offers, even though they believe in God.

They couldn’t see that I could both love and protect my children and not want my uncle around them.  That I did love my uncle, who was actually a really good uncle to me, and know that he couldn’t be trusted around my children.

Life is complex.  It’s nuanced.

Multiple things can be true at the same time.

We can love people and still hold boundaries.

People can not be ready to put their faith in God and still be welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus didn’t come to condemn anyone, but to save everyone.

And sometimes we just don’t get it.

We just can’t hold that much complexity.

We can’t escape the dualism of in groups and out-groups until we come face to face with God.

On the day that my grandmother died, I was at home with my children and I smelled my grandmother’s perfume.  She always wore Oscar de La Renta perfume.

My husband Tom, is allergic to perfume, so I was hunting all over the house, trying to find where this smell was coming from.  

Did one of my kids get into my box of perfumes?

Where is that smell coming from???

Finally I ceased searching and came to a stop in front of the living room window. 

I could feel my grandmother’s presence so strongly.

I could feel, without words, that she loved me and that now she understood my choices.

There was no sense of judgement or apology.  No right or wrong.

Just love and understanding.

She could see clearly now, and everyone was loved and understood, including me.

Then the smell of her perfume was gone, and so was she.

I found out the next day that she had died at that time.

God did not come to condemn anyone.

God came that everyone might find wholeness…healing…wellness…salvation.

Even the people we don’t understand in this life.

Romans 14:1-12 NRSVUE

1 Welcome those who are weak in faith but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. 2 Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. 3 Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat, for God has welcomed them. 4 Who are you to pass judgment on slaves of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

5 Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. 6 Those who observe the day, observe it for the Lord. Also those who eat, eat for the Lord, since they give thanks to God, while those who abstain, abstain for the Lord and give thanks to God.

7 For we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. 8 If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11 For it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,

    and every tongue shall give praise to God.”

12 So then, each one of us will be held accountable.

 

Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon hosts a monthly gathering called Common Table.  It’s an opportunity for nonprofit and faith leaders to meet one another and share about various ministries that we are up to.

The August meeting was held, just down the street, at PDX Saints Love, so I figured, why not, pop over.

Ron was sharing about the opportunity for clergy to accompany immigrants at ICE.

I talked about my experience with that last week – the sermon is on our website, if you’re curious.

Kristle shared about PDX Saints Love’s $50,000 funding hole because the Mayor gave all 3.2 million dollars for Day services to Join… then told Rahab’s and PDX Saints that Join could share that money with them.  

Some community members shared about the Peaceful Interfaith Protest, scheduled for August 23 – that’s how that made it into our all Church email.

Then we chatted.

I met a very passionate young man whose goal was to recruit White Clergy to show up to public anti-racism events.  

I thought, OK, that’s interesting, tell me more.

So then he starts to basically shame white clergy, and me, by extension for not doing anything to work for justice.

I took a deep breath.  Remembered Rev Dr. King’s letter from a Birmingham Jail, and tried to open my heart to listen.

He kept going on and on about how it’s every Pastor’s job to show up in public spaces and be on the news standing up for racial justice.

And when I dared to gently suggest that public appearances wasn’t the only, or even the most effective way to work for justice, he declared the conversation “unproductive,” and walked away from me.

Honestly, I was kinda relieved that he moved on.

This isn’t the first time that someone has tried to tell me how to be a Pastor “the right way.”

I doubt it will be the last.

In times like these when there are soooo many good, and important, and worthy things to be a part of, discerning what I am called to do, and therefore what I am not called to do, is essential.

There are only 24 hours in each day and we should only be laboring 5 days a week – as John Wesley, the founder of Methodism wrote, workers should take 2 days off per week.  One day for God, and one day for our own business. 

And even if we were to work and volunteer 7 days a week, no one person, and no one church, can do all the Good that there is to be done.

We can only do all the good that we can do.

In the places and times that we can do it.

With the people we can do it with.

The Kingdom of God is like a choir.

Each singer sings their part.

And to sustain the long notes, we take turns breathing, resting and rejoining the choir as God gives us breath.

Today’s Bible reading is from Paul’s Letter to the Christian Community in Rome.  And we do think that Romans was written by the authentic Paul.  Some of the later letters ascribed to Paul, were not written by Paul, because he was kinda dead at the time.  But writing in the style of a famous leader and signing the letter as if the leader had written it was very common at the time.  So you can think of some of Pauline letters, like first and second Timothy and Titus, which were written after Paul was dead, as “Fan Fiction,” if you will.  They have some great content, but Paul didn’t write them!

Paul’s letter to the Romans was a letter of introduction.

Paul had never been to visit the Christian Community in Rome, so Paul was introducing himself for a planned visit.

