reallifepastor

          Today we hear a tale of two blessings.  For one person, it was the best of times.  For the other, it was the worst.  One dared to ask God for a blessing; the other, we are told, “despised” his.  (Pause)  What will you do with your blessing?

          First, meet Esau.

The Birth and Youth of Esau and Jacob

19These are the descendants of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham was the father of Isaac,²⁰and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean.²¹Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived.²²The children struggled together within her; and she said, ‘If it is to be this way, why do I live?’^* So she went to inquire of the Lord.²³And the Lord said to her,

‘Two nations are in your womb,and two peoples born of you shall be divided;one shall be stronger than the other,the elder shall serve the younger.’

²⁴When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb.²⁵The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau.²⁶Afterwards his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob.^*Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.

27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.²⁸Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Esau Sells His Birthright, which is to say, his blessing.

29 Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished.³⁰Esau said to Jacob, ‘Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!’ (Therefore he was called Edom.^*)³¹Jacob said, ‘First sell me your birthright.’³²Esau said, ‘I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?’³³Jacob said, ‘Swear to me first.’^* So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob.³⁴Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

Isaac Blesses Jacob

27When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, ‘My son’; and he answered, ‘Here I am.’²He said, ‘See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death.³Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me.⁴Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.’

5 Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it,⁶Rebekah said to her son Jacob, ‘I heard your father say to your brother Esau,⁷“Bring me game, and prepare for me savory food to eat, that I may bless you before the Lord before I die.”⁸Now therefore, my son, obey my word as I command you.⁹Go to the flock, and get me two choice kids, so that I may prepare from them savory food for your father, such as he likes;¹⁰and you shall take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.’

¹¹But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, ‘Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a man of smooth skin.¹²Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him, and bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.’¹³His mother said to him, ‘Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my word, and go, get them for me.’¹⁴So he went and got them and brought them to his mother; and his mother prepared savory food, such as his father loved.¹⁵Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob;¹⁶and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck.¹⁷Then she handed the savory food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.

18 So he went in to his father, and said, ‘My father’; and he said, ‘Here I am; who are you, my son?’¹⁹Jacob said to his father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.’²⁰But Isaac said to his son, ‘How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?’ He answered, ‘Because the Lord your God granted me success.’²¹Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.’²²So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, ‘The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’²³He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him.²⁴He said, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ He answered, ‘I am.’²⁵Then he said, ‘Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.’ So he brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank.²⁶Then his father Isaac said to him, ‘Come near and kiss me, my son.’²⁷So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and blessed him, and said,

‘Ah, the smell of my son
is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.
²⁸ May God give you of the dew of heaven,
and of the fatness of the earth,
and plenty of grain and wine.
²⁹ Let peoples serve you,
and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
and blessed be everyone who blesses you!’

Esau’s Lost Blessing

30 As soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, when Jacob had scarcely gone out from the presence of his father Isaac, his brother Esau came in from his hunting.  ³¹He also prepared savory food, and brought it to his father. And he said to his father, ‘Let my father sit up and eat of his son’s game, so that you may bless me.’  ³²His father Isaac said to him, ‘Who are you?’ He answered, ‘I am your firstborn son, Esau.’  ³³Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, ‘Who was it then that hunted game and brought it to me, and I ate it all^* before you came, and I have blessed him?—yes, and blessed he shall be!’ 

³⁴When Esau heard his father’s words, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me, me also, father!’  ³⁵But he said, ‘Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your blessing.’  ³⁶Esau said, ‘Is he not rightly named Jacob?^*  For he has supplanted me these two times.  He took away my birthright; and look, now he has taken away my blessing.’ Then he said, ‘Have you not reserved a blessing for me?’  ³⁷Isaac answered Esau, ‘I have already made him your lord, and I have given him all his brothers as servants, and with grain and wine I have sustained him. What then can I do for you, my son?’  ³⁸Esau said to his father, ‘Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!’ And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.

Esau, Words by Jenn Lindsay

There’s a lot of chance in how you meet the world

I came in rough, uncouth and for the field.

My quiet crooked brother slipped in on my heel

Stole the heart of Mother and my birthright for a meal.

I always had the body, you always had the brain.

I toil with the beasts; in the tents you talk and play.

You took my body in your hands at a hungry time

You took my body on your arms, you lied and took what’s mine.

Bless me, Father!  Have you only one? 

I have struggled with him since the womb.

Your own father nearly slayed you on the altar.

Count your blessings for me and Cain and Ishmael.

We disappear.  We displease Israel.

Father knew your voice but ate what you had brought.

Shema, Israel, Adonai Echad.

I know Mother helped you, I know she cooked the dish.

Put goats on your arms, saw your fate sealed with a kiss.

A writer writes his story so he can have his glory.

My brother the conniver the survivor with a dowry.

What was I to do?  Swear myself to cursing you?

I ALready mistakenly traded life for stew.   Refrain

We will meet again, little brother, on the road.

I hope you will wrestle with the truth of what you did.

My fate is to be alone and you are Israel.

Your sons will live your story, so live your story well.    Refrain.

          It’s true.  Jacob – whose name literally means “supplanter” – used cunning and trickery to steal his older brother’s birthright and blessing.  But Esau… Esau!  He had the birthright!  He had the blessing in hand!  All he had to do was be who he was—the eldest brother.  All he had to do was receive the blessing.  That’s all!  And he frittered it away.  Or should I say, “stewed” it away.

          It’s easy looking at Esau’s actions from the outside to poke fun at him or to look down on him or to belittle him for playing so fast and loose with his birthright, which is to say his original blessing from God.  But I wonder how often we do the same thing? 

Because we, too, are blessed—every last one of us.  Simply by virtue of our existence, we have a blessing….the blessing of having been created by God out of love….the blessing of having gifts and skills and unique personalities and the ability to love and share and take delight in things.  Do you know—deep down know—that God loves you?  Just as you are?  God created you to be someone like no other person.  God created you like you are for a reason…and God loves you as you are.  The psalmist says, “We are fearfully and wonderfully made.”  Do you believe that?  Have you received and taken in that original blessing?  Or have you ignored it or questioned it or despised it?  Have you received the blessing of who you were created to be?

About that other blessing….the blessing of Jabez.  The prayer of Jabez comes from an obscure passage in an obscure book of the Bible:  I Chronicles.  The first four chapters of I Chronicles contain a geneaology.  The bible—especially the Old Testament—is really big on geneaologies.  And, like this one, the sometimes go on for chapters.

If you look at the geneaology in I Chronicles 1-4, you’ll notice that, except for a sentence or two that detail skirmishes and the acquisition of land, Jabez is the only person who receives any narrative in the whole geneaology.  The rest is just a list of names…which suggests that this tiny bit of narrative is important.  Really important.  Hear now the tale of Jabez.

i Chronicles 4:9-10

⁹Jabez was honored more than his brothers; and his mother named him Jabez, saying, ‘Because I bore him in pain.’¹⁰Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, ‘Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!’ And God granted what he asked.

          “Because I bore him in pain…”  Can you imagine going through life with the name “Pain.”  “Hey, Pain!  How’d you get that name?” the other children would ask at the playground.  You can see young Jabez sigh his deep, little boy sigh and say, “Because my mother bore me in pain.”  Not the best legacy to leave a child.

          I don’t know this, but I suspect that many of us here in this room have, at times, felt like our real name is “Pain.”  Some childhoods are happy and whole-making and, yes, blessed.  But others?  Some of us grow up in families that remind us of all the ways we cause pain to others or disappointor annoy or embarrass them.  Though all of us are born blessed by God simply because we are born, some of us grow up in families where the blessing doesn’t get through.

You’ve got to think that, with a name like “Pain,” Jabez’s childhood wasn’t exactly happy.  And yet?  Look at what he does.  He prays to God for a blessing.  For extended borders and God’s constant presence and to be kept from harm or pain.  The King James Version is the only one that translates it like this, but it offers an intriguing interpretation.  The King James translates that last line:  “That you would keep me from hurting others.”  Despite the identity given him by his family, Jabez prayed for God’s blessing, a blessing that would help him overcome the identity he had been given by his family:  “one who brings pain.”  And guess what?  “God granted what he asked.” 

          So, we’ve heard a tale of two blessings today.  One man, Esau, despised his birthright.  He had the blessing from the beginning, but “stewed” it away.  The other man, Jabez—despite an unblessed beginning, asked for God’s blessing.  And received it.

