12th Sunday After Pentecost -- Goodbye Fred

12th Sunday After Pentecost

Follow Your Passion

August 15, 2010

Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, the Redeemer and the One who Sustains.

“I come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled. I have a baptism with which to be baptized, 

and what stress I am under until it is completed.”

Jesus is fired up!

It sounds like he is really angry. 

We wonder what has precipitated such harsh language?

 We aren’t sure just what has set him off.

......

Perhaps he is mad because his disciples and those that keep following on his heels just don’t seem to get it.

And he is under stress because he knows that he is going -

to a cross and a grave.

But before he goes

he just has to let his disciples and all these folks following him know

not only who he is, but his purpose---he has come to bring fire,

to ignite his disciples to be active in changing the world.

He has tried telling them nicely

“repent the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Because Jesus thought that this might motivate them.

He has tried showing them by feeding those who are hungry, 

healing and returning to community those cast out,
preaching release to the captives,
good news to the poor, 

and they still don’t seem to get it

I can see his face contorting almost yelling:

“Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? 

No, I tell you but rather division.”

 his ire is up

And we don’t know what to do.

...................................

This certainly isn’t the sweet baby Jesus with the adorable coo
 and squeezable cheeks we see at Christmastime.
This certainly is not the meek and mild Jesus
 that gently walks beside us and gives us no trouble at all.
No this is the fiery, revolutionary Jesus, 
who has come to turn the world upside down.


Of course he comes to bring division.
Because he is not the mighty, powerful military leader they expect
he comes ushering in a kingdom,
as I understand from reading a commentary by David Lose,

   ruled not by force but by forgiveness,

not by fear, but by boldness

and not by power but by compassion and kindness.

"Yet those who have a stake,

those lured by temptations of wealth, status and power;

and those who govern resist this coming 
kingdom for it spells an end to what they have grown accustomed to. 

Jesus- as he comes to establish a rule of peace, 

wholeness," well-being for all- 

indeed brings division.

 Of course we don’t know what to do with the reality of Jesus radical proclamation.

It makes us extremely uncomfortable,

just as it made his followers

Perhaps Jesus is challenging them and us to 

live more fully into a way of life that calls for a different kind of peace--
a peace that includes justice for all

 Jesus asks 

“You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know to interpret the present time?”

He’s telling them it’s time to wake up and pay attention.

look at the world and see that God's kingdom has not yet come.


It is hard to hear these and other words we have heard in the last few weeks.
We are after all comfortable members of an extremely privileged culture 
and of course we will hear these words with annoyance.


Yet there are many who yearn to here words that speak of a world 
without poverty, hunger, and injustice. 

What his disciples and those following close on his heels didn't get
What we don't get is that we are following Jesus--
a man whose purpose is to replace crowns with crosses.

And that’s good news.

Yes the words of Jesus sound harsh.

But for some it is good news.

It is good news to those who are poor and powerless.

those who are left out and excluded,

those who are pressed down by the muck and mire of the world,

and need the world to turn around so that they might have a fighting chance.

...........................

But there certainly doesn’t seem to be much good news for us 

 in our text today ----

We hear ranting and raving even in Jeremiah.

I’m sorry Fred, my intention was to preach a nice little sermon to say goodbye

But that’s not exactly what the text calls for.

...................

As Jesus speaks to the disciples who carry the word of God into the world and the crowds, 

he is also warning us about the judgment for those who fail to see and act. 

The prophet Jeremiah speaks to both those who speak the word on behalf of God and those who hear.

He is speaking to us all about those who prophesy 

He is speaking about false prophets and those who twist and turn the word of God for their own purposes--

for the purpose of comfort  and comfortability.

It reminds me of those prosperity gospel preachers

who tell us that all we have to do is claim what we want 

and God will grant it --- anything--- new house, new car, new stuff.

It sounds as if they want us to believe in a god who is at our beck and call

and easy to manipulate, and absolutely undemanding.

 That is not the God who Jeremiah knows and proclaims.
God is not a God who is far off.
But a God who is able to see far and wide.

Yes indeed we serve a God of love

but not a God of cheap grace,--- but costly grace

It costs Jesus his life,

He was hoping that his disciples might expend at least a little effort.

A God who gives forgiveness, grace and mercy freely.

And, calls those who follow to act as those who have been loved and forgiven.

..................................

Just like Jesus,
Jeremiah is telling us to pay attention

and to listen to what we hear concerning God.

We are to determine who is saying a word that we like to hear 

because if it confirms us in our positions, 

supports us in all that we do, 

promises us no upset in our way of life,
We should be worried.

A major issue for those in Jeremiah’s time 
was that the people did not struggle with the words they were hearing.

In his time it was almost always a sure sign that the prophets words was were not the word of the Lord
when they confirm our every whim. 

"The true word of the Lord came from those voices who spoke uncomfortable and disturbing words, 

who challenged the ways and conduct of the community, 

who called for radical change . . . (NIB)” 

“Is not my word like fire and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”

Might this ranting contain a word of advice for a budding preacher?

........................................................

A professor of mine used to say that the word of God was meant

to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

And while we don’t want to upset our comfortable positions in our comfortable congregations, Fred,

sometimes a word that challenges us to think about how we perpetuate unjust systems of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia,

how hanging on to all of our stuff

affects those who are hungry and living in poverty,

how when we see tragedy or disaster from the streets of Summit to the far away places of Haiti and Pakistan we are called to respond,

might just be necessary.

.........................

Fred  if we just tell people that God loves them

and don’t call them to love one another 

and the entire world that God has made 

then we might be inching toward false prophecy.