Part of Paul’s introduction was an explanation of Paul’s beliefs.

So the book of Romans is Paul’s most theological letter – explaining Paul’s theology of Grace to try to convince the Romans to donate to a proposed mission trip to Spain, that unfortunately got cancelled by Paul’s arrest and execution in Rome.

So Paul is speaking generally about his vision of how the church should be, and in the process addressing some of the typical issues that most churches had.

In verses 1-4 the translators chose to use the word, “weak,” but what Paul was really talking about was the Newbies.

This translation reads:

“1 Welcome those who are weak in faith but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions.”

In today’s language Paul might have said,

“Welcome the newbies, and don’t argue with them about opinions.”

The eating issue in verse 2 that Paul is referring to was a big controversy in the early church.  This takes some explaining, so here’s my modern interpretation.

You know how some restaurants are part of a larger corporation?

Like this McDonalds may be nicer than that McDonalds but they’re all McDonalds?

Back in the first century, Temples sold the meat that was sacrificed at them, like fast food.  Also, business owners, like restaurant owners, belonged to religious business associations, so that restaurant might not be a McAthena’s, but it’s part of the McAthena’s association.  Kind of like, Olive Garden and Longhorn Steak House are both owned by Darden Brands.  

Only the very rich had kitchens, so most people ate out or got take out!  

Which was a problem for newbie Christians who used to worship Athena, so now they didn’t feel comfortable eating at McAthena’s.

And, there were Jewish Christians who were still keeping Kosher, so they would not eat meat prepared by a non-Jew.

So some people ate only vegetables because they didn’t have a kitchen or didn’t trust others to cook kosher.  While other people, like Paul, ate anywhere because McAthena’s was what was handy and they didn’t believe in Athena, so it didn’t matter to them.

So Paul is saying – God has welcomed all these people, with all their opinions about food, into the community of believers, so don’t judge each other!  If God can accept them, so should you!  Or as my children like to say,  “You do you!”

In verse 5 Paul is addressing the controversy about Sabbath.  Jewish Christians observed the Sabbath on Saturday, as is still Jewish custom.  Some Christians had taken to observing Sabbath on Sundays, because that’s the day Jesus rose from the dead.  Still others just aren’t concerned about what day it is, as long as everyone gets a day of rest.

Paul is saying – for goodness sake Sabbath should be a source of rest, not a source of stress – this is not worth arguing about!

There have been arguments about matters of opinion in the Church since before there were buildings to choose carpet colors for!  This is nothing new.

I think it’s just human to have opinions.

It’s also human to debate whose opinions are better.

But let’s not major in the minors.

That young man who tried to tell me how he thought I should be a Pastor.

That was his opinion.

And it’s a valid opinion.

I agree that we do need more Progressive Christians in the public eye, so that people are not only hearing from the Clergy who espouse White Christian Nationalism that the press seems to love covering so much!

But… is being a public figure my calling?

Maybe at some point, but I don’t feel God calling me to do that now.

I work for Jesus.  Seriously.  The United Methodist Book of Discipline specifically states in  ¶ 143 that “clergy appointed to local churches are not employees of the local church, the district, or the annual conference.” because our ministry, “is derived from the ministry of Christ (¶ 301).”

I work for Jesus, not any of the people who like to tell me how to be a pastor.

And you work for Jesus, not any of the people who try to tell you what is your calling in this moment.

We are accountable to one another.  

Let me be clear, having our calling be defined by God is not an excuse for bad behavior!

And If I ever behave in a way that you feel is wrong, please do report it to my supervisor – District Superintendent Karen.  You can look up her contact info on the Oregon-Idaho UMC website.

But when it comes to our calling — the ministry we are meant to be a part of.

Every person, every church… we can only do what God is calling us to do.

We cannot do everything.

The Kingdom of God is like a choir.

Each singer sings their part.

No one can sing all the parts at the same time.

And to sustain the long notes, we take turns breathing, resting and rejoining the choir as God gives us breath.

Look at verse 10 and 11.

Why pass judgement on our siblings in Christ?

They don’t need to despise us for following our calling — for singing our part, anymore than we should despise them for following their calling and singing their part.

We are all God’s children, whether we know it or not.

So let’s leave the judgement to God!

If you ever feel pressured by me to do something that you don’t feel called to do, please say no to me!

Boundaries are holy!

Our callings are holy!

Too holy to spend our precious time doing things that are not ours to do.

And I will try to do the same.

I met a new community member for tea the week after the EMO meeting.

She was wondering what more she could do in these difficult times.

I shared the groups we are involved with.

Family Promise.