          It makes you wonder what might have happened if, instead of asking his father for a blessing after Jacob had stolen his, Esau had asked GOD for a blessing… might he, too, like Jabez, have received a blessing?  Esau despised his blessing.  Jabez asked for and received a blessing from God.  What will you do with your blessing?

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2013

May 26, 2013                                                                        “Melchizedek”           Genesis 14:17-20; Hebrews 5:5-6; Psalm 110

          So, today it begins!  The Life Stories sermon series where I’ll preach on biblical characters you have selected.  Have you seen the list?  It’s going to be an interesting summer!  There’s Esau—He traded his birthright for some stew.  Ruth—seduced a rich man while he was drunk.  Korah—a rebellious musician.  (At least I won’t have to do any research with that one.  I live with the music director.)  David—Bathsheba.  Enough said.  Rebekah—helped one son cheat the other son out of his birthright.  Let’s just call her Mommie Dearest.  Salome–Here’s the PG-rated version:  She had John the Baptist killed.

          It’s like you all searched the Bible for the most questionable characters you could find.  Of course, the goal was to find biblical characters with whom we easily can identify.  Well done!

          After all those colorful characters, I was relieved when I saw the last card in the suggestion box:  Jesus.  Finally!  A character we all can emulate!  Then I read the rest of the card.  “Matthew 23:13-36.”  Someone read the first sentence of Matthew 23:13…v.15….v.23…   “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”  Really?  No, “Love your enemies?” or “Love your neighbor as yourself?”  You’re only interested in Jesus when he calls people hypocrites?   When I told Allen about the hypocrite thing, he said (a little too gleefully,in my opinion) ‘I’ve got the perfect song!” Et tu, Korah?  Talk about rebellious musicians. 

          Today we get a character we really can emulate:  Melchizedek.  Last week, I asked for suggestions of songs about Melchizedek.  I got no responses.  As in, none.  So, in order to keep my pledge to present a song each week that relates to the character for the day, I had to get creative.  Iinvite you to join me on the refrain which goes:  “Melchizedek.  Melchizedek.  A priest forever—Melchizedek.”  Ready?  (Cue music to “Elvira”)

Melchizedek.  Melchizedek.  A priest forever—Melchizedek.     

Once Abram went to battle, he won a victory

against a king whose name was Chedorlaomer.  He was from Elam.

When Abe came home again; Melchizedek blessed him, then

Of everything he had, Abe gave Mel one in ten.  (That’s a tithe.)

Melchizedek.  Melchizedek.  A priest forever—Melchizedek.

In the book of Hebrews, when talking ‘bout Jesus Christ,

The author tries to show just how holy he is.  He’s pretty holy!

He’s not an earthly priest, from the west or from the east—

He’s the Son of God, a priest from the order of Melchizedek.  (What the heck?)

Melchizedek.  Melchizedek.  A priest forever—Melchizedek.

          So, who was Melchizedek?  Wefirst meet Melchizedek in Genesis 14.  Though it relates events from an earlier period, Genesis 14 likely was written during the 6^th c. BCE, a time when the leaders of Judah had been taken from Jerusalem to Babylon in exile. 

Here’s the story thus far.  Once upon a time, God promised land and descendants to Abram, a name that literally means “father of people.”  Abram became father of a peoplecalled Israel.  After fleeing slavery in Egypt, Israel settled in the promised land, establishing Jerusalem—literally “God of peace”—as its holy city.  Israel—and later the separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah—ruled themselves for about 250 years.  ThenIsrael fell to Assyria.  150 years later the leaders of Judah were taken from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon. 

So, these people whose whole faith and identity as a people were tied to the land, now found themselves out of the land.  These people who believed that God lived in the temple in Jerusalem, now were in Babylon trying to erase the searing images of the rubble to which their temple had been reduced.  Who were they without the land?  Who was God without the temple?   

The crisis of the Babylonian exile prompted the writing of much of the Old Testament.  No longer in the land, no longer able to worship at the temple, the Jewish people in exile had to re-think their faith.  They did that by writing stories.

Enter Melchizedek.  Think of some of the storiesabout the beginning of our country….Like, George Washington and that whole “I cannot tell a lie” thing.Did George really say that?  Probably not.  But the story says something about the American value of honesty.  Or Paul Bunyan.Larger than life, an individualist, a frontiersman…  Paul Bunyan might not have been a real person, but his story teaches us a lot about the American values of hard work, individualism, and taming the frontier.

The story of Melchizedek is that kind of story.  Imagine the author sitting in what likely is a borrowed house in Babylon, hundreds of miles from the promised land, grieving the loss of the temple in Jerusalem…  What can he write that will inspire hope in the people with him in Babylon?  What can he say that will strengthen their faith? 

The main character of this story—of course—has to be Abram (father of people).  And—for this people who had been defeated in battle by the Babylonians—Abram has to be victorious in battle.  And after the victory, Abram needs to receive a blessing from a representative of God.

“Representative of God” usually means a priest.  But priests worked in the temple and the temple no longer exists.  The earthly priesthood—just like the nation of Judah—can be defeated and dismantled by those who are stronger.  So, the priest in this story needs to be better than an earthly priest, aboveearthly kings…and he must hail from Jerusalem, the holiest place on earth.

So, the author creates Melchizedek, King of Salem (Jerusalem), which means “peace,”a priest of the most High God.  The author—part of a defeated people struggling to maintain some hope and keep their faith in the midst of difficult circumstances–creates a character no one can touch:  a priest-king who brings blessings directly from God.  Melchizedek appears and disappears without a trace.  He has no beginning and no end.  He neverwill be defeated by a stronger army or uprooted from his home or be subjugated to an enemy.

          …which is all very interesting, but so what?  What can we learn from Melchizedek’s life story that might help us live our own?

          It’s difficult to make parallels between Melchizedek and us because, well, we’re real and he’s made-up.  He was created by an ancient scribe to be perfect and above it all….because the people at the time needed that kind of figure.  Maybe we could identify with Melchizedek if we were perfect and above it all….but if we were perfect and above it all, we wouldn’t need to emulate him.  In that case, we would be emulated.

          It’s tempting to use this story to talk about tithing.  Genesis 14 is the first time tithing—giving 10% of what you have to God—is mentioned in the Bible.  But Melchizedek doesn’t give the tithe; he doesn’t even ask for it.  He only receives it.  It’s Abram who gives the tithe.

          So, if it’s not a lesson on tithing, what can we glean from Melchizedek?  What might this made-up biblical character show us about living a real life of faith?

          The only action Melchizedek takes in Genesis is to provide bread and wine and bless Abram after he returns from battle.  Today, on the eve of Memorial Day, that definitely is something we can emulate.  Though Melchizedek’s blessing was for someone who survived battle, we can follow his example by blessing those who have given their lives in service to our country.  Do you know that, beginning with the Revolutionary War, over 1 million people have died in service to our country? In this age of individualism and narcissism, it is important to blessthose who are committed to something bigger than themselves, so committed that they gave their lives for it.

          War is not ideal.  And, let’s face it–not every conflictin which our country has been involved has been ethically or morally right.  Certainly, all of us can agree that doing whatever we can to create peace in our world is crucial.

          Honoring those who have died in war and other conflicts in no way conflicts with creating peace.  If anything, it reminds us of why actively creating peace is so important:  because the cost of war is too high.

          The past couple of Memorial Days I’ve been in Gainesville, Florida, visiting my mom.  Each year, an organization sets out small crosses along a stretch of 8^thAvenue, each one representing one death in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It’s a long stretch of road—between ½ a mile and a mile.  Every year as I drive down that road, I can’t help it—I cry.  Angry tears, at first.  Then sad tears.  And every year, I’m struck again by just how many American lives have been claimed….and how many more Iraqi and Afghani lives have been lost.  Just seeing a number—even one as large as 1 million….that doesn’t communicate the same thing as actually seeing one cross for every lost life.  It’s sobering.

          I invite us now to stand and sing “America the Beautiful.”  In this way, we will be honoring the lives that have been lost in service to our country.  In this way, we will be blessing those who offered their lives for something bigger than themselves.  In this way, we will be emulating Melchizedek, the King of Peace.  [Sing “America the Beautiful.”]