If we don’t tell those we are called to serve,
 that perhaps

Jesus wants us to have more than just a Sunday morning faith

that sits and sings hymns 

that feels good and expects Jesus to love us 

and take care of ONLY --- our needs.

but also a Monday thru Saturday faith that dares to walk

out of these doors to look round see what is happening in the world

to do what matters to God----for the sake of the other.

................................................................

The good news is that Jesus despite his crabby ranting and raving this morning has already,enabled us, 

 and provided a role model for us to follow.

Follow that role model Fred 

preach the damn gospel,

love the people

listen to them

observe what is important to them

value what they value and they will value you

and engage- work with them laugh with them, cry with them

engage them in the words of scripture

engage them through and with the love of God

that you know so well 

But don’t let them off the hook!

Because Jesus doesn’t let any of us off.

Run Fred,

 with perseverance the race that is set before you

always looking to Jesus who is the pioneer and perfecter of your faith.

And Go from this place with our blessing and love

And may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your heart and mind 

in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Immeasurably More

One of my blog followers writes her own blog and has dubbed her blog beautifulride so I don't want to talk about the beautiful ride that is my life. Of course, like so many I can say some parts of my life haven't been so pleasant. What I will say, is that my life has been and continues to be a wonderful adventure. You know like those African Safari Adventure Movies when they start out to discover something and they fall into traps, face down lions and run into all kinds of obstacles, yet they find what they were seeking. That's my life. But instead of finding what I was seeking, God found me.

The thing about it is every time I think it can't get any better, it does. I know I am being kind of vague but I don't want to start listing all the absolutely wonderful things I get to do. I think I did that in a previous blog. What I want to say is that my life has been so wonderful because of God.

I remember being a divorced single mother and wondering what I was going to do. I had a descent job as an electrologist in a beauty salon;  I rented an okay apartment and I was doing all right. My heart had been broken by a man that I thought was the love of my life; he was the father of my son--my husband. I thought that our lives were headed in a good direction. Then the crack cocaine epidemic began and he was an experimenter, one experiment lead to another and he was addicted. So our marriage ended and he was caught up for twelve years.

When my marriage broke up my son lead me to church. I ended up in a little congregation in Georgia where I was nurtured and accepted. In this little church I learned about the grace of God. This grace thing made sense to me. When I heard that God loved me in spite of my faults and failings I was hooked. This was different than the God I had learned about in my grandmother and grandfather's denominational tradition. In church as a teenager, it was a struggle to understand a God that wanted me to be perfectly righteous, but later it was no struggle to understand a God who had no such expectation. But there would be other struggles.

I struggled and in some ways I am still struggling to catch up with my contemporaries. I did not graduate from college until I was 36; I then went to seminary when my son was a teenager--talk about a challenge--but we made it. For most of my education I worked full-time, went to school full-time, took out massive loans and did the best I could. I finished seminary and was ordained at 40.

I had my second run at the altar in my first few years of being a pastor and it ended very quickly and left more scars then I knew.

Some may think I am giving too much information, but I am just trying to explain what God has brought me through. I think about that African American saying, " My soul looks back and wonders how I got over." The implication is that it is God who has made a way. The other day one of my facebook friends updated her status by asking, "what are you grateful for?" If I began, I could fill up pages and pages. You know the scripture that reads,  God "is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us." Well that's it. I could have never imagined, from where my life begin that I would be here. My mother and father divorced when I was about 8,  I became the child of a poor single parent; God has taken me from being a poor single parent myself to being pastor of what someone called just today 'an historic flagship congregation.'  Yet the most important thing is that God has given me such joy in my life and in this ministry.

Who knew! that God could take a poor little black girl and bless her so incredibly. I love God through Jesus the Christ, not because I am so able to love but because this God has first  found, loved, chosen, equipped and blessed me. And I am so very grateful, so absolutely grateful---to God.

What are you grateful for?

We Pray for Peace and Reconciliation!

They just kept on coming, waves and waves of people showed up at the green to pray for reconciliation and peace. They came because no one would have guessed that such a thing could happen in a place like this. They came because they were hurt and saddened and sorry. They came because they wanted to say no. They came to stand against terror and violence.

How could a murder happen in our quiet bedroom community? This is a place where the average home cost is at least $600,000 and most people have at least a college education. But happen it did. One Saturday afternoon a Hispanic restaurant worker sat down in a small downtown park. This small space between buildings is a nice place to sit with a cup of coffee read a book or just relax for a moment. It has nice park benches and a fountain that make it peaceful. But on July 17, the peace was disturb.

He probably sat down to rest before he made his way home. Just a moment to get off his feet after washing dishes all day.  A moment respite, perhaps that's all he wanted. Kids came into the park; teenagers, a crowd of them came laughing, possibly joking and acting silly. Then one of them put a shirt over the workers head and another pummeled him. He was found unconscious and taken to the hospital where he was robbed of his pay. He died three days later.

What turned a group of teenagers into killers? What turned a hospital worker into a thief? Why did this man have to die? What will happen to this nice suburban community? We don't know; but the Summit Interfaith Clergy Council organized this march to the Summit Green from City Hall, pass the Promenade to say that this is a city that will stand for peace in the midst of such violence.
Many who came brought flowers to place at the site of this horrendous crime.  On July 28, the Clergy Council came together with residents, police, friends, citizens and city officials to read words of peace and reconciliation and to pray. We came to tell the family of Abelino Maziniego that we are sorry and to stand with them in their sorrow. We came to promise this immigrant family the support of a community that comes from so many places across the globe but calls this place home. We came to say no more and with God's help to make sure nothing like this happens here again.  Many who came brought flowers to place at the site of this horrendous crime. They brought flowers to reclaim this space as a place of peace and beauty.

While the crowds are no longer gathered we pray for peace and reconciliation for a community that has been hurt. Will you pray with us?