The Last Laugh
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 19:1-16 – Easter April 1, 2018

One of our most esteemed Protestant theologians, the German Jurgen Moltmann, believed that at Easter we should hear the “laughing of the redeemed, the dancing of the liberated. Even in the days of Protestant orthodoxy”, he said, “Easter sermons used to begin with a joke.”

I don’t know about you, but I have never imagined German sermons beginning with a joke! However, as it is April Fools Day, I am going to begin this Easter sermon with a joke…or two.

A preacher said to a farmer, “Do you belong to the Christian family?”

“No,” he said, “they live two farms down.”

“No, I mean, are you lost?”

“No, I’ve been here thirty years!”

“I mean, are you ready for Judgement Day?”

“When is it?”

“Could be today or tomorrow.”

“Well, when you find out for sure when it is, you let me know. My wife will probably want to go both days!”

A minister decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon. Four worms were placed in separate jars. The first worm was put into a container of whiskey.  The second worm was put into a container of cigarette smoke. The third worm was put into a container of chocolate syrup. The fourth worm was put into a container of good, clean soil. At the conclusion of the sermon, the minister reported the following results:

The first worm in whiskey – dead.

The second worm in cigarette smoke – dead.

The third worm in chocolate syrup – dead.

The fourth worm in good, clean soil – alive.

So, the minister asked the congregation: What can you learn from this demonstration?

Maxine, who was sitting in the back of the church, quickly raised her hand and said: “As long as you drink, smoke, and eat chocolate, you won’t have worms!”

That pretty much ended the service.

Finally, since it is Easter, I thought I’d throw one in about a rabbit.

A man is driving along a highway and sees a rabbit jump out across the middle of the road. He swerves to avoid hitting it, but unfortunately the rabbit jumps right in front of the car. The driver, a sensitive man as well as an animal lover, pulls over and gets out to see what has become of the rabbit. Much to his dismay, the rabbit is dead. He feels so awful; he begins to cry.

A beautiful, blonde woman just happened to be driving down the highway when she sees the man crying on the side of the road and pulls over. She gets out of her car and asks the man what’s wrong.

“I feel terrible”, he explains, “I accidentally hit this rabbit and killed it.”

The blonde says, “Don’t worry.”  She runs to her car and pulls out a spray can.

She walks over to the limp, dead rabbit, bends over, and sprays the contents of the spray can on the rabbit. The rabbit jumps up, waves its paw at the two of them and hops off down the road. Ten feet away, the rabbit stops, turns around and waves again. He hops down the road another ten feet, turns and waves and repeats this again and again and again until he hops out of sight. The man is amazed. He runs over to the woman and demands to know what was in that can. What did you spray on that rabbit? The woman turns around so that the man can read the label.

It says “Hair Spray – Restores life to dead hair, adds permanent wave.”

My first title for this sermon was simply going to be “April Fools” but when I told people about it, some of them were incredulous. You aren’t really going to do that are you? We are such a serious bunch, aren’t we? Do people really not get it that the joke is on us?  God’s joke is on us…and the whole story of our faith is full of laughable examples of God’s joke. God always has the last laugh.

Think about that for a moment. Adam and Eve…a talking serpent, walking around naked, sewing on fig leaves? Eve saying the serpent made me do it. Abraham hearing God tell him to drop everything and go – somewhere – just go. Sarah- she is eavesdropping when she hears that age 90 she is going to get pregnant? She laughs! Can you imagine Sarah going to her doctor and telling her doctor that she thinks she is pregnant! Take Noah.  God tells him to build and ark. An Ark! God says to build it because there is going to be a lot of rain. Not only that, but Noah has to collect two animals of each species and keep them on the ark. Really?

Psalm 2 tells us that He who sits in the heavens laughs…happy are those who take refuge in him.

Jesus said: Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. (6:21)

And on this April Fools Day, I am reminded of the Apostle Paul’s advice to the church in Corinth. See, the problem with the folk in Corinth is that they took themselves way too seriously. Paul tells the church that they should remember that God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. Paul urges us to be fools for Christ!

Why are we here today? We love the music. We love to get dressed up. Our mother made us come. We love the egg hunt.  Speaking of which – some of my colleagues think that an egg hunt or having the Easter bunny appear is a mockery of Easter, somehow trivializing the solemnity of the resurrection story. Well, what is the story?

Jesus has been brutally executed. Jesus was no match for all the power of the state. They made fun of him. They taunted and tortured him and there he hung for the world to see vulnerable, all too human on the cross. In John’s version, Jesus is visibly dead and there is no need to speed up his execution. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrap Jesus’ body in white cloths and bury him in a garden tomb. That is it. We get that story. The story of Jesus’ death makes sense. That is, after all, how the world works, isn’t it?  Those who make claims that make people uncomfortable end up is a court, they pay the price. That is the way the world works. Might wins.

But, that is not how the story ends! Today, we tell the rest of the story. The Roman government does not get the last word. Those who were out to get Jesus do not get the last word.

Early in the morning, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb. Someone has moved the stone! She runs and gets Simon Peter and another disciple and they run to see for themselves. Sure enough, the tomb is empty.

Meanwhile, Mary is outside crying when she turns around sees this man who she thinks is the gardener. You can almost hear her: “If you took my Jesus, you better tell me where you put him!” When Jesus says, “Mary”, she knows who the man is. Jesus tells her not to hold onto him because he hasn’t yet ascended to be with his Father. Just go and tell the others, he says. So, Mary Magdalene goes and announces to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and she tells them that Jesus has said these things to her. Mary Magdalene, a woman, a woman from a town that no one counts as much, in John’s version, is the first Easter preacher! God has a sense of humor, don’t you think? The last laugh is God’s. God shows up the Roman Empire, God shows up all those who think they know who Jesus is, all those who think they can keep Jesus where they want him. God shows up all those who say that the dead can’t rise – it just makes no sense. It is not explainable. It is not scientific. God has the last laugh.

William Willimon tells the story about a time when he was the Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. One spring, a reporter from the student news paper called him and told him that he was doing a story about things that were going on around campus that spring. He asked, “Now, over at the chapel, what would you say is the goal of Easter?

“The goal of Easter?” Willimon asked.

“Yes. What is the point, the purpose? Why do you do it?”

Willimon said, “Well, we just do. Easter is just, well, it’s just Easter. We just celebrate it.” Whereupon Willimon said he could just see the headlines the next day: “Dean of Chapel Says Easter Is Pointless.”

If we are practical, serious, rational people…a lot of Easter may be just that…pointless. But, if we have a sense of humor, if we are willing to be fools for Christ, perhaps we will celebrate Easter for “the sheer fun of it”. Willimon argues that is perhaps the point after all. We Christians…just do it for the seer fun of it. (The Last Laugh, p.16)

Orientation
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
Psalm 24 – Palm Sunday, March 25, 2018

Snow in late March? Who can believe it? Our first daffodils and hyacinths, those harbingers of Spring, have been shocked by frozen whiteness. We don’t expect snow this late in the year. The snow is disorienting, is it not? We may very well wonder if there is not some change afoot in our reality. We are disorientated.

Of course, there is much in our world besides snow in March that makes us wonder about our grounding, our relationship to the order of things. We march in Washington because our children are being shot in their schools. We worry about climate change and rising seas and, well, snow in late March. We don’t know from one day to the next what changes there will be in Washington, or who our friends are in the world, or whether what we read on public media is, in fact, orchestrated by a foreign government. We feel disorientated.

It seems to me that the mood in Jerusalem that day when Jesus arrived on a donkey was one of disorientation. People were anxious. Their country was under foreign occupation. There was a large military presence during Passover to keep the order. Religious leaders were trying to figure out how to hang on to their authority. Then, Jesus arrives on a donkey, the symbol of humility. People were waving their leafy branches and shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel!” But is Jesus…the king of Israel? This one who rides, not on a fancy horse as you would expect of a king, but on a donkey…is he the Messiah? What will the authorities do to someone who claims to be king? What will the authorities do to us who proclaim him king? Who is this man who said that he came “not to bring peace to the earth” but, in fact, disorientation. (Matt. 10:34). Who is this man who said that we are not going to be able to know the day or the hour of his coming? We just have to keep watch in the midst of so much…disorientation. Who is this man who says we may not be able to read the signs; we will be disorientated?

Indeed, who is this man who ends up on a cross and the earth turns dark and the curtains of the temple are torn in two, and the earth shook, and the graves were opened? This man who brings disorientation, who shakes the world up – is he the Son of God?