Genesis 14:17-20

After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).  And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High.  He blessed him and said, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”  And Abram gave him one tenth of everything.

Hebrews 5:5-6

So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; as he says also in another place, ‘You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” 

          Are you phoning it in?  With your family…with your job….with your spiritual life…with church….  It’s Pentecost Sunday…which is why I’m asking:  Are you phoning it in?

          Pentecost Sunday.  We usually go all out on Pentecost Sunday.  We invite everyone to wear red.  Then, as a way of mimicking the wild, unexpected movement of the Holy Spirit, we do wild, unexpected things in worship—we speak different languages, we fill the place with helium balloons, we scatter the place with flames—paper and literal (though after that one experience, not at the same time).  I think one year we even had fans blowing on Pentecost…or was that when the AC went out? Last year, we had planned to do this thing with a parachute…but my mom got sick and we weren’t able to follow through…

          We’ve done so many wild and unexpected things on Pentecost in the past, it’s getting harder and harder to come up with more wild and unexpected ways to mimic the in-rushing of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost.  We could have done the parachute thing-y this year, but with the handbells set up, we thought maybe we’d pass on that.  Actually, the Music Director insisted that we pass on that.

          So, since the parachute idea won’t work and since we’ve pretty much used up all the other ideas, I thought we’d try something different this year.  Instead of doing something wild and unexpected to mimic the coming of the Holy Spirit—I know.  This is just crazy talk…but instead of doing something wild and unexpected to mimic the coming of the Holy Spirit, why not open ourselvesto the real thing?  Balloons are fun.  Flames are fun.  Speaking in different languages is fun.  Creating a rush of mighty wind with fans is fun.  That parachute thing would have been fun, too, I’m sure.

          Butthose things are just representations of the Spirit, playful metaphors, cutesykitsch.  They’re a way of phoning in Pentecost.    

But is that what we want?  Do we want some cutesy representation of Pentecost?   Or do we want the real thing?  Do we want to phone in Pentecost?  Or do we want to usher it in?  Do we want to hear some ancient story about how God’s Spirit moved in the distant past?  Or do we actually want the Spirit breaking out and moving among us here in this community today? 

          Do we?Do we want to experience God’s Spirit moving among us in wild and unexpected ways?

          Before you answer, in the interest of full-disclosure, I need to let you know that mimicking the in-rushing of the Holy Spirit is a whole lot easier than creating space for the real thing.  All mimicking the in-rushing of the Holy Spirit requires is re-telling the story of Pentecost.  We remind ourselves that Jesus has died and risen and ascended back into heaven….We hear again about disciples from all over the region gathering for the ancient Jewish holiday of Pentecost… We hear again about how the Spirit of God rushes in with wind and tongues of fire and about all those people speaking in different languages and still understanding each other…  We listen to the Scripture reader try bravely to pronounce those weird city names, secretly offering a prayer of thanks that it isn’t our Sunday to read…

          If mimicking the in-rushing of the Holy Spirit is our goal, then all we have to do is re-tell the story, employ a few balloons and streamers, and practice those place names a few times.  If re-telling the story is all we want to do, then, once the story is retold, we can go on about our business.  We can pack the story away until we’re ready totell it again next year. 

If we only want to mimic the in-rushing of the Spirit, we don’t have to change a thing about the way we’re living our lives, or living out God’s love in the world, or participating in the life of this community of faith.  If all we want to do is re-tell the Pentecost story, then, yeah.  We can just phone it in.  And why not?  If everything is just like it always has been for 2,000 years, why not sleep in and go to the lake and read the sermon online when you get home?  Or not.

According to the religious researchers, that’s what most folks of faith are doing these days.  They phone it in.  Or Facebook it.  Or email it.  Or Youtube it.Or Second Life it.Or ignore it all together.  I mean, if everything is exactly the same way it always has been, if nothing ever changes, if we don’t have to change, if we already know everything there is to know, if we already know how the story’s going to turn out, why not phone it in?

          But….if we’re looking for something more, something deeper, something that really will make a difference in the world….if we’re looking for God’s Spirit to break into our lives and wreak a little holy havoc….if we’re looking for a way to change this world for the better—at least our little corner of it….then phoning it in won’t work.  If we really want to usher in the wild and unexpected movement of God’s Holy Spirit among us, we have to show up.

Even in this age of email and texting and Facebook and Skype, even today—especially today—we have to show up.  Because something happens—something unique and palpable and unrepeatable happens when we show up….and especially when we show up together.

That’s exactly what happened on that first Pentecost Day 2,000 years ago.  “Now when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.”  That’s the first verse of this story.  That’s how Luke introduces all the phenomenal things that are going to happen—the mighty wind, the tongues of flame, the different languages, the understanding across cultures.  THAT is what creates space for God’s Spirit to rush in…the people’s togetherness.  “They were all together in one place.”

We were all together in one place Friday night.  Thirty four people from Pilgrimageshowed up for the Family Promise fund raiser at Unity Church.  What a time we had!  And it might have been because I was thinking about today’s sermon—but it felt a lot like Pentecost.  Several choirs from participating Family Promise churches sang.  The styles—and theologies—of the songs varied wildly…in a way, we werehearing people speak in different languages.  Yet, despite our differences, we stillheard each other, we still understood each other.

At the end, all the choirs joined together to sing one song called, aptly, “One Song.”  I don’t know how it sounded in the audience, but from within the choir—all our voices blending together—it was beautiful.  And full of energy.  And full of life.  And God’s Spirit was so very present!  When I saw Juliann at the Yard Sale yesterday, she said, “I just wanted to keep singing and singing and singing!”  Yeah.  It was that kind of experience.

I know everyone wasn’t able to come Friday night.  We’re so over-scheduled these days and sometimes we’re just flat-out too tired to do one more thing.  Some Sundays I look out at you all and think, “My goodness, they look so tired.  I hope they can go home and take a nap.  After the sermon, that is.”

But here’s the thing….this isn’t a guilt-trip or nagging or preacher-talk.  This is simply a statement of fact:  there are some things we can’t phone in.  Sometimes and for some things the only way to make it happen is to show up…to get up out of bed and put on some clothes and transport ourselves and turn off our electronic devices and fully BE in a place. 

We can come up with all sorts of reasons for the in-rushing and out-breaking of God’s Holy Spirit on that first Pentecost Sunday—Maybe it was some kind of benign mob hysteria.  Maybe it was one of those strange group hallucinations.  Or maybe it was an out-and-out supernatural miracle.

But if we take the cue Luke so clearly gives us in his introduction to this story—“they were all together in one place”—then we have to acknowledge that a key contributor to the Spirit’s moving that first day of Pentecost was the people’s togetherness.  They showed up.  Which somehow paved the way for the Spirit’s showing up.

The same is true for us on this Pentecost day in 2013.  If we want to experience God’s Spirit moving among us in wild and unexpected ways….If we want God’s Spirit to rush in and wake us up and inspire us and light a fire in us….If we want to be surprised by all the miraculous things God is doing in our midst…If we want to be effective in sharing the good news of God’s love for every person…. If we want to come alive as a church and as people of faith….If we want God’s Holy Spirit to rush in and wreaksome holy havoc…

If we want these things….If we want to live a life and a faith that is fully authentic…if we want something more than we’ve always had….if we want to wake up to the life we were meant to live…then we, too, have to show up.  We can make all the excuses in the world, we can make all the other choices in the world, we can rationalize our way around it, but the simple, clear truth remains:  the thing that creates space for God’s Spirit to rush in is our showing up.

So, will you?  Will you show up?  Now that summer is here.  Now that school is out.  Now that the choir is going on hiatus.Will you show up for the community?  Will you show up for God?  Will you show up for yourself?(Phone rings)  Will you show up?

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

KimberleighBuchanan  © 2013

Acts 2:1-21

          Our church theme this year is “Life Stories.”  As a way to engage the theme, I invited you to identify characters from the Bible about whom you’d like me to preach.  You did a good job!  I had heard of everyone you named; I did grow up Baptist, after all, and know my Bible fairly well.  I confess, though, that I will have to do a little research on people like Jabez and Korah. 

          The goal of this year’s theme is to learn about the lives of faithful people, to see how others—within the circumstances of their lives—live out their faith in God.  Looking at how others live out their faith is an excellent invitation to reflect on how we live out our own.  How do you—within the circumstances of your life—live out your faith in God?