The Sewists Group

Montavilla Neighborhood Association

Rahab’s Sisters

Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice, 

who train the legal observers that I do Clergy accompaniment alongside.  Because she speaks multiple languages, Legal Observing was what she felt called to do, so I helped her connect with them.

Would I have preferred that she do something more involved in our church?  Yup!

But, that’s between her and God.

11 For it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,

    and every tongue shall give praise to God.”

12 So then, each one of us will be held accountable.

Romans 13:8-14 NRSVUE

8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12 the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 13 let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Friends, it’s so good to be back with you!

 I hope you enjoyed meeting my fellow EPIC Clergy as much as I enjoyed getting to be with our other EPIC Churches!

But it’s good to be home.

Spirit was busy in my life this August, so I want to share with you a little mini-series for these first 3 weeks in September because, I think, maybe you can relate.

I was feeling kind of helpless, like there was nothing I could do about all the horrible things going on in our country, so when I got an email asking Pastors to volunteer twice a month to accompany immigrants to their Immigration Appointments, I decided to give it a try.  I attended a training.  I signed up for a shift at the ICE Building at Macadam one week and a shift at the Federal Courthouse, downtown the next.

On the day of my first shift I was sooo nervous!

I’m taking deep breaths.  I’m praying in traffic.

And I get to the bottom of the hill, at the intersection of 92nd and Flavel.

And right there in front of me.  

In my neighborhood! 

Is a Big Black Armoured vehicle, and a squad of people in camo fatigues with serious guns.  

And a big, unmarked, black pickup truck is blocking the road where the military looking action is taking place.

Unmarked vehicles and wrong for purpose uniforms are a hallmark of ICE right now.  In case you didn’t know.

So, I’m on my way to try to do something about the way immigrants are being treated in our city and our country and… “this” is unfolding in front of me?

Seriously, God???!!!

Is this a test?

I mean, the Good Samaritan came upon the mugged man after the attack, not during it!!!!

I’m sitting there in my car with my clergy collar on and wondering, am I seriously going to play the part of the Priest who doesn’t stop to help, because I’m on my way to perform my clergy duties???!!!

Seriously, God???!!!

I looked at the situation and saw that several people were already there videoing the incident.

And I realized that I was not brave enough, or maybe stupid enough, to try to interfere with a squad carrying semi-automatic military rifles with nothing but my clergy collar to protect me.

I take some more deep breaths and continue to Macadam Avenue.

I couldn’t find anything on  the news about what that was when I got home at the end of the day.

When I got there, things were in process.  

What happens at the ICE building, is that immigrants who are trying to do things legally, show up for their check in.  

Some people have yearly check ins – these are folks who have permission to be here legally, but have not been issued a Green Card or other official residency.

Some people have monthly check-ins – these are often the people who are seeking asylum, or are relatively new in their process.

As Clergy, my role is to support the Legal Observers.

The Legal Observers are a legally sanctioned role who do just what their name implies.  They observe who goes in and who comes out.  

They ask people if they would like to sign in with them, so that the Legal Observers can call their lawyer or family, or whomever their contact is, if they don’t come out within 2 hours.

Let me be clear: If you’re trying to sneak into the country illegally, you are not showing up at the ICE facility!  So these people are not criminals!

As Clergy, my role was to walk people to the front door, to prevent ICE officers from snatching them on the street.  That was simple enough, until, apparently, I was sooo threatening that it took 2 ICE officers to tell me that I can’t come on the property anymore.  So then I could only walk people to the sidewalk, not the door.

I also sat with family members as they waited outside.

Sometimes the ICE officers will try to bait people.

They shout the names of people on their arrest list at the family members of those going inside for their appointment.  If the person outside responds to the sound of their name, that might constitute grounds to arrest them, so most of them know not to respond in any way.

A young mother was there for her check in, with her baby and her husband.

Not even family is allowed to come in with you, so the husband was sitting outside on the high cement curb and holding their little girl.

ICE agents kept calling out different names at the father, so I sat with him.

That little girl was soooo cute!

She wasn’t walking yet, and she had big brown eyes, and glossy, black curls that floated around her little head.  She didn’t cry.  She just kept patting her father’s face and pulling on his hands, trying to get at the keys safely clutched in his working man’s hands.  She reached out to me, so I leaned in.  I let her pat my face and grab my hand.  She pulled at my ring and patted my watch.  She pushed my hand one direction and the other to turn it over.

And in between patting my face and her father’s face, ICE agents would periodically come out and look at her father and call out different names at him.  Her father never looked up. Never spoke.  Never gave any indication that they had anything to do with him.  Evidently he was used to this kind of harassment.

About 40 minutes later, her mother came out and the ICE agents tried to bait her husband one more time, so I walked them off the property towards their car.