Or perhaps the better question is: What does it mean to believe in a man who came, not to keep the status quo, who didn’t tell us just to wait it out, keep safe in our beds, everything is going to be OK? No. what does it mean to believe in a man who literally shakes everything up?

One of the things about travel is that it is basically a disorientating experience. You don’t speak the language. You have trouble reading the map. You find yourself in crowded, twisting souks fearful that you will lose your way. We were out in the seemingly endless expanse of desert in Morocco and there seemed to be that brick red sand for as far as the eye can see. How do you know where you are the desert? We passed piles of stones on the roads, here and there were piles of stones. What are those I asked? Our guide replied that they were markers to help you know where you were.

We visited ruins built by the Romans in yet another occupied land. The Romans were very good at making one feel orientated even in a far away place. Their forums and roads and market places and basilicas were always laid out in the same way so that if you were a Roman soldier in retirement in a distant land far from where you grew up you would always know your way around. You would always be orientated.

It seems to me that one way to read our story of faith is to see it basically as a story about being disorientated. Adam and Eve, after all, got uprooted from their garden and had to make their way in a place they did not know. The Israelites got exiled more than once in foreign lands where they didn’t speak the language, didn’t worship the same gods, didn’t have the same food. Then they wandered in the wilderness for years looking for home. Jesus’ family had to flee their home because of danger, ending up in a strange land. Disorientated. And, then, when Jesus discovers in the wilderness, what God is calling him to do – it is not all sweetness and life that he is to preach. No. Jesus has to tell folks that their world is being turned upside down. The old assumptions will not hold. God is going to trouble the waters. Yes. God is going to trouble the waters!

All of this disorientation frames the scene when Jesus rides into Jerusalem that day; when Jesus comes to die.

Walter Brueggemann’s classic book on the psalms points out that there are basically three types of psalms: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of new orientation. In other words, some psalms are meant to describe seasons of blessings, seasons in which we are well-situated and grateful. Some psalms are intended to describe seasons in which we know despair, hurt, disappointment, and even hatred. Finally, some psalms are meant to express great joy at having been delivered from darkness into light and the realization that we have a new reality, a new orientation.  (The Message of the Psalms, p.19)

The psalm we read this morning is a psalm of orientation. Life is understandable in Psalm 24: “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it…”. God can be understood. Those who have clean hands and pure hearts will be able to climb the hill of God. The world is orderly. If you live right, follow the rules, those who do not swear deceitfully, those who do not follow after that which is false will receive blessing.

Why then do we hear this psalm on Palm Sunday when Jesus comes to mess up the order of things? Why do we hear this psalm when our world is such disaster? Why do we hear this psalm of orientation just as we are about to be radically disorientated? Shouldn’t we have one of those psalms that cry out “How long are you going to forget me, God?” or the psalm that begs God to save us from our tormentors, those who are out to get us, or the one about how the temple has been violated, or the psalm that specifically describes the disorientation of being in Babylon: “By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137)? Shouldn’t we have one of those psalms on Palm Sunday when Jesus comes to die?

Maybe, just maybe, one of the most radical things we can do when we are disorientated is to announce to the world what it is we believe. This earth we inhabit is not ours to do with what we please. It belongs to God. It does not belong to any political empire whether it is the Romans or the Americans. The earth belongs to God. Despite the massive array of armed might in Jerusalem that day, this is not who is in charge. God is the one who is in charge!

Who gets to stand in God’s holy place? Not those with titles or money or power. The ones who get to stand in God’s holy place are those with pure hearts, those who tell the truth. They are the ones who will be blessed.

If you are in a jail cell, if you are in mourning, if you are afraid and feel powerless, indeed, if you see Jesus coming into town and you know, you know, things are not going to end well, maybe just maybe you will remember Psalm 24 and you will say in the midst of your disorientation that this is not forever. God is doing something even in this mess. And you will lift your head up. You will lift up your gates and open the doors to your heart because the one who looks so humble, the one who the world will scorn, is the king of glory. Let him in! Lift up your heads, oppressed as you are by so many things. Lift up your heads! Let the king of glory in!

 

The Blessing of the Light
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 8:12-20 – 25 February 2018

 

“I am the light of the world”.

During the Feast of the Tabernacles, Jesus is again in the temple. The Feast of the Tabernacles, also known as the Festival of Booths or Sukkoth is one of three pilgrimage feasts and the faithful are encouraged to go to Jerusalem to celebrate the harvest. Farmers and their families have been working around the clock to finish the harvest. They’ve constructed shelters out by the fields so that they can sleep close to their work. Part of the festival is about water, water being vital to the success of crops. Jesus has already announced that anyone who is thirsty should come to him and that out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water (7:37-38).

When night falls, four huge candelabras are lit in the temple, casting light beyond the temple walls out into the darkened city. The candelabras remind the faithful of their ancestors’ time in the wilderness where they were led by a pillar of fire.

Like water, light is essential to the success of the harvest. Light is the first thing God made. Light is essential to life. Weren’t we all outside on Wednesday just soaking up the warm sun – getting our therapeutic dose of vitamin D?

It is in the context of the temple at the Feast of the Tabernacles that Jesus announces that he is the light of the world…summoning memories of how God provided light in the wilderness darkness. Jesus is the light of the world in the current darkness. It is, we think, six months before Jesus’ death when the world would be covered in darkness as Jesus hung on the cross. Jesus is the light of the world in our current darkness – a world in which children are crucified in Florida and Syria, a world in which there is so much suffering and pain.

What does Jesus mean when he says he is the light of the world?  Does he mean that he is the source of understanding, as in to shed a light on something? Does he mean that he will be the one to lead us out of darkness, whatever that darkness represents (oppression, depression, hopelessness, etc)? Does he mean that he will be the one to deliver Israel from its occupiers? Does he mean that he will be the one to expose the corruption and misdeeds of those who have power? Does he mean that in him God is revealed? According to Bruce Chilton, who argues that Jesus was a rabbi in the mystical tradition of the Kabbalah, when Jesus says he is the light of the world he sees his “own practice of purity and healing illuminating Israel, and Israel as God’s light among the nations”. (Rabbi Jesus, pg.122.) With the exception of the idea that Jesus sees himself as a political liberator, all of these interpretations make sense to me. At any given time, we may prefer one or the other.

However, the more challenging part of this passage may be that Jesus continues: “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life”.

Uh oh – is he talking about us? Is he saying that if we believe in him we will be the light…of life? If we believe in him, we will never walk in darkness? Is he talking about us?

Martin Luther King wrote a sermon on the parable Jesus tells about being in bed in the middle of the night and hearing a knock at the door. Even though the owner of the house tells the visitor to go away, the knocker persists. Jesus’ point is that we should be persistent in prayer. However, King points out the obvious – it is midnight in our world. Recent events in our country have prompted us to question just how far we’ve progressed on that arc King referred to – the one that bends towards justice. We still have racism. We still have super powers who don’t trust each other and who have atomic weapons. We still have extreme poverty that lays waste and we still have war.

In addition, King points out that it is midnight inside us. He wrote: “Everywhere paralyzing fears of anxiety and depression are suspended in our mental skies. More people are emotionally disturbed today than at any other time of human history.” “The popular clergyman preaches soothing sermons on ‘How to be Happy’ and ‘How to Relax.’ Some have been tempted to revise Jesus’ command to read, and, lo, I will make you a well-adjusted personality.’ All of this is indicative that it is midnight within the inner lives of men and women”. (Strength too Love, p.57) In other words, it is not morning in America. It is midnight in America.

As King points out, the visitor who knocks at midnight is asking for bread. Maybe the visitor who knocks on our doors, the doors of our church, the doors of our homes is looking for light.

If that is the case, what do we give them?

In your bulletins today is Jan Richardson’s Blessing Are You Who Bear the Light. That’s us.

Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness to its persistence when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.

In other words, blessed are you who bear the light when it is midnight in America.

During my sabbatical, I was in India on New Year’s Eve. We were outside on a large lawn and there was entertainment and it was dark – so dark one had to be careful where one walked. At one point, women processed to the stage wearing their brightly colored saris and carrying bowls of fire on their heads. It was magical and slightly scary. None the less, that is the image that came to me this week – we are the ones who are to bear the light…like those women with bowls of fire on their heads!