          The official “Summer Sermon Series” will begin the last week of this month…but since Lydia was on the list and the biblical passage about Lydia comes up today, we’re going to get a preview of the series this morning.

          So, Paul’s doing his thing in Lystra when he has this dream.  In this dream, a man from Macedonia—think current day Balkan peninsula—beckons:  ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’  Paul and his companions immediately head west to Macedonia, the city of Philippi, in particular.

          To this point, it has been Paul’s custom when entering a town to begin his preaching at Sabbath services at the local synagogue.  Assuming the readiest converts to be faithful Jews, that seems the best place to begin.

          Apparently in Philippi, there is no organized faithful community in town, there isn’t even a fully functioning synagogue….which likely is why Paul heads for the river come Sabbath morning.  It was common at the time for those not officially associated with a faith community to gather for impromptu prayer services somewhere outside the city gates.  So Paul heads there to find some folks to whom to preach, the image of the person in his dream still vivid in his mind.  His search is successful; he stumbles upon a group praying, a group led by a woman.

Monologue I remember that day very well. There had been rains the week before, which had brought out fragrant blossoms and new shoots. The sky was a deep blue, with a slight breeze that slowly pushed a few white clouds across it. As we gathered by the river for our time of prayer, there were many smiles on the faces of those around me. As my mother used to say, “A day of beauty calls forth the beauty of all who behold it.” It was certainly true on that day.

Just as we began our worship, three men approached us and asked if they could join us. This was unusual, for there were no men in our midst. We welcomed these strangers in, and although they were not familiar with our hymns, they joined in our prayers with the kind of devotion that one would only see in individuals who pray regularly. Towards the end of our worship, I invited them to speak of their own understanding of God. The elder of the three, named Paul, told us the story of Jesus of Nazareth and how he had come to follow him. I was deeply moved by what he told us. I asked him many questions, and his answers made me feel like a pathway had opened up that I needed to travel on.

You see, I am a woman who runs a business dealing in fine purple cloth. Whenever I need to make a decision on the spot, I am able to do so. In that moment, I made a decision that would shape my future. I asked Paul to baptize me right then and there, along with the members of my household. Paul baptized each one of us in a river that had been a constant companion to all the prayers we had shared together.

Afterwards, I insisted that Paul and his companions come stay at my home, so that we might learn more from them about the way of Christ. It was truly a day of beauty – and of new beginnings for us all!   (Seasons of the Spirit)

          A couple of weeks ago, we heard about a group of widows mourning the death of a woman who had cared for them, Tabitha.  We talked about how powerless most women in the first century Roman Empire were.

          Lydia is the antithesis of those grieving widows.  She owns her own business—she sells purple fabrics, which means her clientele is the elite.  She owns and runs her own home.  Lydia, likely, is a wealthy woman.

          But there is more to Lydia than her wealth….because we meet Lydia at the river on a Sabbath morning praying with a group of friends.  Finding Lydia there doing that tells us that she also was a spiritual seeker.  She occupied a rare place of privilege in her city.  But it wasn’t enough; she wanted something more.  She wanted a connection with God.  She wanted a connection with a community.  She wanted to give back…

          …which is likely why she invites these strangers to join their prayer meeting.  They come, they share, Lydia believes—and thus becomes the first convert to Christianity in Europe. 

          And immediately, Lydia uses whatever resources she has to further the work of the kin-dom.  First, she shares the good news with her entire household.  Second, they’re all baptized.  Then third, she invites Paul and his companions to stay with her and continue sharing in learning and fellowship.  ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home,’ Lydia says.  You’ve got to love Luke’s response to the invitation:  “And she prevailed upon us.”      

          So, what might we learn from this first European convert to Christianity?  The first lesson, I think, is that worldly success isn’t the same as spiritual success.  Lydia had achieved much more than most women—or men, for that matter– ever could have dreamed of in her cultural context.  She no doubt had worked hard for every drachma she ever earned.  Her success speaks volumes about Lydia’s character and commitment to hard work and creative entrepreneurship.

          But her presence at the river that Sabbath morning also demonstrates that Lydia hungered for something more—she longed for a connection to God and to a group of faith people.  Lydia was looking for a way to use her many resources to build up God’s kin-dom.  The way of Jesus was the way for her.

          Do you know anyone like Lydia?  Someone who, despite worldly success, longs for something more?  Someone who hungers for a connection to God and to a faithful group of people?  Someone who looks for ways to use his or her resources to build up God’s kin-dom?

          Do you know anyone like Lydia?  You sure do, because we are honoring them today with Pilgrimage’s Dr. of Friendship Award:  Beth and Jimmy Loyless.  Before we invite them to come up, I want to read you just one of the nominations received for Jimmy and Beth.

          “These two do so much for the church in so many different capacities.  They are always there to volunteer and help with any church function or fill in when needed.  Beth has been co-chair for missions and has played a key role in helping us understand how Pilgrimage can help in our community.  She has been a big help with getting us connected with Family Promise and informing us about what PUCC would need to do to participate.  She also serves as a deacon and not to just her families; she always reaches out to other families to make sure all is well.  She and Jimmy are key in MUST Ministries from the collection of the food and actually getting it to them.  I am amazed at how much Beth is always bringing into the church on Sundays from clothing or food donations.  Even when she is about to have surgery for a bad back or hip, she delivers.  I always hear Beth involved in the Women’s book club or getting together with others for a dinner. 

“Jimmy always seems to be generating all the fun and events and is the one who could have been a delivery man.  He is always one of the keys in Men’s fellowship, making sure all enjoy.  At meals at the church, he and Beth help and bring food and comraderie that is second to none.  Not only does Jimmy do a ton for PUCC, he also serves as the treasurer of the Southeast Conference of the UCC, which broadens the outreach of his character and what he does for the faith and the greater good of all Christians.  Jimmy also has taken on the leadership role for the Habitat for Humanity and the rebuilding in Adairsville.

          “These two are always the first to help when someone can’t usher, read scripture, make an announcement or anything else that needs to get done and keep the parishioners fully informed and up to date.  I don’t think I have met two people that do so much work and yet always are eager to do more.  They are what I believe Pilgrimage is about and what we want representing us in the community and to our members.  We are fortunate to have two people that care and are willing to do so much.  They are truly two of the greatest people I know.

          “The only negative aspect is the Auburn devotion and updates, but that is minor.”

(Present Jimmy and Beth with the Dr. of Friendship Award.)

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©  2013

Acts 16:9-15

⁹During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’  ¹⁰When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

The Conversion of Lydia

11 We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, ¹²and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district^* of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days.  ¹³On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.  ¹⁴A certain woman named Lydia, a worshipper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.  ¹⁵When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.’ And she prevailed upon us.

          On the whole, have Christians helped your journey toward God or hindered it?When a radio interviewer asked poet Kathleen Norris, “Do you consider yourself a Christian?” Norris sighed and said, “My problem with that is that so many people who publicly identify themselves as Christians are such jerks about it.” 

          I’m guessing that each of us is here today, in large part, because some Christian folk along the way weren’t jerks about it; they lived their faith in such a way that —somehow—God became more real to us.  I’m also guessing, though, living here in the South, that we’ve all encountered a few “jerky” Christians.   

On the whole, have Christians helped or hindered your journey toward God?  Another question:  On the whole, have you helped or hindered others’ journeys toward God? 

          Peter was the apostle to whom Jesus gave the keys to the kingdom of God.  Peter is the one upon whom Jesus said he would build his church.  Peter, though a bit brash at times, was the true leader of the apostles…

          …and even Peter—this one who’d lived with and learned from Jesus, this one who was the hope of the Jesus movement after Jesus was gone, even Peter was hindering others’ journeys to God…because in Peter’s mind, if you weren’t a Jew—if you weren’t like him–the message of the risen Christ wasn’t for you.

          At the beginning of the book of Acts, just before Jesus leaves the scene for good, he commissions all the disciples to share the good news “even to the ends of the earth.”  You can see how it was going to be hard to get the message to every person on the planet if the main disciple wasn’t going to be talking to most of them.

          So, something had to happen.  Peter needed a conversion.