I heard the ICE agents call in and report me for soliciting.

But as my 3 hour shift turned into 4 hours, because it was an overfull day of check ins, I felt a calm come over me.

They could accuse me of whatever they wanted.

Heck, they had the power to arrest me, according to the current administration.

Even though my actions were constitutionally protected.

But I was not afraid, because as Romans 13:10 reads:

10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Today’s Bible reading is from Paul’s Letter to the Christian Community in Rome.  And we do think that Romans was written by the authentic Paul.  Some of the later letters ascribed to Paul, were not written by Paul, because he was kinda dead at the time, but writing in the style of a famous leader and signing the letter as if the leader had written it was very common at the time.  So you can think of some of the Pauline letters, like first and second Timothy and Titus, which were written after Paul was dead, as “Fan Fiction,” if you will.  They have some great content, but Paul didn’t write them!

Paul’s letter to the Romans was a letter of introduction.

Paul had never been to visit the Christian Community in Rome, so Paul was introducing himself for a planned visit.

Part of Paul’s introduction was an explanation of Paul’s beliefs.

So the book of Romans is Paul’s most theological letter – explaining Paul’s theology of Grace to try to convince the Romans to donate to a proposed mission trip to Spain, that unfortunately got cancelled by Paul’s arrest and execution in Rome.

So Paul is writing in volatile political times.

Writing about how to live as a Christian under the rule of a non-Christian, and sometimes even anti-Christian government.

Paul is also navigating the tensions between Jewish Christians, Gentile Christians and non-Christian Jews.  Trying to get all the worshipers of the same God on the same page by summarizing the Law and the Prophets as Love — Love your neighbor as yourself — Love fulfills the Law.

Paul, as a Roman citizen, honestly believed, at this point in his life, before he got arrested and executed for preaching and living the Rule of Love — Paul honestly believed that practicing neighbor-love would keep everyone in compliance with all the Laws.

Jewish Law and Roman Law.

Paul is witnessing the end of the Pax Romana – the Roman Peace.

Paul is witnessing armed rebellion in Judea.

Paul is witnessing the Roman Empire struggling to maintain its extensive colonized borders.

And Paul is thinking… Maybe this is it?

Maybe Jesus is coming really soon.

Many of the first generation disciples believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime and still believed that Jesus would restore the kingdom of Israel.

There are Christians today who support the genocide in Palestine because they think that the restoration of the borders of the Davidic Kingdom of Isreal will cause Jesus to return.

But Jesus himself said in Matthew 24:6-13

6 You will hear about wars and reports of wars. Don’t be alarmed. These things must happen, but this isn’t the end yet. 7 Nations and kingdoms will fight against each other, and there will be famines and earthquakes in all sorts of places. 8 But all these things are just the beginning of the sufferings associated with the end. 9 They will arrest you, abuse you, and they will kill you. All nations will hate you on account of my name. 10 At that time many will fall away. They will betray each other and hate each other. 11 Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because disobedience will expand, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be delivered.

The destruction of the Temple in 69 AD was not the end times.

The Great Schism of the Holy Roman Empire in 1054 was not the end times.

World War 1 and World War 2 were not the end times.

I don’t think that Trump is “THE Anti-Christ,” although his actions and policies are certainly not in alignment with Christian teaching.

 And I don’t believe that these are the end times.

And yet, Paul’s advice is still good.

Love your neighbor as yourself (vs 10)

And Wake Up!

Anybody who has eyes can see what’s going on around us.

The hour has come for the church to rise from her slumber.  

Look at verses 11-14 in today’s reading.

11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;12 the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 13 let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

I don’t think that Paul is talking about purity culture in verses 13-14. 

I don’t think Paul was opposed to joyful gatherings and sharing some wine and laughter.  

I think that Paul was talking about Epstein style parties.  

The kind of parties that nobody who calls themselves a Christian should be at.

I think that Paul was saying that in times like these. 

Times when it feels like the world has gone crazy. 

This is when we need to arm ourselves with faith instead of violence.

Arm ourselves with Love, and put aside whatever petty disagreements we may have with our fellow Christians.

Put aside our preferences about the stuff that doesn’t really matter 

and focus on the mission of neighbor-love

It is from scriptures like this one that the term “woke” comes from.

“Woke” is a term borrowed from the Black Church.

A shorthand for waking up to see what is going on around us.

Woke is a call to justice and a reminder of the hope we have in Christ.

A reminder, as it says in verse 11, of:

how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 

The God who delivered the Hebrew people from Egypt.

The God who hears the cries of the poor.

The God who came to the earth and rose from the dead.

Will hear the cries of the oppressed and invites us to be a part of God’s salvation.