Ms. Richardson, alas, does not tell us how we bear the light or what that looks like. So, I am just going to throw out some ideas. I like to think I got them from Jesus.

We learned on Friday night that Sondra’s daughter died after a horrific car accident. Now, we do not know Sondra very well. She is a friend of Mary’s who comes to Bible Study. She is the member of another church. However, the care, the concern, and the empathy that has been demonstrated by people at Bible Study are full of light. We cannot solve a lot of the world’s problems but we can be Christ to each other in our love for each other, especially in those times of sorrow and pain. Jesus took the time, even on the Sabbath, to heal a lame man and to give sight to a blind man. And we remember that when Jesus discovers his friend, Lazarus, has died, he cries. When Daniel Rich sang There is a Balm in Gilead on Friday night, I was thinking of Sondra and hoping for her some of that balm. We all need that balm. More importantly, we can all be that balm for each other. We can be light for each other, even if it seems what we do is small and seemingly insignificant.

When Jesus taught in the temple and elsewhere, he threw a light on some of the injustices of his time. When he told the story of the man lying in the ditch who was ignored by the privileged of his community only to be helped by a despised Samaritan, Jesus illuminated the calloused indifference of those who should know better, those with power.

So, we can bear light by taking a hard look at ourselves and our society. Who are we leaving in the ditch? Who are we ignoring?

One of the stories that is indelibly printed on my clergy brain is the young woman who told me that the reason she struggles with the church is because, when she was a teenager, her youth pastor sexually abused her in a dark room at the church. The clergy abuse, the sexual assaults, the racial mistreatment, all are done in the dark places of our neighborhoods –yes – our own neighborhoods! Have we, too, simply walked by without looking? To bear the light means paying attention to those who are lying in the ditch.

I do not want to suggest that bearing light is always a courageous or a serious obligation. Sometimes to bear the light means to simply smile. I was cheering on Maame Biney, the Olympic short track skater, in part, because of her infectious smile that just seemed to make the world a better place. She has prompted me to make smiling a Lenten practice. We shouldn’t underestimate a smile. Happy are those, sings the psalmist, who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance. (Psalm 89:15) Happy are those who…smile!

Blessed are you, writes Ms. Richarson,

in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes –
your heart
a chapel
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.

If we are going to have a heart that is a chapel, an altar where, even in the deepest night, even when it is midnight, there shines out of us a fire, love that illumines every broken thing, we need to be able to recharge our batteries. We need to put in a new light bulb. We need to stock up on kindling. What do you do that recharges your heart? Maybe music recharges our souls. It did Friday night. Maybe playing with your grandchildren recharges our souls –suspending reality and pretending you are a turtle. Maybe sheer silence recharges your soul. Maybe prayer recharges your soul. Maybe, as the poet writes, being in the presence of wild things recharges our souls:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feed.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.  For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. (Wendell Berry, Collected poems, pg.69)

Blessed are you…who bear the light.

The Blessing of the Gate
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 10:1-10 – 18 February 2018

“I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” (John 10:9)

During Lent this year we will be considering who Jesus says he is. As we move toward Jerusalem and his death, we will hear many competing arguments about the identity of Jesus. Is he a prophet? Is he the messiah? Is he a political threat? Is he a sinner, a blasphemer, a fake? Jesus has just given sight to a man born blind and he appears to be still talking to the Pharisees who have some questions as to this man’s identity. I am, Jesus says, the gate.

I saw an interview with the snow boarder, Shaun White, after his spectacular victory at the Olympics in which he tried to answer questions about his alleged harassment of a woman. In a clumsy response, White said, “I am who I am”, a statement that didn’t sit well with a lot of people. How we finish the sentence “I am…” is very important isn’t it? It was important for Jesus and it is important for us. Indeed, when God announces to Moses, “I am who I am”, God lays down the gauntlet for those of us who try to live fully into our calling as God’s children. Who do we say that we are?

In his “I am” statements, Jesus uses metaphors to attempt to tell us who he is. I am the gate, Jesus says. Specifically, Jesus says that he is the gate for the sheep. I can never hear about sheep pens without remembering our family’s drive east just after I had graduated from High School. Our father had been transferred to Missouri which, as Californians, we thought was just about the end of the world! We set out in our old station wagon. Our Dad wasn’t one for making reservations, or researching where we would spend the night. We just drove until we were tired and then we stopped. In this case, on our first day, we drove through the desert and we were someplace in Arizona or maybe New Mexico when we started looking for a place to spend the night. There was nothing – that is my memory of it – nothing as far as you could see – no towns, no gas stations, no nothing. Finally, we came across a run down motel and we pulled in. It wasn’t exactly up to our mother’s standards, but we had beds. I wanted desperately to watch the Democratic convention in Chicago, but there wasn’t a TV. This whole trip did not bode well, I thought. Then, after we had settled into our beds, we heard it. The motel was actually a sheep pen in the middle of a Navajo reservation. We were surrounded by bleating sheep that had been brought into the safety of the sheep pen for the night!

I suspect sheep herding has not changed all that much since Jesus’ time. Then, as now, it was important to provide protection for sheep, to gather them together in a secure place for the night…a place with a gate.

We know that gates serve two functions. Gates both allow entry and gates keep out. Gates are meant to keep out the bandits, the wolves – anything that might harm the sheep. Unfortunately, we Christians, we People of the Gate have proved very adept at using gates to keep out. My husband grew up a Southern Baptist, but when he went to college and saw the Deacons, the gate keepers, of the First Baptist Church standing on the front porch of the church to prevent Black people from entering, he left his church.

I suspect most of us have experienced closed gates at some point in our lives – a sign that says you can’t drink from that fountain, or worship at that church or eat at that counter, you can’t be ordained because of your sexual orientation, your application was turned down, your relationship ended, you had an illness that crippled you, or you were rejected one way or another. We all know what closed gates look like.

However, I think Jesus’ primary intent in describing himself at the gate is to emphasize the positive purpose gates serve as vehicles for entrance. Jesus declares that his purpose is to provide life, abundant life. He says, I came that you may have life and have it abundantly.

The image of that life is the pasture on the other side of the gate…the pasture that is green and where there is water, and peace and safety. Most of us have pleasant associations with the image of pastures. We can picture those idyllic places where we see God’s creation and are restored. Perhaps it is easy then to reduce pastures to sentimental pictures on Hallmark cards.

At a time when we confront yet another horrific school shooting in which 17 people were killed, I wonder it the image of a pasture is more nuanced that a romantic vista. In fact, I wonder if a green pasture has implications for our society.

Our schools should be pastures where our children find nourishment and peace and safety. They have become places of death and destruction. There have been 16 school shootings this year and the silence from our elected officials, those who are supposed to be gatekeepers, those who are supposed to be protecting us, is deafening!

No, this morning, I think we have to face the reality that if you are a child in school, if you are an immigrant, if you are a woman, if you are a young Black man you are not safe in this country! Those who are supposed to be the gatekeepers, the protectors – politicians, law enforcement officers, employers – are very often the ones who fail to keep us safe!

Consequently, I suggest that when Jesus says that he is the gate, he is not inviting us into a picture on a Hallmark card, much as we desire that kind of idyllic setting. I suggest Jesus is inviting us into a place where we are safe from the real evil that lurks outside the walls. This man who lived in a very dangerous time in a dangerous place and who was increasingly unsafe himself, this man says to Jerusalem, that city where he will definitely not be safe, “O that you knew the things that make for peace.” When a woman accused of adultery is brought before him by people who want to stone her, Jesus rescues her. When the disciples are out on a boat and it gets dark and a storm starts to blow, Jesus comes walking on water to bring safety.

In my mind, Jesus’ pasture summons the words of the psalmist:

For he will command his angels
concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. Ps.91:11-12

On the front page of the paper the day after the shootings in Florida was the picture of an anguished mother with a cross of ashes on her forehead. When I saw it I thought about what we had done together on Ash Wednesday. We sat in the quiet peace of the chapel with flute and guitar and piano music and we marked each other with the sign of the cross. We said to each other, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

I don’t do Ash Wednesday, some people tell me. Why is that? Is it because we don’t want to be reminded that life is fleeting and fragile and always too short? Is it because we don’t want to be reminded of our own shortcomings and weaknesses? Is it because we don’t want to admit that we are, in fact sinners? Is it because we don’t want to think about the world outside the gate in which 17 people are slaughtered?

Yes. On Ash Wednesday, we are saying we are fragile. Yes. We are saying that life is short. Yes. We are saying that we need to repent. Yes we are saying we need to be saved.