          Now, there’s a word with some baggage:  conversion.  A lot of calls to conversion here in the South begin with, “If you were in a car wreck on the way home from church today and died, do you know where you would spend eternity?”  (Even after decades of good theology, that question stills gives me chills!)  Has anyone else experienced “conversion” as a means to bypass Hell?  A couple of my conversions were like that.

          All conversions aren’t quite so traumatic, I mean, dramatic.  Converting to Catholicism involves attending adult confirmation.  Converting to Judaism involves another process.  Converting to Islam, yet another.

          But all these forms of conversion deal mostly with external trappings.  Ideally, the external trappings connect to an internal spiritual experience, but they don’t always.

          Here’s what I’m learning about conversion from the nuns:  conversion is a lifelong process.  One of the vows the sisters take is the vow of “conversion of life.”  Conversion of life isn’t the Big Kahuna kind of conversion—like Paul on the road to Damascus.  The kind of conversion the monks are talking about are those mental, emotional, and spiritual internal transformations that help us to see the world in a completely different way.

          It’s that kind of deep, life-altering conversion that Peter undergoes in today’s Scripture story.  As I mentioned earlier, Peter was a follower of Jesus and a die-hard Jew.  Throughout most of the first century, there was strenuous debate about whether or not the Jesus-thing was for everybody or just for the Jews (since Jesus himself had been a Jew).  In the time right after Jesus’ resurrection, most followers of Jesus assumed that the Gospel was only for the Jews and not for the Gentiles.

          So when folks began hearing about Gentiles (non-Jews) “accepting the word of God,” the grumbling started.  “When Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised (that is, Jewish) believers criticized him saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”  That’s when Peter tells them his conversion story, step by step.

I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision.  There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me.  As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.  I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’  But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 

So, here’s what Peter means.  In Jewish law, eating beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air wasn’t permitted to the faithful.  Peter probably thought he was being tested: God would never ask him to break Jewish law or tradition, right?  But a second time the voice answered from heaven: ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven.”

At the very moment Peter was trying to make sense of the vision, he says,

“Three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were.  The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.  These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house.  He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’  And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning.  And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’”

So that’s everything that happened to Peter externally.  Here’s how those external experiences worked to create an internal conversion.  Peter says:  “If God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”  Who was I that I could hinder God?

Has anyone done more to hinder God’s work in the world than faithful Christians?  Sometimes it seems like those who are most zealous about their faith, miss the mark by the widest margin.  Sometimes it is the most faithful who, in their zeal, exclude the very people whom God wants most to welcome into God’s kin-dom.  But, let’s face it.  Learning to see the world as God sees it…that can be hard work, can’t it?  Learning to see the world as God sees the world…that takes conversion after conversion after conversion.  And conversion takes work.

My conversion to the idea of the inclusiveness of God’s love for people of all sexual orientations began in my first semester of seminary, the Fall of 1988.  I was a good Southern Baptist woman.  I had gone to seminary to become—what else could a woman do in the church?—a children’s minister.

Back in the olden days, before Facebook, students used to post comments on the bulletin board in the Post Office.  That Fall, nearly all the comments referenced the seminary’s decision to expel a man who was gay.  That controversy was a pivotal moment for me.  I remember reading all the posts, all the comments from the seminary administration and wondering where I stood on things.  Was it right—or terribly wrong—to expel this man?

I wrote to a couple I had befriended in Oklahoma, parental surrogates of a sort.  I asked Doris and Charles what they thought, how I should think about the whole thing.  They told me, “This is something you need to figure out for yourself.”

It would have been easier if they had simply told me what to believe, but conversion isn’t an easy process.  Conversion takes work.  I did that work that Fall.  I read everything that was posted at the Post Office.  I talked to a few friends.  I prayed.  And by the end of that term I knew, I knew that what the seminary administration was doing was wrong.  If that man felt called to ministry, who were they to say he hadn’t been, simply because he loved men?(I now find it ironic that I affirmed gay folks’ call to ministry before I affirmed women’s right to pastor….but that’s another story for another day.)

          The thing about conversion, though, is that it’s not a one-time process, at least for most of us.  There is a kind of before-and-after-ness to it, but beyond the big decision—“Yes, God welcomes gay folks into the kin-dom of God just as they are”—there comes a whole string of other conversions related to that first one.  For me, those conversions involved answering a few questions:  How will this realization change how I view and live my life?  If God welcomes gay folks into the kin-dom, how will I welcome gay folks into my life and faith world?  And if God includes gay folks in the kin-dom, who else might God be welcoming that I am not?

          My ongoing conversion process from that first conversion in the fall of 1988 has involved befriending folks who are gay, incorporating more inclusiveness into my theology, being ordained by and serving an Open and Affirming church, deciding to pastor only Open and Affirming churches, which, ten years ago, was a career-limiting decision.  Not so much any more, thanks be to God.  That ongoing conversion process also has involved helping this congregation live into its ONA identity….something we’ve done a pretty good job of.

          Have I always gotten the inclusiveness-of-God’s-love thing right?  Um, no.  But neither did Peter.  Later on, Paul, as he says, “confronts Peter to his face” for welcoming Gentiles to the table of faith, he welcomes them, that is, until the Jewsshow up.  When the Jews show up, Peter sits with them.  Paul calls Peter on his hypocrisy.

          Yeah, okay.  I guess technically at that point, Peter was being a hypocrite…but still.  He was trying.  Paul just caught him in one of those awkward transitional moments that always seem to accompany conversion processes.  Changing your life, learning to see the world as God sees it, it’s hard work.  It takes time.  Conversion is an ongoing process.

          So, how about it?  On the whole are you helping or hindering people in their journeys toward God?  Could another conversion or two help you help others in their faith journeys?  What change in mind, what change in attitude would help you to help others in their journeys?  What change in mind, what change in attitude might help you in your own?

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

KimberleighBuchanan  ©  2010  (2013)

Acts 11:1-18

          Peter has been busy.  Since preaching his first sermon at Pentecost, Luke tells us he’s been going “here and there among all the believers”sharing the good news and healing the broken in the name of the resurrected Jesus.  Today the narrative finds him in Lydda.

          When a group of folks in nearby Joppadiscover Peter’s so close, they send two people to him with the request to come “without delay.”  A beloved member of their community has died.  They wantPeter to bring her back to life. Happily for them, he does.

          So, here we are with another resurrection story—Jesus on Easter, Tabithatoday.  Another person who was dead is brought back to life.  It happens a lot in the New Testament.  Admittedly, resurrection is an important theme for Christians; it’s at the heart of our faith. 

But focusing on the miraculous bodily resurrection of yet another 1^st century person… That’s difficult after the week we’ve had, isn’t it?  Because Lingzi Lu, KrystleCampbell, Martin Richard, and Officer Sean Collier, victims of the Boston Marathon bombing—they’re not coming back to life, are they?  The 14—maybe more—people who died near Waco in the fertilizer plant explosion—they’re not coming back to life, either.  And the hundreds of people with life-threatening and life-altering injuries from these two tragic events—their lives are forever changed.  And the thousands—maybe millions—of people who now are walking around afraid or are suffering the devastating effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder —that healing process will take months, even years.

So, Tabitha’s bodily resurrection, while intriguing, might not be the most hopeful part of this story for us today.  It’s great that she was resurrected, but—today—that’s probablynot the part of the story to which we can most easily relate.

So, to what part of it can we relate?  In light of all that’s happened this week, where is the hope for us in the story of Tabitha’s resurrection?

While the resurrection itself is important, I think we might find more hope this week in what makes that resurrection possible:  Tabitha’s community.

Think about it.  How did Peter even know to go to Joppa and see Tabitha?  He wouldn’t have known at all if Tabitha’s community hadn’t sent for him.  If they hadn’t sent for Peter, Tabitha’s death would have been the end of the story.  But they did send for Peter. 

Don’t you wonder why?  Who was Tabitha that her community went to such great lengths to see that she was brought back to life?

We’re told that Tabitha “was devoted to good works and acts of charity.”  And the fact that both her Aramaic and Greek names are mentioned suggests that she was active and known for her good works in the wider public community.  So, it’s obvious that Tabitha/Dorcas was active in serving others.  With her death, her work in the community would be sorely missed.

We learn just how important her service was, though, when Peter arrives on the scene.  We’re told that “all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them.” 