Ezekiel 16:49-50 CEB

49 This is the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were proud, had plenty to eat, and enjoyed peace and prosperity; but she didn’t help the poor and the needy. 50 They became haughty and did detestable things in front of me, and I turned away from them as soon as I saw it.

Genesis 18:20-32 CEB

20 Then the Lord said, “The cries of injustice from Sodom and Gomorrah are countless, and their sin is very serious! 21 I will go down now to examine the cries of injustice that have reached me. Have they really done all this? If not, I want to know.”

22 The men turned away and walked toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing in front of the Lord. 23 Abraham approached and said, “Will you really sweep away the innocent with the guilty? 24 What if there are fifty innocent people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not save the place for the sake of the fifty innocent people in it? 25 It’s not like you to do this, killing the innocent with the guilty as if there were no difference. It’s not like you! Will the judge of all the earth not act justly?”

26 The Lord said, “If I find fifty innocent people in the city of Sodom, I will save it because of them.”

27 Abraham responded, “Since I’ve already decided to speak with my Lord, even though I’m just soil and ash, 28 what if there are five fewer innocent people than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city over just five?”

The Lord said, “If I find forty-five there, I won’t destroy it.”

29 Once again Abraham spoke, “What if forty are there?”

The Lord said, “For the sake of forty, I will do nothing.”

30 He said, “Don’t be angry with me, my Lord, but let me speak. What if thirty are there?”

The Lord said, “I won’t do it if I find thirty there.”

31 Abraham said, “Since I’ve already decided to speak with my Lord, what if twenty are there?”

The Lord said, “I won’t do it, for the sake of twenty.”

32 Abraham said, “Don’t be angry with me, my Lord, but let me speak just once more. What if there are ten?”

Luke 11:5-10 CEB

”5 He also said to them, “Imagine that one of you has a friend and you go to that friend in the middle of the night. Imagine saying, ‘Friend, loan me three loaves of bread 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has arrived and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 Imagine further that he answers from within the house, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ 8 I assure you, even if he wouldn’t get up and help because of his friendship, he will get up and give his friend whatever he needs because of his friend’s brashness. 9 And I tell you: Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 Everyone who asks, receives. Whoever seeks, finds. To everyone who knocks, the door is opened.

What I want to talk about today is persistence in the face of injustice, but because of how the story of Sodom and Gomorrah has been misused to villanize and criminalize gay men, I’ve got to address that injustice first.

You’re going to need the scripture, so keep your bulletins handy!

I chose to have us start with the Ezekiel scripture because Ezekiel, who was a Levite – that is, a person of the Priestly family, as well as a prophet, offers us the definitive interpretation of the story of Sodom and Gamorrah, as a message from God, written down as the duty of a prophet.

The English word, sodomy, is wrongly derived from this story, because at one point the people of Sodom and Gamorrah, threatened to rape Lot’s male guests.  Threatening rape, is bad.  Period.  The gender of the victim is not the important part here!  And gay marriage and consentual gay sex are not the same thing as rape!

Also, rape was not the only sin, for which God was planning to punish the Twin Cities.  Look at that Ezekial passage:

• They were proud in the bad way.
• They had plenty to eat, and enjoyed peace and prosperity; but didn’t help the poor and the needy.  
• They became haughty and did detestable things in front of God, and God turned away from them as soon as God saw it.

When you read the story of Sodom and Gamorrah, please read it in light of Ezekiel’s prophetic interpretation.  This story has NOTHING to do with condemning Gay love.  Nothing!

Having addressed that particular injustice, let’s move on to the topic of persistence.

I read a hopeful post on facebook the other day, insisting that the average dictatorship only lasts 3-5 years, but like so much that is posted on social media this little snippet of hope, was not exactly true.  Like so many things in life, the truth is much more nuanced.

What I was hoping for, was some clear, historically vetted timeline, to give me hope that it will only be a little longer before this season of ICE raids, defunding medical care for the most vulnerable, and Christo-facism defaming the name of God by praying over actions that Ezekiel would call detestable, will soon be over.

I cry out to God like a Psalmist, How Long, Oh God!

How Long, Oh God!

Will the taxes of the middle class be given to Billionaires while they raise the cost of living and pay their workers starvation wages?

How Long, Oh God?

Do you not hear the cries of hungry children?

Do you not see the sleepless nights of gay couples who wonder if they will still be legally married in the morning?

Do you not hear the cries of the asylum seekers snatched as they showed up for court?

How Long, Oh God!

Are you not a God of Justice anymore?

Will you let our entire country suffer for the sins of the 1%??!

OK, maybe more than 1% of us have supported these detestable actions.