Being a Christian is hard. Even though, God intends safety for us, we aren’t spared pain, or hardship or suffering. The woman whose forehead was smeared with ashes knows that. We know that Our calling is to follow Christ despite the knowledge that there are thieves and bandits and those who want to harm the sheep – us.

My question is this: If we are Christ’s body on earth, doesn’t that make us the gatekeepers? Are not we the ones who should provide sanctuary to those who are danger? Are not we the ones who should protect the vulnerable, the abused, the victims of discrimination, the children, for God’s sake! Are not we the gatekeepers?

How the Light Gets In
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 9:1-41 – 11 February 2018

I read an article recently about the actor, Mickey Rourke in which Mr. Rourke talked about his trouble childhood. His father was abusive and Rourke took his desire to defeat of his father out on others, becoming a fighter himself who would fight over anything. He also resorted to drugs and other destructive behavior. Finally, Rourke went to a priest who talked him into getting help. Rourke didn’t say it but I wonder if part of what the priest was able to do for him was to enable Rourke to see himself as more than the kid he was – the fearful, fighter, substance abuser. And I wonder, too, if he was always seen in his neighborhood as that angry, violent kid.

We could ask the same question of the man born blind. Jesus happens upon him – a man blind from birth. His disciples want to know what he did to be so cursed. Or, was it something his parents did? We are so sophisticated now, are we not? We know too much science to come to the conclusion that blindness is caused by something we did wrong. However, I would ask every parent in the room: have you never looked at your child who may be struggling in some way, whose marriage failed, who may be handicapped in some way, who may be addicted in some way and asked yourself: What did I do wrong? What should I have done that I didn’t? Maybe the disciples question isn’t so naïve.

Jesus tells them that no one did anything wrong. The man was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed to him. In other words, the man’s affliction is the opportunity for the light to get in. In the words of the sadly now deceased song writer, Leonard Cohen:

Ring the bells, that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in. (Anthem)

Jesus is not saying that illness or suffering is a gift. Let’s be clear about that. He is saying that in our tragedies and our pain, there is an opportunity to be closer to God. We might be better able to know God because of our suffering. In our blindness, we in fact may be better able to see.

Jesus spits and makes some mud which he smears on the man’s eyes, telling him to go and wash it off in the pool of Siloam. Then Jesus disappears.

The man washes his eyes out and is able to see.

His neighbors, those who’ve known him from the time he was born, want to know if this is the same guy, you know, the guy who sat here and begged? Is this the same little boy who felt like it was him against the world?  Some said, no, it can’t be. But, it is me, he said. I am the man you know. How come you can see now, they want to know.

This guy named Jesus put mud on my eyes and told me to wash it off and when I did I could see. When I did wash it off I could see.

So where is he, then? I don’t know the man said. I don’t know. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that people tend to see us as they did when we were children? Isn’t that Joseph’s boy, they asked about Jesus? Our perceptions are trapped in our memories of how someone should look or be or not be. Here is this man who has been radically changed standing right in front of us but we don’t see him because, wait, isn’t this the blind kid? Didn’t we know him when he was in diapers? We know this kid. He is blind. Who’s blind?

The neighbors take the man who had been blind, not the man who can see, the man who had been blind to the Pharisees who have a lot of questions, one of which is: What exactly did this man do to you because if he actually mixed up the mud, that is a violation of the Sabbath, it being work. The Pharisees don’t believe the man.

What keeps us from seeing? Is it perhaps our preconceptions and our notion of what is tradition? In the movie about the Washington Post and the release of the Pentagon Papers, the owner of the paper, Katherine Graham struggles against the perception on the part of her advisors that a) she is a woman and therefore doesn’t know anything, b) she inherited the paper from her husband and therefore doesn’t know anything and c) there are traditional ways, safe ways to run a paper and she goes against that wisdom therefore she doesn’t know anything. Who’s blind?

Since the Pharisees don’t believe the man, they go and get his parents. Is this your son? He says he was blind and now he can see. Is that so?

The parents admit he is their son. They admit he was born blind. But they chicken out when it comes to saying how their boy got his sight. Ask him yourself, they say. He’s old enough.

It seems the parents didn’t want to get kicked out of church. If they admitted that they knew who had given their son his sight, they would be talking about Jesus. Isn’t that something! Talking about Jesus could get you in trouble at church! Change is tough, isn’t it? How many parents cannot admit their child is Gay? I remember John Lewis telling about his involvement in the Civil Rights movement and how his parents were not so supportive of his activism. How many kids don’t claim their abilities as students because of what their peers will say about them – how it is un-cool to be smart? One of my friends in college was from Tupelo Mississippi. We keep in touch at Christmas. One year she wrote me that her parents had disowned her because her daughter married a black man. Maybe they, too, were afraid of what their church folk would say. Change is hard. But that is what Jesus did – he changed people – blind beggars, an outcast woman, a Pharisee, a leper. And, you know what, sometimes Jesus changed people even on Sunday, even when it broke the law, even when it upset the church folk. Who’s blind?

Here’s the thing. There are a lot of blind people in this story. The disciples are blind because they cling to their preconception that illness or misfortune is caused by sin. The neighbors are blind because they cannot see past how they first got to know this man as a man born blind. That’s what he will always be to them. The Pharisees are blind because they can’t see that someone other than Moses can be God’s messenger and because they cannot allow restorative work if it breaks the rules. The parents are blind because they can’t own up to their son in his new self if it means they get kicked out of the community, the church, the synagogue, whatever. The only ones in this story who aren’t blind are Jesus…and the man born blind! Who’s blind?

According to the church calendar the Sunday before Lent begins is Transfiguration Sunday. Jesus takes three of his disciples up on a mountain and suddenly there is a blinding light and Jesus is changed right in front of their eyes. I always maintain that it wasn’t just Jesus who was changed. Because of what they saw, the disciples were changed too. They had been blind, but now they could see. They would trudge down the mountain, back into the darkness of the world where all the hurting people were waiting for them. They would carry with them a changed image of who Jesus is, a source of light not even the crucifixion could extinguish. I think they had a sense of possibility they did not have before.

Jesus comes along and he cracks us up. He points out Nicodemus’ flawed sense of security. He points out the Samaritan woman’s need for fulfillment. He showed the disciples how limited their view was. He reveals to us our sightlessness. We all have cracks, Jesus seems to say. We are all broken. That is how the light gets in!

Words Matter
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 4:1-42 – 4 February 2018

Anyone who travels to Cuba on our church-to-church trips knows that there most always is some drama. My most recent trip just the week before last was to attend a gathering of pastors. It was to be a retreat and it was decided to have some time during which we considered the stresses of our professions and how we deal with those stresses. Our Cuban partners had acquired a psychologist to facilitate these discussions. On the very first morning, in the very first conversation, there was some drama. Our resident psychologist began the session by speaking of couples and the unique issues ministry poses for couples. Hands immediately went up. Some of my American colleagues objected to the focus on couples. First of all, not everyone in the circle was part of a couple, as evidenced by my presence. I am not sure I understand all the dynamics of that discussion. What I do remember is that the Cubans pointed out that the word for “couple” in Spanish is the same word for “partner”. Words matter.

When he was running for president, Barak Obama was accused by his opponent of having a lot of words but not much experience. In a speech in which he addressed this criticism, Obama argued, “Words matter”. I watched that speech this week. It was poignant to hear someone who could use words in such a beautiful and moving way – a skill not much in evidence these days.

The use of words is a main theme in the film, The Darkest Hour, in which Winston Churchill sets out to convince the English nation not to capitulate to Hitler despite the urging of some of country’s most influential leaders. When Churchill gives his speech in the House of Commons that completely changes the direction of the war, Lord Halifax observes that Churchill “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle”. Words matter.

For the author of the Gospel of John, words matter. My Gospel of John guru, Ray Brown, points out John’s predilection for word plays in reference to the passage we heard this morning.

Our text reads “Jesus had to go through Samaria”. Jesus did not have to go through Samaria. There were other ways to get where he was going. Samaria was to be avoided. Samaritans were to be avoided. They were the Jews who did not get shipped off to Babylon. They were regarded as unclean, as heathen. Samaritans were to be avoided. None the less, Jesus goes to Samaria. He is tired and thirsty and he sits down at a well. It was the middle of the day and it was hot.