In our day, widows often are well-cared for and are provided with everything they need after the deaths of their husbands.  In 1^st century Palestine, though, things were different.  Widows who had no male relative to take them in were at the bottom of the social structure.  They literally had nothing.  A couple of chapters earlier in Acts, the Hellenists—that is, the Greek believers, those who weren’t Jewish—complained because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of the bread.  That passage in Acts 6 marks the beginning of the ministry of deacons in the Bible; it was to ensure that everyone in the community was cared for, even “the least of these.”

So, when Luke tells us that widows came to Peter, showing him all the tunics and clothing that Dorcas had made for them—note that Luke uses her Greek name here—he’s telling us that a big part of the reason Dorcas’ community was so distraught at losing her was because shedid care for “the least of these” among them.  Her ministry was vital to their community.  If she stayed dead, something crucial to who they were as a faith community would be lost.  And so, out of deep love and appreciation for her ministry among them, Tabitha/Dorcas’ community pulled out all the stops in their attempt to bring her back to life.They sent for Peter in the hope that he could effect her resurrection.

The widows’ tears in this scene are a powerful witness….They testify to just how important “good works and acts of charity” are, not just to the direct recipients of those acts, but also to the community who witnesses them. 

The widows’ tears in this scene are a powerful witness….  They also raise a pointed question:  Who will weep for us when we are gone?  The widows wept for Dorcas because she had taken time with them, made clothes for them, cared for them.  She had treated them with dignity and compassion.  The widows wept for Dorcas because she had included them fully in the life of the community. 

Who will weep for us when we are gone?

Sr. Mary Margaret wept for her friend Gilchrist, two other nuns, and a boy named Juanito when the jeep they were riding in was swept away in a torrential storm in January 1984.

Sr. Mary Margaret is one of the sisters at Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana, the monastery I visit regularly.  She’d traveled to Charamoco, Bolivia, to visit her friend Gilchrist for a time of rest and renewal.  Gilchrist worked on a team of four nuns and two priests with the poorest of the poor in a rural section of Bolivia.  Sr. Meg found great solace in assisting with the simple and necessary chores of the team’s work—much of it with Juanito, a Bolivian boy who was deaf, mostly mute, and with significant physical disabilities. 

A little over a week into Sr. Meg’s visit, there was a large gathering of Catholic clergy and religious in the nearby city of Cochabamba.  At that gathering, several Bolivian lay leaders were going to be commissioned for their work in neighboring villages.  Because they had worked so hard training these lay people, Gilchrist and 3 of her colleagues—Srs. Mary and Gerry and Fr. Jack—wanted to travel to Cochabamba for the commissioning service.  They decided to go, despite warnings of a bad storm approaching.  They invited Sr. Meg to come along, and little Juanito joined them, as he always did.

They hadn’t traveled far when the road began to wash away.  Torrents of water came rushing down the mountainside.  At one point, the jeep stalled.  When Fr. Jack stepped out to check on it, he was swept away.  At that point, Sr. Meg climbed out the window and onto the top of the jeep, hoping to help the other occupants get out so they could safely wait for rescue.

But before anyone else could climb out, the jeep dislodged and was caught in the rush of the river gone wild.  Sr. Meg jumped off the roof of the jeep and was carried downstream, her body battered by rocks and tree branches.  At one point, she was pulled to the bottom of the river and nearly drowned.  Eventually, she found her way to a bank, where she stayed for three hours, nearly eaten alive by insects, until she was rescued.

No one in the jeep survived.  They found Sr. Gilchrist’s body that night.  The other three bodies were found the next day.  Fr. Jack survived.

After making arrangements to have the bodies flown back to the States, Sr. Meg accompanied her friend Gilchrist’s body back to Chicago, where Gilchrist’s brother was waiting to receive it.  Because she was still deeply traumatized by the events in Bolivia, Our Lady of Grace sent one of the sisters to accompany Sr. Meg home to Indiana on the bus.

Here’s how Sr. Meg describes their arrival at the monastery.  “It was three degrees below zero… when our car pulled in.  To my stunned amazement, all the nuns, from the oldest to the youngest, were lined up to welcome me at the back door as I greeted them one by one.  Sister Geraldine, the oldest, was first to extend her arms and embrace me.  Then followed Sister Rosina, Sister Scholastica, Sister Mary Robert, Sister Valeria, Sister Helen Wagner, and on through the tens of other dear sisters.  (There likely were about 80 sisters in the community at that time.)  I have no idea what I said, or what was spoken to me, or if any words were uttered at all.  But as I made my way down the long hall of Our Lady of Grace, I felt deeply touched, both inside and out.  I was home.”   (Into the Depths)

It’s been a hard week.  Our country has lost some good people…and a little more of our innocence.  Perhaps we have wept our own tears this week.  Perhaps we have been in a place of death.  Perhaps we, too, have been desperate for resurrection.  Here’s the good news from Tabitha’s story for us today—and Sr. Meg’s:  our best chance for resurrection comes from being part of a community.  The good news today is that, no matter what happens, it’s always just a little easier to manage if we are part of a community.  The good news today—and every day—is that we’re all in this thing together.  (“We All in this Thing Together/Blest Be the Tie the Binds”)

Acts 9:36-43

          Easter Sunday.  Or, as we’ve been calling it at our house, Easter Fry-day!  (As in French fries.)  Resurrection Day.  So….Do you believe in resurrection?  An annoying question, I know.  I mean, you’ve gotten all gussied up and come to church to hear the most revered part of the Christian story.  If coming to church in your best threads on Easter Sunday isn’t proof that you believe in resurrection, what is, right?   So, Do you believe in resurrection?

          I was surfing the web the other day when a pertinent headline caught my eye:  “Resurrecting Extinct Species.”  Hoping to pick up a few pointers for this Resurrection Day sermon, I read the article.  In it, I learned that scientists currently are looking at bringing back from extinction 14 species.  In laypersons’ terms, they’re taking DNA from one of those extinct species and implanting it in the egg of a contemporary cousin species and trying to resurrect the extinct species by cloning it.

          Fascinating.  Going to the zoo and seeing a wooly mammoth, or a saber tooth cat, or a ground sloth?  And who wouldn’t want a pet dodo?   

          They haven’t completely resurrected any extinct species yet, but in Australia, they’ve made really good progress with a type of frog that went extinct in the 1980s.  With that species they’ve gotten nearly to the embryo stage.  Exciting stuff!

          All this talk about resurrecting frogs and mammoths and dodos has gotten me thinking—What if archaeologists found a piece of hair or a first century toothbrush that was confirmed to have belonged to Jesus?  Are you thinking what I’m thinking?  If we found a piece of DNA that could be confirmed to have belonged to Jesus, then, maybe we could resurrect him!  And just think!  If we could scientifically resurrect Jesus, then we could put all our questions about his resurrection to rest.  We could gussy up and come to church on Easter Sunday guilt free because we wouldn’t have to feign belief in Jesus’ resurrection; we’d know he’d been resurrected!  We’d have proof!  If we could clone Jesus and he could be born again–yes, “born again”—then we would know for sure that he was back among us.  We could see for ourselves that Jesus was alive.  If we could clone Jesus, then believing in resurrection would be a cinch.

          And not only that!  Can you imagine what good Jesus would do in the world if he actually were here among us?  He’d probably solve the problems in the Middle East his first morning, then deal with North Korea that afternoon.  Then after peace had been restored in those places, he’d deal with poverty in India and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and violence against women in the Congo and drug production in South and Central America.  If Jesus were really here among us—in flesh and blood—there would be no human trafficking or child abuse or sexual exploitation or homelessness.   And if the Buddha and Mohammad and Mahatma Gandhi all were resurrected at the same time, Jesus probably would meet up with them down at the Starbucks for some stimulating interfaith dialogue.

          Oh, man!  Wouldn’t it be great if we could really resurrect Jesus?  All this good would happen AND we wouldn’t be called on to use our sophisticated 21^st century minds to believe in, quite frankly, unbelievable things. 

          Except…Jesus was alive once.  And they might have been different, but problems still existed.   And he tried.  Jesus tried to confront and deal with those problems.  But even when he was alive he couldn’t solve them…in fact, trying to solve them is what got him killed.

          So, as nice as it might be to have a down-to-the-DNA-level resurrected Jesus, I don’t know that that would solve the world’s problems.  And I don’t know that having an actual flesh-and-blood Jesus would solve our riddle of believing in resurrection.  In fact, genetically resurrecting Jesus could get in the way of our believing in resurrection.