Will you let the whole country suffer for the sins of 30% of the US?

What if only 50% of us are innocent?

What if only the children are innocent?

Abraham argued for the lives of the innocent minority in Sodom and Gamorrah because Lot was family.

Maybe Lot wasn’t the most innocent person, because, later in the story, Lot offers the crowd his daughters to assault in place of the guests, but Lot was family.

Have you ever had a relative like that?

Maybe they’re not smart.  

Maybe they don’t make the best choices.

Maybe you can’t agree with their values or their politics.

But they’re family, so you don’t want them to suffer.

Not even suffer the consequences of their own actions.

So Abraham, having heard that his nephew of questionable values and choices, is in the path of God’s wrath, is persistent in bargaining with God.

Now, personally, I think that Abraham questioning Lot’s life choices is pretty much the pot calling the kettle black.  After all,  Abraham was willing to pimp out his wife Sarah to protect himself, even after God demonstrated God’s protection.  Abraham kicked out his firstborn son, Ishmael and his baby-momma Hagar, straight into the desert to die with no child support or anything.  And Abraham got it into his head that God wanted him to sacrifice his second son, Issac… probably because sacrificing your children was a common religious practice in the area at the time, and God had to put a stop to that child-sacrificing nonsense by tangling a ram into a nearby bush, which is generally agreed on as the beginning of animal sacrifice as a replacement for child sacrifice – one of the greatest religious innovations of the time.

All of that is to say that, Abraham was no angel, because sometimes we think that we need to be worthy to pray.  

That we need to be extra holy to dare to question God, like Abraham or the Psalmists.  That it’s somehow dangerous for us to ask, How Long, Oh God? Because that is questioning God.

But persistence is Biblical.

Persistence is Biblical.

And not just Hebrew Bible Biblical.

Although, those who try to claim that the New Testament is somehow more valid than the Old Testament are ignoring the fact that Jesus himself said, in Matthew 5:17,  that he did not come to abolish Torah, but to fulfill it.

Jesus often referenced these Biblical concepts in new ways.

I’m going to have our Worship Leader come up here and read/

5 He also said to them, “Imagine that one of you has a friend and you go to that friend in the middle of the night. Imagine saying, ‘Friend, loan me three loaves of bread 6 because a friend of mine on a journey has arrived and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 Imagine further that he answers from within the house, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.’ 8 I assure you, even if he wouldn’t get up and help because of his friendship, he will get up and give his friend whatever he needs because of his friend’s brashness. 9 And I tell you: Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 Everyone who asks, receives. Whoever seeks, finds. To everyone who knocks, the door is opened.

This passage comes right after Luke’s version of Jesus teaching the disciples how to pray – what we often call, The Lord’s Prayer.  So the topic is prayer.  

Jesus is telling them, telling us, to imagine that God is like a friend who has the means to help us with whatever unexpected visitor life has brought us, but might not feel like helping us in the moment.  

But because we kept asking…  

Because we kept praying…

God answered.

And as with so many things that Jesus taught, they apply on both a spiritual and an earthly level.

Yes, we must keep knocking on heaven’s door and asking for God’s reign to come and God’s will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

And, we must be persistent in accepting the freedom and power that God has given us to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, as it says in our Baptismal Vows on page 35 of the hymnal.

Friends, one of the healthcare providers who donates his time at the free clinic that Rahab’s Sisters is doing a pilot program with this summer didn’t show up last week, because he was detained by ICE while dropping his child off at care.

They have asked us to pray.

So every Sunday, from now on, we will be praying Micah 6:8 – for our leaders to do Justice, act with Mercy and walk Humbly with God, and I ask you to join me in persistently praying throughout the week.

And we are also called to leverage whatever freedom, power, or privilege, we might have, to resist the evil, injustice and oppression that presents itself in our city, our country and our world.  

This can look like a lot of things. 

From being persistent in emailing your legislators.

To more direct actions such as protest, and boycotts.

I can’t tell you how long these evil times will last, but I can tell you that they will not last forever.

God will eventually inspire enough people and change enough hearts, to change the course of history.

Until then, we will persist in prayer and action.

We will persist in hope.

Matthew 11:28-30; 12:1-8  CEB

28 “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. 29 Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. 30 My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.”

1 At that time Jesus went through the wheat fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry so they were picking heads of wheat and eating them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are breaking the Sabbath law.”

3 But he said to them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and those with him were hungry? 4 He went into God’s house and broke the law by eating the bread of the presence, which only the priests were allowed to eat. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple treat the Sabbath as any other day and are still innocent? 6 But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what this means, I want mercy and not sacrifice, you wouldn’t have condemned the innocent. 8 The Human One is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Happy Portland Pride Church!