A Samaritan woman shows up with her jug. Jesus asks her for a drink of water. By the way, the text tells us, his disciples had gone to the 7-eleven to pick up lunch. You talking to me, the woman wants to know? You – a Jewish man –  speaking to a woman…a Samaritan woman at that? Jesus and the woman engage in a conversation which, by the way, is the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone and it is with a woman, a Samaritan woman. It becomes apparent that Jesus and the woman are not talking about the same kind of water. The woman comes back at him – you don’t have a bucket, the well is deep – where are you going to get living water? Jesus tells her that the water he is talking about gives eternal life. If we drink it, we will never be thirsty again. The woman is talking about two kinds of water – sedentary well water and flowing water which is fresher and preferable to well water. Jesus is talking about the water of eternal life. It is all water but the meaning is very different. Words matter.

Jesus tells the woman to go and bring back her husband. The woman says she doesn’t have a husband. Jesus knows that. You’ve had five husbands, he says, and the man you’re living with now is not your husband.

This exchange has led scholars to portray the Samaritan woman as a woman of ill repute. I used the word “prostitute” in a sermon one time and people objected to the use of that word in mixed company. Words matter. So I will say “woman of ill repute”. However, it needs to be pointed out that just because this woman had five husbands does not mean she was a loose woman. Perhaps she was divorced. Perhaps her husbands died leaving her a widow. Perhaps she is living with her husband’s brother who was simply obeying the Levirate law about looking out after his brother’s wife. Indeed, perhaps the woman is more of a victim than a harlot. How does the story change if we see this woman as a victim – a person who has no means, no power, no respect from the other women? Maybe she was ashamed which is why she comes for water at noon when no one else is out. Words matter.

The woman continues to ask Jesus questions about where right worship takes place: I see that you are a prophet (“see”. by the way, is code in John for “to understand”.) In other words, the woman gets it! Words matter. My people, she says, claim Mt. Gerizim is the right worship place. But, your people say it is Jerusalem.

And Jesus answers her. It doesn’t matter, Jesus says, whether it is this mountain or that mountain. What matters is that you worship God in spirit and honestly.

The woman says, Well, I know this. I know that the Messiah is coming.

And Jesus answers with the first of his “I Am” statements.

At that moment, the disciples show up; back from their shopping trip. They’re shocked to see Jesus talking with that woman but they don’t say anything. The woman puts down her jar and leaves. She leaves behind the symbol of what she was looking for – her water jar. Does that mean she does not need it anymore?

The disciples say “Let’s eat.” Jesus says I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Here is the word play again. The disciples want to know if Jesus already ate. Did someone else bring lunch?  Jesus is talking about another kind of food, the kind you get from God. He is talking about harvesting – the fields are ripe for the harvest, he says. Does he mean that, as they speak, the Samaritan woman is telling her town folk that they should come and hear this man who told her everything about herself? Has the Samaritan woman been in town sowing seed while the disciples were worried about lunch? Has this Samaritan woman become the first real preacher of the gospel? John tells us that many Samaritans of the city believed in Jesus because of the woman’s word. Yes. Words matter.

The story of the Samaritan woman comes on the heels of last week’s encounter with Nicodemus. Nicodemus had credentials. He had a college diploma from Johns Hopkins with a gold sticker on it but he does not get Jesus. When Jesus starts talking about being born again, Nicodemus does not get it and I wonder if its because Nicodmeus can only understand “being born” as meaning physical birth. Words matter.

In Samaria, on the other hand, Jesus has an encounter with a woman- uneducated, unwanted, from a place that is disrespected and despised. Do we think this woman totally got Jesus? Do we…totally get Jesus? I mean, I am in my sixties. I’ve been doing this sort of thing a long time – studying the Bible, trying to preach the Bible. And I have to say I am not totally sure I understand what Jesus is saying in this passage about water of life and the harvest and fruit for eternal life.

But I do get this: I know what it means to say I am thirsty for the kind of water Jesus offers us. I know that I want the water that gushes up within us and gives life.! Maybe that is why I like poets so much – poets are willing to live with abstract realities. Poets use words to describe things they may not completely understand. And, so the poet writes, “Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have.” “Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.” (Mary Oliver, Thirst, p.69)

Isn’t that what the well woman had – a thirst for the goodness she knew she didn’t have? We don’t have to understand it. We simply have to be honest about what it is we need and then we need to be open to strangers who show up and tell us everything we need to know: The water I can give you is a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life!

Night Journeys
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 3:1-21 – 28 January 2018

In the end, they let us have his body. Joseph and I barely could carry Jesus’ body but we managed to get it to an empty tomb. We laid it down in the dark cold of the place. I had the mixture of myrrh and aloes that I had purchased to embalm his body. We wrapped him in linen cloths. Ironically, it was the Day of Preparation. Were we prepared, I wondered? Was Jesus prepared…in death?

Now, as I think about it, it was the least I, Nicodemus, could do for this man who had so radically changed my life. At least I could take care of his broken and lifeless body. I could deliver him, in death, to his God.

I met Jesus early on…at the beginning of this whole mess. I had heard about the incident at the wedding where they said he changed water into wine. And I was actually there in the temple that day when he forced the money changers out, claiming that if the temple were destroyed, it would be raised in three days. Many good Jews were starting to believe him. I decided to find out for myself.

I should tell you: I am a Pharisee, a leader of my people. I have benefited from the best education and I like to think of myself as learned and a good teacher. You could say I have credentials. I have the paper to prove I should have respect. So, I suppose, my curiosity comes from wanting to know. Every scholar, I believe, should be curious. So, when the stories about Jesus went viral, I wanted to find out for myself. However, not everyone thought Jesus was believable and some of my colleagues were outright negative about him. I decided I would try to see him and I went to find him one night. I went after dark for a couple of reasons. I had been reading Torah at night, which is my custom and the idea came to me to go and find this guy. If I am totally honest, I would also say that I was somewhat concerned about being seen given the sentiments of some of my fellow priests.

I found Jesus alone. After greeting him, I asked if I could ask him some questions.

Rabbi, I said, we know that you are a teacher and we know that you must be from God because no one can do the things you are doing without being from God.

Jesus’ response remains with me to this day. He said “I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born from above.” I took this to mean that he admitted he was doing what he was doing with the authority of God…but I was confused about what he meant about being born. And, because I was trained to question and debate – it’s the Jewish way with scholars – I challenged him. How can I be born again – I am an old man. Is it possible to re-enter my mother’s womb? What do you mean by being born again?

Jesus said, “I am telling you that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and Spirit. What is born of flesh is flesh. What I am talking about is being born of the Spirit. What is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t look so surprised when I tell you that you have to be born again. God’s spirit is like the wind. It blows however it blows and all your learning cannot figure out how that happens. It just happens. You don’t know where the wind comes from or where it goes. You can’t figure it out. That is what it is like to be born of the spirit. And, let me tell you this, he said, all the credentials in the world don’t matter when it comes to being born from above!

First of all, I need to tell you, I don’t like wind. It is unpredictable and somewhat scary. I don’t like that I cannot control the wind. I am, I confess, a very rational person – most scholars are. So, when Jesus started talking about being born by the wind, by the spirit, I felt decidedly uneasy. How can this be, I wanted to know.

Jesus got this sort of amused look on his face and asked how I could be a teacher of Israel and not know these things. He said that he’s been talking about physical things and still we don’t believe him. How, then, are we going to believe him when he talks about spiritual things?

Then he mentioned Moses and how he raised that snake up on a pole and told the people to look at the thing and live. That’s what it will be like with the Son of Man, he said. Whoever believes in him will have eternal life. Of course, I knew the story of Moses but I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Was he saying that, like the snake on the pole, he would be raised high and that whoever believed in him would have eternal life?

Then he talked about how God loves this world – all the world – and how God sent the only son because God loved the world and how God didn’t condemn the world despite all the bad things happening in it. God doesn’t condemn the world but wants to save it. The problem is people like the dark. They choose ignorance and greed and hate rather than choosing the light.

There I was standing in the light of his room, having come out of the night. The significance was not lost on me. But I had to think about this – it was a lot to take in. When he talked about God loving all the world – did he mean the evil Romans? So, I went home…because I had to think.