          Think with me for a minute.  What if those women who came to the tomb two days after Jesus’ death had seen a flesh-and-blood Jesus?  And what if, when he came to the empty tomb, Peter saw a real live Jesus standing there?  And what if those two friends on the road to Emmaus didn’t see a version of Jesus that was here one minute and gone the next, but had instead had to find fresh linens and towels and make a run to the store for OJ for breakfast in the morning because the real life Jesus with his old body and brain and charisma was really there?

          What would you do if a genetically resurrected Jesus appeared?  Wouldn’t you want to spend all your time listening to and learning from him rather than getting out there and doing the work of the kin-dom on your own?  Don’t you imagine the disciples would have done the same?  Jesus had been their teacher, their leader, their friend.  If he’d come back just as he’d been, it’s a good bet his disciples would have gone back to being just as they’d been—followers. 

          That’s why I’m thinking that an actual DNA resurrection would not have been that helpful two days after Jesus’ death.  In fact, I’m not thinking the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus with DNA and everything is really what this story is about at all.  Oh, it’s a story about resurrection, all right….I just don’t think its main focus is the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

          Now you’re probably thinking, So why did I get gussied up this morning if we’re not here to focus on the bodily resurrection of Jesus?  If this story isn’t just about Jesus’ bodily resurrection, what other kinds of resurrection is it about? 

          If we set aside the Jesus-is-gone part of the resurrection story—just for a minute—and look carefully, then we begin to see a whole other resurrection story taking place.  This resurrection happens in the women who come to the tomb early that first Easter morning.  There they come, weighed down with grief and cloths filled with burial spices.  Death spices.  They come to the tomb certain of only one thing:  Jesus is dead.  The first sign of resurrection—the stone rolled away—doesn’t faze them.  Still immersed in death-oriented thoughts, they enter the tomb ready to prepare Jesus’ body for burial….because, in their minds, he is dead.

          When they enter the tomb, they encounter the second sign of resurrection—no body.  On the face of it, the message of that sign is pretty clear—no body, yes resurrection.  But still, the women don’t believe in resurrection.  They are perplexed now, but not yet believing.  By the next sign of the resurrection—the message from the men in dazzling clothes—the women are beginning to wake up to the fact that maybe something unusual has happened.   Maybe Jesus really is gone.  “Then they remembered his words,” Luke tells us.  And when they do, they take their first decisive action in response to resurrection—a sure sign that they now believe.  They run from the tomb, find the disciples, and tell them what they’ve seen.

          The women’s resurrection in this story happens slowly, step by step.  They come to the tomb still focusing on death.  But step by step, as they encounter each new sign of Jesus’ resurrection, they slowly experience their own resurrections. 

          If you think about it, the reason we even know about Jesus’ resurrection at all is because of the resurrections of these women, their slow journey from thoughts of death to certainty of life.  If there hadn’t been witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, we never would have known about it.  If the women hadn’t allowed themselves to experience resurrection, to believe in new life, the new life we find in Christ would never have been possible.

          What I’m trying to say is that, while Jesus’ resurrection is important, just as important are our own resurrections.  The movement from thoughts of death to certainty of life…especially in places where you’d only expect to find death—that is what resurrection is all about.

          And it’s what the world saw on Thursday when the new pope washed the feet of 12 detainees in a juvenile detention center.  It’s tradition for the Pope to wash the feet of 12 priests on Maundy Thursday as a way to re-enact Jesus washing the disciples’ feet in the Bible.  Rather than wash the feet of priests, though, Pope Francis did what has become tradition for him.  He went to a juvenile detention center in Rome and washed the feet of 12 young inmates, two of whom were women.  And one of those young women was Muslim. 

“The Vatican released a limited video of the ritual, showing Francis washing black feet, white feet, male feet, female feet and even a foot with tattoos.  Kneeling on the stone floor as the 12 youngsters sat above him, the 76-year-old Francis poured water from a silver chalice over each foot, dried it with a simple cotton towel and then bent over to kiss each one.”  (AP)

Pope Francis went to a place of little hope, a place where few see life, and he showed those young people—and the rest of the world– resurrection.  He showed them life in the midst of death.   And he was able to do it, because—somewhere along the line—he has experienced his own resurrection.  “Don’t lose hope,” he said.  “Understand?  With hope you can always go on.”  Pope Francis was asking those young people to believe in their own resurrections.

So, it’s Easter Sunday.  Resurrection Day.  Do you believe in resurrection?  Not so much Jesus’ resurrection.  What I’m asking is, do you believe in your own?

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©  2013

Luke 24:1-12 

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,³but when they went in, they did not find the body.^*4While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.⁵The women^* were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men^* said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.  ^*6Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, ⁷that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.  ’⁸Then they remembered his words, ⁹and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.  ¹⁰Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.  ¹¹But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.  ¹²But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.^*      

          The crowds were divided about him.  Some hung on every word he spoke; others challenged every sentence he uttered.  Some had been healed by him; others felt threatened by him.  Some worshiped him; others plotted to kill him.  As Jesus entered Jerusalem the last week of his life, things were coming to head.  He was in for a bumpy ride…and I’m not talking about the donkey on which he was mounted.

          I recently finished teaching an online course called “Thinking Theologically in the 21^st Century.”  Each week, the participants were asked to describe their understanding of a different theological category—God, the Holy Spirit, human beings, the church.  For the most part, people were on the same page with all the categories…

          …except Jesus.  That was the second week of class.  After seeing how diverse class members’ understandings of Jesus were, I’m really glad we made it to Week 3.

          Some people were certain that God sent Jesus to die for our sins; others weren’t sure they could believe in a God who ordained the torturous death of someone.  For some, Jesus was God walking around in human disguise; for others, Jesus was a very good man who was more open to God than most.  For some, Jesus is savior; for others, Jesus is a really great role model.  There was little consensus among the group about who—exactly—Jesus was…except for this:  everyone knew Jesus was important, not just to Christian faith, but to their own.

          The same was true for the people in Jerusalem the day Jesus rode inon that donkey.  While there was little consensus on who—precisely—Jesus was, nearly everyone knew he was important.  While everyone had a different response to Jesus, everyone responded to him.  And the responses of some led, eventually, to Jesus’ death.

          Did Jesus have to die?  It’s a question Jesus himself grapples with while praying in the garden. 

It’s Thursday night, just four days after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when people had shouted “Hosanna!” and thrown their cloaks on the ground to honor Jesus.  Since that day, Jesus had taught in the Temple, challenging the established structure of religion at every turn.  In their turn, the religious leaders had challenged Jesus’ authority every chance they’d gotten.

By the time Jesus gathers with his disciples in the borrowed room for the Passover meal, whether or not he was sent by God to die, the likelihood of his death has become all but certain.  It’s just not possible to challenge power structures without paying the price for it.  In first century Judea, the price was crucifixion.  Jesus knew it; the disciples knew it.  There around the table, amid the remains of the Passover meal, everyone present had to know this wasn’t going to end well.

But—even in the face of dire circumstances—prayer always seems to help….so Jesus takes his disciples to the Mount of Olives–back to where the triumphal entry parade had begun just four days before—Jesus takes his disciples to the Mount of Olives to pray.

Here’s his prayer:  “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.”  Please, God, don’t let this happen.  Please, I can do so much more work for the kin-dom if I stay!  Please, God!  Please, don’t let what I sense is going to happen happen.  Please, God.  Spare me.  Please!

Have you ever been in a place like that?  An uncomfortable place?  A place you absolutely did not want to go?  Have you ever asked God to remove the cup that’s before you?  Have you ever asked God to swoop in and change the natural trajectory of events?   Have you ever pleaded with God to pluck you from your current circumstances and place you somewhere else? 

If you’ve ever been in that place, have you also been able to say with Jesus his next words:  “Not my will, but yours be done”?  The one thing you want most in life is withheld from you; the one thing that will make your life complete is not given; the one thing you feel it’s your destiny to do is taken away—Are you able to say, “Not my will, but yours be done?”

It couldn’t have been easy, giving up his own will to do God’s will.  But that’s what Jesus does.  And as soon as he does, an angel appears from heaven and gives him strength.