I love Portland Pride.

I love that so many people take public transit to watch the parade and attend the Pride Festival.

I love that so many different people show up, from Farmers to Drag Queens, to Bankers, showing the world that being LGBTQIA+ isn’t a just kinky lifestyle, it’s just life.

Every day, Queer folks: get up, go to work, pay their bills, kiss their spouses, pick their kids up from school, watch sports, go to the theater, pay taxes, and live with the existential dread that some politician on his or her 4th marriage will make same gender marriage illegal.

Or they wonder if the gender affirming healthcare that makes their life worth living will still be available and legal next time they turn on the news.  Or if their next doctor or dentist will treat them with basic courtesy.  Or will insist on mis-gendering and deadnaming them, “because we don’t do different names or pronouns here,” as the dentist’s office said to my foster young adult, who is Trans.  That happened here in Portland.  2 years ago.  It took us 2 more dentist’s offices to find one that would treat Them with the basic courtesy of using their correct name.

Sometimes people wonder why Pride?

Why call it pride?

Why celebrate who people love and how they identify?

Why Pride?

Because the opposite of pride is shame.  LGBTQIA+ folks have historically been shamed just for existing.  Shamed for just being who God made them to be.  

Sometimes people were shamed to death – brutally murdered, like Matthew Shepherd, or gunned down at the Pulse nightclub.  Murdered by the shame of angry young men who could not handle gay people existing.

During the first Trump administration, between 2017 and 2021, murders of Trans people nearly doubled, and while only 13% of the trans community is Black, Black Trans women accounted for nearly ¾’s of the known victims.

“In 2019, the American Medical Association recognized “an epidemic of violence against the transgender community,” who are over 2.5 times more likely than cisgender people — those whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were designated at birth — to experience violence, according to the Everytown report. 

Shame also causes suicide.  

“According to the National Center for Transgender Equality’s U.S. trans survey — the largest survey of transgender people to date, which was published in 2015 — 40% of trans youth reported attempting suicide in their lifetime. That’s nearly nine times the national average,” of all youth suicide.

(HMKP-118-JU00-20240321-SD011  PDF (www.congress.gov))

We call it pride because Pride is the opposite of shame and shame kills.

We mean Pride in the way parents are proud of their kids, or grandparents are proud of their grandkids, or when we are proud of ourselves for successfully adulting.

We mean Pride as in being proud of your friend who is celebrating 1 year of sobriety, or being so proud of you for still being here 1 year after a suicide attempt.

LGBTQ+ Pride does not mean arrogance, or haughtiness, or a lack of consideration of others.

LGBTQ+ Pride means celebrating that you’re Queer, you’re here and you’re finding ways to thrive with joy.

Today we also celebrate that we are a Reconciling United Methodist Congregation.

Reconciling, because we are a member of the Reconciling Ministries network, a coalition of United Methodists, and former United Methodists, who have worked for decades to help our Denomination and local congregations move from rejecting LGBTQIA+ folks, to affirming their belovedness and calls to ministry.

And we are still a United Methodist Congregation because of the tireless work of people like Rev Dr. Jeanne Knepper who persisted in standing up for inclusion long past the point where she lost the use of her legs, and thankfully lived to see the day that those who sought to exclude her left in frustration.

And even though the horrible exclusive language has been removed from the United Methodist Book of Discipline, it still matters that we are a Reconciling church.  It matters because even though last May, General Conference voted to “remove mandated discrimination, the option to discriminate is still available.” https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f-bQNSE2U9ykwdTJWhLJnuM2Zr7RBSQTjwv1Sy2sh_I/edit?tab=t.0 

Last week, while I was at Dakota Wesleyan University, doing some continuing education, I met the Pastor of the United Methodist Congregation where Rush Limbaugh’s family attends.  We had a civil conversation over breakfast, where she insisted that the focus of her church is about being welcoming to everyone.  I responded to her that while I agree that all people are welcome in Church, not all behaviors are welcome.  Behaviors, including speech, that threatens, demeans, and excludes others, is “incompatible with Christian teaching” in my humble opinion.

I believe that speech matters because the Centers for Disease Control have collected multiple peer reviewed research studies that demonstrate that LGBTQ+ youth have higher rates of depression, and suicide, as a result of “increased experiences of discrimination and rejection.”

The Good news is that “LGBTQ youth who report having at least one accepting adult were 40% less likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year.” https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/accepting-adults-reduce-suicide-attempts-among-lgbtq-youth/ 

I don’t know if the positive effect of multiple supportive people is cumulative, because I couldn’t find that research, but I do know from my personal Pastoral experience that churches and clergy who not only “welcome,” LGBTQ+ youth and adults, but affirm and celebrate their gifts and graces, create positive outcomes in Queer people’s lives.