In the days that followed, I listened for word about what Jesus was doing. I heard about his visit to Samaria and I thought to myself “this cannot be good – to mix with those people”. I heard about his healing the son of a Gentile ruler and, once again, I thought he is going to be in trouble. I heard how he was back in town and had healed a lame man on the Sabbath yet again inviting the anger of my colleagues. But I didn’t go to see him and I have to admit to feeling some relief when he left town and returned to Galilee. You are safer there, I thought. And, yet, I still heard about how he had fed five thousand people one day and how he walked on water and how crowds showed up wherever he went to hear him teach. All the while, he was making my fellow rulers more and more angry. I could tell they were eager to do something to stop Jesus but he stayed in Galilee and I was relieved that he didn’t show up in Jerusalem.

However, during the Festival of the Booths, he returned to Jerusalem. Not only that, but he went right into the temple and started teaching, claiming that God was telling him what to say and a lot of the people got anxious. He kept talking about water and how if you were thirsty you should come to him. Some people in the temple believed him. They started claiming that Jesus was the Messiah.

On the last day of the festival, I decided to go to the temple because I heard that my colleagues had ordered the temple police to arrest Jesus. Sure enough, the police were there and, after listening to Jesus, they came back to us. My colleagues demanded to know why they hadn’t arrested Jesus. The police said: You gotta listen to this guy! We’ve never hear anyone who can preach like him! The crowd, my friends said, what do they know! They don’t know the law! Don’t tell us you are falling for this baloney too!

I don’t know why, maybe it was that wind blowing, but I could not remain silent. I spoke up: As you’ve mentioned our law, I said, doesn’t our law saw that we do not judge someone without hearing what they have to say? Clearly it was not the law, they were worried about. They simply accused me of being a Galilean, that God forsaken place out of which nothing good can come, certainly not a prophet. The guy is a fraud, they said. However, that was the end of it. Everyone went home.

In the days that followed, Jesus didn’t slow down. He healed a blind man, he stood up for an adulterous woman, he engaged his detractors in debates, he kept describing himself as the light of the world, or the good shepherd, or the bread of life or the door. Finally, he brought ole Lazarus back to life announcing that he was the resurrection and the life! Still, I did not go to see him. I did not follow him.

Finally, they killed him and, like the snake on the pole, they lifted him up on the cross. I was there. This time, I was there. I can’t say that I totally get the whole spirit thing, the being re-born thing. I do know this: I am not the same man I was. Somehow I found my voice that day in the temple. And I do know this, you don’t give a man a royal burial unless you think he deserved it. I may not be counted among his disciples, but I could lavish his dead body with the best oil I could find!

A few days later, the rumors started flying. Jesus had been seen. Mary Magdalene found the tomb open. When Peter and others got to the tomb they found it empty. The only evidence that Jesus had been there were those expensive linen grave clothes. Mary claims that Jesus spoke to her while she was still in the garden. Then there is the story about how the disciples locked themselves in a room, so afraid were they of what people would do to Jesus’ followers. They say Jesus showed up there too. There are other stories but the one that perhaps matters most to me is the story about Thomas. I relate to Thomas. Thomas had questions about Jesus. He was skeptical, you might say. And, then one day, Jesus appeared in a room and Thomas was there. Jesus said, “Peace be with you” and then he asked Thomas to touch the holes in his hands. Thomas did touch and seemingly all his doubts went away. My Lord and my God, he shouted. Jesus didn’t scold Thomas. He only asked him if he believed just because he had seen him in the flesh. Blessed are those who believe and haven’t seen him…in the flesh, Jesus said.

When I heard about Thomas, I sat down and cried. I cried because I finally got it – about being born by the spirit. I got it about the wind. I got it about how it is not about how much you know, how much Bible you know, how much you know about how things work, or don’t work. It is not about how well you pray.

It is about coming in from the dark.

It is about….letting God give birth to you.

It’s The Annual Meeting: What Could Go Wrong?
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
John 2:13-25 – 21 January 2018

In the paper this week there was an article entitled “It’s the Vikings and the Eagles – What could go wrong?” The article pointed out that no team has won more games in the Super Bowl era without winning the championship than the Vikings. The next team with the most wins without winning the prize is the Eagles. Something always goes wrong, it seems, for these two teams.

The story about the money changers being expelled from the temple appears in all four Gospels, which makes it one of those rare examples of continuity in the Bible. However, John places his version of the story at the very beginning of his Gospel in contrast to the other three Gospel versions in which it appears towards the end of the story. Indeed, the story as it appears elsewhere, is the catalyst for Jesus’ arrest and execution. Jesus’ action in the temple was the last straw, so to speak.

Why, then, does John put the story where he does? According to Barbara Lundblad, the incident in the temple points to “the heart of who Jesus was and what he had come to do. It had to come at the beginning and not at the end.” (Far More than Bingo – Day 1). In addition, in John’s version, Jesus has just changed water into wine. People know. The Disciples know. His time is up.

If the episode in the temple is emblematic of who Jesus really is, then what exactly does it tell us about Jesus?

First of all, it needs to be pointed out that this story was intended for Jews. Jesus was a Jew and his followers were all Jews. As such, Jesus’ action is seen in the context of a Jew who loved the temple, which was more than a big sanctuary in a big city. The temple was the center of all of life for Jews in Jesus’ day. It also should be pointed out that, while Jesus’ action infuriated and threatened some, it also compelled many Jews to believe in him.

Why did Jesus do what he did? People who came to the temple came to offer a sacrifice which they could apparently buy in the court of the Gentiles which was surrounded by the sacred temple area. In order to make this purchase, pilgrims needed to exchange Roman money which bore the image of the emperor and was blasphemous for Jews. In other words, the money changers were perfectly legal. They were good people who were doing believers a favor by providing their services. The money changers were necessary to the temple’s day to day operations. None the less, Jesus marches into the midst of the moneychangers and forecloses on their operation. He tells them to clear out.

Perhaps what Jesus did in the temple was not much different than what many of us did yesterday when we showed up downtown to demonstrate against what we see happening in our country. The speeches started at 11. They were still going on at 1 so a group of us just started marching. Soon others joined in. There were no disturbances. There was no disobedience unless you count walking out on yet another speaker.

If that is the case and Jesus was methodically demonstrating in the temple, was he angry or violent? It is my guess that the most frequent depiction of this story is of a furious Jesus violently driving the moneylenders out of the temple. However, nowhere in the text we read this morning does it mention Jesus’ mood or his temper. It simply says he made a whip out of cords and uses that to expel the moneylenders. It is possible Jesus simply wanted to make a point in a calculated way. No one was hurt. No property was destroyed. People just doing their jobs in a practice that has become accepted as the way it has always been done are the subject of Jesus’ protest. Why? What was going on in the temple that Jesus’ found so offensive?

Today we hold our Annual Meeting. It is a very Presbyterian thing to do, this annual meeting. We will present the budget believing in our obligation to make everything that has to do with money transparent. And we will vote on a proposal to change the pastor’s terms of call. All very Presbyterian. When I first came to Faith, there was a member who challenged the budget and the annual meeting could get a little testy. However, these days, the annual meeting is more an occasion to celebrate the generous financial support of our members and to describe what our giving allows us to do.

I’ve just come back from Cuba where pastors from the states met with pastors from Cuba. One of my colleagues from Baltimore told me about her first annual meetings in her new church. The way she made it sound, the meetings were knock down drag out brawls.

That made me remember the first congregational meeting I attended. We lived in Southern California and attended a rather large, affluent Presbyterian church in Los Angeles. My family became good friends with the pastor and his family. It was the 60’s. I was in junior high school. My father was Mr. Church. He believed in the church, served as an elder, Sunday school superintendent, you name it. My father made us wait for what seemed like hours before heading to Howard Johnsons for lunch because he talked to every last person in church. My dad was Mr. Church.

The meeting in question took place when the church was having a problem. The pastor and his wife were in the process of adopting a child and someone sent a letter to the congregation alleging that the child was black. My father was so outraged at this that, in one particular phone call from a church member, I heard him swear. I never, ever  heard my father swear! The closest my father ever came to swearing was to exclaim “Jiminy Cricket”!

The congregational meeting was to elect new officers.  Because of “the problem”, the meeting was being moderated by another pastor. I sat up in the balcony. When the slate of new elders was read, my father’s name was among them. Suddenly, there was a huge commotion. People objected to my father’s name being on the ballot.  He had not been a member long enough, they said. Everyone knew this wasn’t the real reason. My father had defended the pastor against vile and racist accusations. You know, I don’t remember how that election turned out. I just remember how dark it seemed sitting up there in the balcony.