Now, what do you imagine Jesus does with that extra strength?  Does he get up fully prepared to confront the religious authorities?  Does he go rouse the sleeping disciples to teach them another lesson?  Does he go to the Temple to preach another sermon?

No, when Jesus is given that extra portion of strength, Luke tells us that “in his anguish, he prayed more earnestly.”  So, he’s been praying, he makes his peace with what he’s been praying about, he finds strength in the midst of his praying and he uses that newfound strength to pray some more?  Why in the world does Jesus use his added strength to pray some more? 

Listen to what he tells the disciples when he returns and finds them sleeping:  “Why are you sleeping?  Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.”Pray, that you may not come into the time of trial.  Maybe Jesus’ prayers become even more intense after giving himself over to God’s will because he doesn’t want to come into the time of trial.  Maybe Jesus continues praying because he doesn’t want to back down from his resolve to do whatGod is calling him to do.

It’s not an easy thing to do, is it?  When God calls us to happy things, to jobs or activities that evoke the best from us and allow us to use our gifts….that’s easy.  Joyously easy.  But when we’re called to do something that’s hard, something we hoped never to have to endure?  Then it’s difficult, excruciatingto say, “Not my will, but yours be done.”  And yet, if we are to follow Jesus’ example, that’s what we must do.  If we are to fulfill God’s calling in our lives—even when that calling takes us to places we don’t want to go—we have to entrust ourselves to God’s care.  As Jesus discovered in his prayer on the Mount of Olives—It is the only way. 

There is one among us who has experienced the pain of being called to a place she never intended to go.  I’ve invited Rochelle to tell her story through dance. Listen to the words of the song that she will share with us today . . .

Well, everybody’s got a story to tell
And everybody’s got a wound to be healed
I want to believe there’s beauty here
‘Cause oh, I get so tired of holding on
I can’t let go, I can’t move on
I want to believe there’s meaning here

How many times have you heard me cry out
“God please take this”?
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?
Oh I need you
God, I need you now.

Standing on a road I didn’t plan
Wondering how I got to where I am
I’m trying to hear that still small voice
I’m trying to hear above the noise

Though I walk,
Though I walk through the shadows
And I, I am so afraid
Please stay, please stay right beside me
With every single step I take

[Rochelle dances.]

          Here are some final words from Rochelle:  “How many times when the only grace God gives us is the ability to breathe. And sometimes, that is just enough. Just enough for that one day, that one moment. Then we look up and we are on this path . . . this path that WE did not intend to be on. But, our faith gives us the assurance that whether it’s Jesus walking through town towards an unplanned ending or it’s one of us struggling with life, we WILL make it. Jesus teaches us that God is always with us every step we take and that the Holy Spirit will fill us with the strength we need to go on.”

          It happened for Jesus.  It’s happened for Rochelle.  It can happen for the rest of us, too. 

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2013

More from Rochelle:  Dancing is when I experience God the most. I open my entire body and heart to the Holy Spirit. For the past two years, I have been hurting. Not physically but emotionally and spiritually. I helped the kids dance but that was different . . . I wasn’t as vulnerable. The song I selected for today is exactly how I have been feeling. The funny thing is, during this time of my “faith crisis” my faith has strangely been renewed. I have started Theology classes and have joined a writing group and most importantly, I have learned how to trust God a little bit more. During those times of your “faith crises” just hold on and breathe.

Luke 22:39-46

          I hadn’t been to the farm in nearly a year.  It was good to see my grandfather, Pa Joe, sitting in his recliner on sun porch, the Sunday paper scattered on the floor around him.  After we’d visited awhile, he asked, “You want to go see my hogs?”  As soon as he mentioned the hogs, I remembered going down to the hog pen as a child with my cousins and watching the little piglets run around and squeal.  It was a happy memory.  “Sure, Pa Joe.  Let’s go.”

          We climbed into his old Chevy pick-up and made our way down the rutted dirt road.  As we pulled under the trees by the pen, I opened my door, and it hit me—eau de piggy, that unique aroma of swine.  Pungent.  Acrid.  Icky.  In that instant I knew two things:  first, that I was not called to raise hogs for a living…and second, that, stinky though it was, I was home. 

          The prodigal son thought of home at the hog pen, too.  For him, the pungent, acrid, icky swine smell reminded him that he was not home… and that —in that moment—there was no other place he’d rather be…. even if the only way he could be there was as a servant. 

          Home.  We all for hope for home, don’t we?  We long for a place, a community where we can just be ourselves and be accepted for who we are, a place where we don’t have to pretend any more.  A place… [David sings “Home”]

          Home…it’s not just a physical place.  It’s an emotional place, a spiritual place.  It’s a place where we feel—really feel—like the beloved of God. 

Rembrandt’s painting, “The Prodigal Son Returns,” is housed at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.  When invited on a trip to the Soviet Union by friends, Henri Nouwen knew he needed to see this painting.  He’d seen a print of it several years before and was taken by the father’s compassionate embrace of the prodigal.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt-The_return_of_the_prodigal_son.jpg

          A friend of a friend knew the curator at the Hermitage.  When the curator saw how taken Henri was with the painting, he went and found a chair and invited Henri to sit for as long as he liked to study the painting.  Henri sat there for hours.

          As he gazed on this scene, Henri imagined himself as the prodigal.  He’d left his native Holland many years before, but that wasn’t the source of his prodigality.  Looking at the painting, he realized that he’d been a spiritual prodigal.  Because of seeking after the wrong things—which for Henri meant seeking approval from the wrong people–Henri had pulled further and further away from God.  As he identified with the bedraggled, dirty, repentant prodigal kneeling and resting his weary head on his father’s chest, Henri remembered what he had forgotten for so long:  that true home only happens when we can allow ourselves to receive God’s profound, unconditional love for us.  True home happens when we hear those words Jesus heard at his baptism:  “You are my beloved child.  With you I am well-pleased.”

          Like Henri, we, too, will find true home only when we are able to allow ourselves to be fully embraced by the profound and unconditional love of God.

          That’s what happened a little earlier when those four people were baptized.  Carol, Cathi, Danielle, and Jesse allowed themselves to be fully embraced by God’s unconditional love.

          ….and they did so in the context of Christian community.  While true home only can be found by allowing ourselves to be loved by God, one thing that makes finding that home easier is a community of friends who live that love every day…a place where we are accepted and loved by people; a place where we can be who we are fully and without reservation; a place where—on those days when we find it hard to believe—others can believe for us; a place where we can extend the love of God to others when they struggle to believe.

          Six people today are saying that they have found Pilgrimage to be just such a place.  Based on what they have told me, joining this community is a great joy for each of them.  And I know it’s a joy for the rest of us…Because, in so many ways, we all have experienced something in this place that has helped us to receive God’s loving embrace.  There is something about being community for each other, there is something about trying the best we know how to live God’s love together that has made God’s love more real to us here in this place.

          And so today, as we welcome and celebrate these six new members, I invite us also to celebrate the community we—with and in God—have created here.  I invite us to remember how many times we have been there for each other, how many times we have prayed for each other and listened to each other and challenged each other and partied with each other and simply sat with each other.  As we welcome these new friends—new members of our family— I invite us all to continue extending to each other the loving embrace of God.

Reception of New Members

Luke 15:1-3; 11b-32

I wasn’t much interested in the election of the new pope….until I saw his name:  Pope Francis.

Francis…as in, Francis of Assisi, born into wealth, chose poverty and simplicity, loved the least of these–both human and creaturely, wrote two of my favorite prayers, which I’ll include below.

For the pope–the pope!–to take the name of Francis?  I’m beginning to wonder if there might be some changes in store for the church.  One commentator said that St. Francis once heard a call from God to “repair the church.”  At first, Francis thought he was being called to refurbish the chapel.  Later he figured out that, no, the call was to repair the living church.

Perhaps the new pope has chosen his name well.  I will pray for that end.

Okay….here are the two prayers…

Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Canticle to Brother Sun and Sister Moon

Most high, all powerful, all good Lord! All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing.

To you, alone, Most High, do they belong. No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens you have made them bright, precious and beautiful.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, and clouds and storms, and all the weather, through which you give your creatures sustenance.

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you brighten the night. He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.

Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial.

Happy those who endure in peace, for by you, Most High, they will be crowned.

Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whose embrace no living person can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Happy those she finds doing your most holy will. The second death can do no harm to them.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks, and serve him with great humility.