As a Pastor.  

As a mother of a lesbian daughter and a Trans/Genderfluid adult child.

As an ally.

I’m simultaneously  afraid to watch the news, and afraid to not watch the news.  

I feel like keeping up to date with the fresh horrors that each day brings is part of my pastoral responsibility.

I also feel like tuning out and taking a break is necessary for my sanity. 

And I’m straight, and middle class, and educated, and white.

I can’t even imagine the levels of exhaustion and fear and stress, that Queer and Trans, and brown, and hispanic, and poor, and unstably employed and unstably housed, and people on Medicare, are feeling.

In moments like this when we feel like we’re doing everything we can and nothing’s working, we cry out to God.

What in the Kentucky-fried-Crisis, Jesus!

We just can’t take this anymore!

And Jesus responds to us in much the same way that God responded to Elijah and Isaiah and Jonah when they got so sad and mad that they just sat down under a bush waiting for their doom.

28 “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. 29 Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. 30 My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.”

Come to me, all you who are struggling under the weight of the world.

Set that ish down because it is not ours to carry.

A yoke is a good thing because it redistributes the weight from the bags that cut off the circulation to your fingers, and puts it on your sturdy shoulders.  A yoke also increases and limits how much weight you can carry because the yoke will break if you overload it.

Setting down all the everything we are trying to be responsible for and taking up the better balanced and lighter yoke load that is our calling makes life manageable.

It’s not our job to save the world, Jesus is already doing that!

It’s our job to carry the lighter, better balanced load of our calling, which includes space for Sabbath rest.

I don’t think that it’s accidental that the next story after this passage is Jesus teaching about Sabbath.

For an editor, trying to stitch together a collection of second hand memories about Jesus, the transition from, “I will give you rest,” to teaching about the Sabbath seems like a nice segway.  

Because, just in case you didn’t know, nobody followed Jesus around and took notes while he was alive.  The gospels were written after the original disciples had all died, so everything we know about Jesus was passed down orally, then collected and edited into a semi-chronological order.  Which is to say, did Jesus actually go straight from offering a lighter load and rest to teaching about Sabbath?  Ummmm…. We have no idea.

What I can tell you is that part of the religious trauma of second Temple Judaism was that when they rebuilt Jerusalem and the Temple, in Nehemiah chapter 13, Nehemiah enforced Sabbath by closing the city gates and posting armed guards to prevent any traders or sellers from entering the city during the Sabbath, and threatened the traders with violence for camping outside the wall.  Nehemiah took the gentle gift of rest and turned it into a threat of violence.

At the same time the “prophet” Nehemiah demanded that all Jewish men who were married to foreign women, divorce their wives and reject their children.  And if they refused, Nehemiah chased them out of the city.   Here’s Nehemiah in his own words:

Nehemiah 13:25-27

So I scolded them and cursed them, and beat some of them, and pulled out their hair. I also made them swear a solemn pledge in the name of God, saying, “You won’t give your daughters to their sons in marriage, or take their daughters in marriage for your sons or yourselves. 26 Didn’t Israel’s King Solomon sin on account of such women?… 27 Should we then listen to you and do all this great evil, acting unfaithfully toward our God by marrying foreign women?”

From the beginning of the second Temple era Sabbath was linked with violence, threats, and families divided by deportation.

A lot of people, especially LGBTQ+ people, suffer from religious trauma, because leaders like Nehemiah were so focused on enforcing the law of love that they missed that the point of the law is love.

Rest.  Sabbath rest and the rest that we find by accepting the lighter and more balanced load of our calling are meant to increase the love and thriving in our lives, not decrease it.

People should not be excluded for who they love.

People should not be excluded for practicing their faith a little differently, or bending the rules while maintaining the intent of love.

People should not be shamed for feeling overwhelmed or overburdened – they are not lacking faith, you are not lacking in faith, I am not lacking in faith!  Mostly, we are surviving in a world that is experiencing a severe shortage of justice and compassion.

People should not be shamed or excluded, period.

We should all be able to find inclusion, affirmation, celebration, Grace, and people who are proud of us for just being who God made us to be.

Be gentle with yourself out there.

Be gentle with each other.

Most Merciful God,

We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. 

We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We have not heard the cries of the needy, 

and we have not responsibly stewarded your creation. 

We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, 

by what we have done and by what we have left undone. 

Have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, 

so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, 

to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

Hear the good news: 

Christ came not to condemn, but that the whole world might be saved through him. (John 3:17)

In the name of Jesus the Christ we are forgiven!

In the name of Jesus the Christ, we are forgiven! Amen.