Looking back on that experience, I suppose you could say, like the moneychangers, the people in that church were good people who thought they were upholding Christian tradition and values. However, I wish Jesus had shown up that day…with his whip!

Anyone who has been to Cuba will echo that favorite Cuban saying, “It is complicated”. Everything in Cuba is complicated. It is complicated to find food, especially after the hurricane, and when you can find it, it is expensive. It is complicated to do your job. Most of the pastors serve more than one church. Most do not have transportation. Getting from place to place is complicated. I took gifts of coffee to pastors in a country that grows coffee because coffee is not always readily available and it is expensive. It is complicated. It is complicated to communicate in Cuba. It used to be no one had a phone, not to mention a laptop. That is changing but it is still difficult for us to call or email and it is not easy for the Cuban pastors to stay in touch with each other. They tell us that they yearn for those times when they can share their difficult lives in person. Money in Cuba is complicated – there is the money that tourists can use and there is the money that only citizens use. It’s complicated. Everyone is concerned about what will happen when Raul Castro steps down, supposedly in April, if he, in fact, does step down because they fear the one who replaces him will be worse. One pastor told me that the reason he is so worried about a change in government is that the Cuban people are not active citizens. Many people are simply not informed or involved in their communities. I pointed out to them that the same could be said of us.

One evening, I was talking to my colleague, Jesus. Jesus serves two churches and moderates the session of one of our partner churches. I told him about the conference Audrey and I attended at the seminary in Matanzas. I explained how disturbed I was that at a conference about feminist theology, Fidel Castro was figured prominently. A man who has imprisoned those who disagree with him and who has not exactly been the model of liberation theology was celebrated.

Ah, Jesus, said, you have to understand that the Presbyterian Church is today governed by people who owe their ability to function to the Castro regime and they are unable to see their church differently. They are good people who think they are being faithful but they are unable to see doing church differently. But we need, Jesus said, a different church – a church that is not so devoted to a rigid way of doing things, a church that is more responsive to the needs of its community. Do you know, he said, that every church in Cuba has a feeding program for the elderly and a laundry program? And do you know why, he said? It is because years ago Castro “asked” churches to provide these services because the government either couldn’t or did not want to. I seem to remember a similar request being made in our country – will the churches provide a safety net for the vulnerable in our society so the government does not have to? Jesus argues that these programs are good but they are not necessarily what the community most needs. A different church with a different way of working will have to wait until a new leadership is in place, a leadership that doesn’t owe its authority to Castro.

Perhaps we could say that, in Jesus’ mind, the powers that be in the temple, like the powers that be in the Cuban church are too rigid in their view of who and what is the church. According to Jesus, some of the best Christians in Cuba are not in the church. In fact, they may not even know they are Christians. Sounds like a job for Jesus and his whips.

The thing about the moneychangers is that they served as symbols of a system that defined who was in and who was out, who was pure and who wasn’t in a way that excluded people rather than included them. There were rigid boundaries between righteous and sinner, whole and not whole, male and female, rich and poor, pure and impure. In this sense, Jesus’ demonstration in the temple that day served to disrupt a system that had turned exclusion into an acceptable norm. When Jesus ran the moneychangers out of the temple that day, he expelled those who prevented the poor and the different from access to God.

This reality is an essential truth about who Jesus is according to John. That is why the temple purge happens at the beginning of John’s story. It tells us that Jesus is about disrupting all those things that serve to separate us from the love of God.

It is not surprising then that the Jewish leaders want to know who gave Jesus that authority to do what he did.  Jesus responds, you destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up. How? How can you do that Jesus – it took forty six years to build this temple. Jesus wasn’t talking about the church building, according to John. He was talking about his body and what was going to happen to him.

This morning we will celebrate our church building which is older than the temple was in Jesus’ time. We will see figures for how much it takes to maintain our church building, albeit less money due to the faithful volunteer crew that does a lot of the maintenance themselves. When we look at the budget, let’s ask ourselves: Is it about the building which took 46 years to build? Is it about the moneylenders who are keeping tradition in place, who are resisting taking down the barriers that make it hard or impossible for people to come to Jesus? Do we have to always do it this way?

Or is it about Jesus’ body, the one that was raised from the dead? Is about welcoming everyone to the love of Christ?

Waiting for God in All the Wrong Places – Fiery Furnaces
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
Daniel 3:8-14 – 3 December 2017

One of the most famous Advent texts is that passage from Isaiah, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Isaiah was addressing honestly the fact that we all walk in darkness at various times of our lives. At least one of the gifts of Advent, then, is to admit that we have known darkness, and, indeed, we must know darkness in order to see a great light.

Admittedly, the texts for these first two Sundays of Advent may seem to be odd choices: the three young men in the fiery furnace in Daniel and Ezekiel prophesying to the dry bones in Ezekiel. Why aren’t we getting those passages about how the desert will bloom and how Mary meets the angel and how John the Baptist appears in the wilderness? However, I would point out that John the Baptist was all about exposing the dark places in his world.

When I started to think about these two texts, I realized they were passages about waiting for God in all the wrong places. That is what Advent is, isn’t it? Waiting for God. And, the fact is, a lot of the time we aren’t waiting for God in churches or on mountain tops or in places where we are embraced by beauty and love. A lot of the time, we wait for God…in seemingly wrong places…in a cold stable, in exile in a foreign land, in a barren desert or, like the young woman on the cover of your bulletin, unwed and pregnant and sitting at a bus stop.

Our story this morning begins as the Israelites are refugees in King Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. As refugees, the Israelites are not allowed to circumcise their sons or even to own a Torah. The king has selected four of the Israelite young men as being especially handsome, smart and capable to be tutored in his palace. When the young men arrive for duty their names are changed. Their original Hebrew names all referenced their God in some way. So, Daniel (Daniel by the way means God is my judge) becomes Belteshazzar, Hananiah becomes Shadrach, Mishael becomes Meshach and Azariah becomes Abednego.

Nebuchadnezzar is a bad dude. He is power hungry, he is erratic and unpredictable, he is insistent on promoting his inflated sense of self. Nebuchadnezzar has the idea that he can promote unity and obedience if he erects a large gold statue and get all the people to worship it. Whenever the people hear the horn and pipe and lyre and trigon, harp and drum, they are to come running and bow down before the idol. This is not the first time music has been used for ill, is it?

Our friends, Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego have already resisted the king’s attempts to relinquish their God and, sure enough, they refuse to hop to when all the king’s back office boys call them to bow to an idol. We recognize these back office boys, do we not? Doesn’t every regime have them…the people who are only so happy to do everything the tyrant asks, to hop to at his every command, to earn favor however they will? The back office boys tell on our three young men:

You issued an order, didn’t you O King, live forever? Didn’t you say that whenever we hear the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum and whole concert band, we are supposed to fall on our faces and worship the golden statue. Didn’t you say that whoever refuses to obey will be thrown into a fiery furnace? Well, we know these guys refuse to do what you ordered and their names are….Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They do not serve your gods. They do not obey your orders.

Nebuchadnezzar flies into a rage. He orders the three young men to be brought before him. Is it true, he wants to know? Are you not serving my gods? Are you not bowing to my statue?

The three young men’s answer is very important: If our God – the one who we serve – is able to rescue us from the furnace of flaming fire and from your power, Your Majesty, then let him rescue us. But if he doesn’t, know this for certain, Your Majesty: we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you’ve set up.”

Martin Luther King preached a very powerful sermon on this text entitled “But if Not” in 1967 in which he urges us to do what is right even though God may not deliver us from the consequences of doing right. In this sermon, King depicts Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo as being examples of the civil disobedience King was defending.

The king orders some of “the strongest men in his army” to bind the men up, dressed in all their clothes, and throw them in the furnace. When the king looks into the furnace, he discovers his henchmen have been burned up but the three young men are unscathed. In addition, there is another figure walking around with them like an angel. None of them are burned at all. Their hair isn’t singed and their clothes don’t even smell like smoke!

Nebuchadnezzar is so astounded that he changes his decree to say that if anyone disrespects the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they will be torn limb from limb; their house made a trash heap because there is no other God who can rescue like this!

The story of the fiery furnace stands in contrast to the story we heard last week from the prophet Jeremiah who told the exiles in Babylon to build houses and live in them, plant gardens, have families, survive. The book of Daniel isn’t just about surviving in the dark places of our lives, it is about resisting. It is about refusing to bow to idols. It is about keeping your identity and your God.

This may seem like a frivolous little children’s story to us – you know – like how we heard it in Sunday School. It is true that it is a colorful story and it is true that it contains humor – the details about the band, the boys from the back room, the silly king. The story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego would seem utterly silly if we didn’t know about the numerous examples of people who have stood up and defied the kings of our world and stayed true to their God. The Jews and the Christians during the Holocaust who refused to bow to Hitler, conscientious objector’s who refused to fight because of their faith, those who marched with King in the face of fire hoses and dogs,

Indeed, as we celebrate communion this morning, perhaps we should remember those early Christians who observed this meal in secret, in catacombs, because Emperor Nero made it illegal for Christians to congregate and who spread rumors that this sacred meal involved drinking human blood. Civil disobedience arguably is part of our Christian DNA.

So, I am thinking this morning about the sad detail in this story of the name change. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo enter the service of the king and their names are changed. There are sad name changes: when Africans were brought here in slavery and their names changed to Anglo ones, when immigrants arrived here and change their names so they won’t be discriminated against, when Jews changed their names so they wouldn’t be identified as Jews. However, there are also positive examples of name changes. Last Sunday, Dr. Siba Grovogui, told our Adult Forum that, in Guinea where he is from, it used to be that when you moved from one tribe to another, you just changed your name, simple as that. When Abram and Sarai choose to follow God’s direction, God changes their names to Abraham and Sarah. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. When Saul has his blinding revelation, he changes his name to Paul. Jesus changed Cephas’ name to Peter.

So, if Nebuchadnezzar could change those three guys’ names, why can’t we? Let’s just use our imaginations for a moment. Let’s imagine that one is named Mary….Mary Hamilton. Do you know who Mary Hamilton was? Mary Hamilton was a black civil rights activist who was arrested in Alabama. When she appeared before the judge, he insisted on calling her Mary. When she protested that she should be called Miss Hamilton like any white defendant, the judge ordered her in contempt of court, fined her and threw here in jail for several more days. Her lawyers appealed Mary’s case and eventually the Supreme Court ruled in her favor. Mary refused to bow to the Nebuchadnezzar of her time.

Perhaps one of the three people in the story’s name is Beverly. Beverly Young Nelson has accused Alabama Republican Senate candidate, Roy Moore, of sexual misconduct, publicly standing up for herself and others whom she believes have been the victims of unwanted sexual attention. Beverly is refusing to bow to the Nebuchadnezzar of her time.

Maybe, just maybe, one of the young people’s name is Mary. Mary found out she was pregnant out of wedlock. Mary could have run away. She could have hidden. She could have lied.  However, Mary announced:

My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all

generations will call

me blessed;

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear

him

from generation to generation

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the

thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the

powerful from their

thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with

good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”   (Luke 1:46-55)

So. We wait. We wait for God…in fiery furnaces, in jail cells, in memories of abuse, in a bus stop as an unwed mother. We wait. As we wait, let us remember who we are. Let us remember what is right. Let us remember that we are never alone.

The Most Dangerous Hour of the Week
Rev. Christa Fuller Burns

Faith Presbyterian Church
Amos 1:1-2; 5:14-15, 21-24 – 12 November 2017

Martin Luther King once called the time we are in church, in other words, right now, the most segregated hour of the week. Recent events in our country’s experience prompt us to wonder if Sunday mornings in church are also the most dangerous times of the week! The gun smoke from last Sunday’s shootings in a small church in a small town in Texas hadn’t even evaporated before preachers and others were suggesting how churches could protect themselves by hiring security, by adding security systems, by allowing their congregants to pack and carry weapons. We all want to feel safe. If we can’t feel safe in church, where can we feel safe?

Amos. He was simple man, some would say. Amos was a herdsman with rough hands and perhaps even rougher speech. Nonetheless, he appears the first, the oldest, of what are called the “writing prophets”. In other words, he wrote his stuff down – or someone wrote his stuff down for him. He lived somewhere around 762 BCE in the Southern Kingdom of the divided kingdom. God sends Amos to the North to deliver some ominous news…two years before the earthquake. You get the idea right off the bat that the news isn’t gonna be good. In fact, the first words Amos says are:

“The Lord roars from Zion,
and utters his voice from Jerusalem,
the pastures of the shepherds wither, and the top of Carmel dries up.”  (1:2)

Amos doesn’t sugar coat the message, does he?

God is not happy. No. God is not happy.

However, the land of Israel was doing fine or they thought they were doing…just fine. Things were great again in the kingdom of Israel. Employment was up. People’s standard of living was up. Taxes were down. There were all these improvement projects. Because of its strong military, no one disrespected Israel. And everyone who wanted to could own a…gun, even if you beat your wife and your child. This is what it looks like when God’s face shines on you, isn’t it? God bless Israel. God bless Israel. No one wants to hear about the earthquake. No one wants to hear about an angry God who roars – a God who tells you all is not right, all is not great in Israel.

Nonetheless, Amos, little ole Amos, uneducated shepherd, small town fellow that’s never been out of Tekoa, Amos is called to go to the land of plenty, the land of comfort, the land where anyone who wants to can own a gun, and he is called to call the people out for their reliance on military might, for their refusal to act justly, for their hallow piety. It is not going to end well. We know that, don’t we? It is not going to end well. But we get ahead of ourselves.

You see Israel – greatest country on earth – apparently is not safe when it goes to church. No siree! God roars:

I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies,
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody
of your harps. (5:21-23)

It sounds to me like God is talking about worship, don’t you think?

I think what God is saying is that God cannot stand worship that isn’t authentic. God cannot stand worship unless we also walk the walk. Worship without justice is hallow and meaningless. Worse – this kind of worship– it is hated by God! The people went to church on Sunday all safe and snug in their pews and they reminded themselves how good they were, how glad they were to be Israelites, how blessed they were to be safe…in church.

Every time one of these nightmarish shootings happen, everyone calls us to pray, because as that theologian Paul Ryan says, prayer works…as if to say, we’ve done something haven’t we… if we pray? We’ve done something to heal, to make ourselves feel better, to allow ourselves to move on.

But Amos calls us out. Prayer without justice is noise, it is trite, it is sanctimonious pap! And what is the injustice that Amos calls out?

Amos says “they have been led astray by the same lies….”
Amos says “they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals”
Amos says “they trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth,and push the afflicted out of the way;” (2:6-7)

Amos says a father and son treat women the same…as harlots.

Read it…it is all there in Amos!

Amos was an ordinary guy who didn’t go to college, who worked with his hands for a living. Amos wasn’t well spoken. He was rough. We might even say that Amos was one of those our society has forgotten. And yet God chose him to speak out. Amos had to leave his comfort zone, everything he knew, in order to speak out.  It was risky. Amos’ uncompromising indictment of society would cause him to be kicked out by the royal religious authorities. He would be banned from the church. Maybe he had to go home. All because he was called to tell the folk that they were not safe in church. Not because a gunman with a Ruger 4R rifle could walk in and murder them. No. They were not safe in church because they prayed real good. They prayed real good and then went out and walked right by the poor. They treated women like sex toys. Their consumer rights were more important to them than the homeless. They prayed real good in church and then went out and worshiped the gods of wealth and success and the military industrial complex.

To those all warm and cozy in their pews, Amos bellows: “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” (5:24) In other words, live as if you’ve been washed by justice. Live as if justice covers everything – justice is so pervasive that is just covers everything.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that achieving that kind of justice is simply too impossible – given what we are surrounded by these days, a time when seven children every day are killed by guns. But we can do something, can’t we?  We can join our justice committee. We can volunteer at Harford House – get to know men who surely know what it means to be treated unjustly. Volunteer to teach Sunday School and help shape the vision of our children. Volunteer to spend time with our young men who are examples to us of hope for our city. Come to our adult forums where we’ve been learning about the injustices immigrants and transgender people face in this country or how we can be better stewards of our earth or what other countries are facing in terms of the unequal distribution of wealth in our world. Contact the House of Ruth who advocates for women suffering from abuse and see what help they need. Volunteer at the food pantry and learn first hand the stories of the poor. Call the immigration center across the street and volunteer to help tutor. Stand up for stricter gun laws. Read the newspaper. Simply read the newspaper.

Hey – how about this – come to the concert this afternoon and contribute to the relief of the victims of natural disasters! 4PM in the sanctuary.

We are not powerless, my friends! There is still time. Amos tells us that. Seek good that you may live. Seek good that you may live. There is still time.