March 15, 2020 - 3rd Sunday of Lent

Good morning and welcome to our first on-line worship service.  As we gather at this time, we remember that we are still community, whether we can be together in person, or if we are together in spirit.  Congregations all across the country are experimenting with this form of worship today because we believe we should gather and worship and take time to quiet ourselves and redirect our anxieties, stresses, concerns back towards our loving God.  So, this is the time to breathe and be assured that even though times feel anxious, the sacred is still around us and is still with us and we are still called to be the body of Christ in this time.  Welcome, welcome to this sacred time. 

Today’s scripture is the story of the Samaritan woman at the well: 

Two weeks ago, on the first Sunday of Lent, we had the story of Jesus in the Wilderness.  The wilderness  is often thought of as a harsh environment, dry, hot, depending on where you are.  When I think of this wilderness scene, I definitely envision a desert type of environment.   As Jesus fasts for these forty days, he must have had some sort of water source, I can’t imagine forty days without food, but just the thought of even one day without water makes my mouth feel dry.  I am sure we all know the feeling of being thirsty and fortunately, for the most part, we have easy access to water. 

Fourteen years ago, I had the opportunity to go to Kenya with the Presbytery Nairobi Partnership team.  During that time, we made sure we stayed hydrated but when I got home, I had a headache that would not go away.  After going to the doctor, I learned that I was dehydrated.  Even though I had been drinking what I thought was enough water, it was not.  So, we added some electrolytes into my system and I immediately began to feel better. 

So, here we have this transition, of Jesus being in the wilderness to a story of him, passing through Samaria, and encountering a woman at the well in the middle of the day.  This is one of those passages that has so many angels in which to tackle.  Jesus should not be in Samaria.  Jesus should not be speaking to a woman.  And this woman should not be at the well at mid day.  So, all these things that should not be happening – are happening. 

Jesus starts the conversation by asking for a drink of water.  He asks her to offer him hospitality.  As the conversation unfolds, and the breaking of social customs is named, Jesus uses the opportunity to teach her about who he is.  He uses the metaphor of water and connects it to himself.  Jesus, from the dryness of the wilderness, is describing himself as the living water. 

The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

This past Thursday evening at the Lenten dinner, we have been talking about what it means to be spiritually hungry.  Here is a woman, that is spiritually thirsty.  In a simple conversation of a man who sees her as a person, that has not labeled her as a Samaritan or a unclean woman or an outcaste, in the simple act of receiving water from her, Jesus changes her life.  She is so alone and this stranger saw her as something more than anyone else around has ever seen her.  And now she understands her thirst.  She is thirsty, thirsty to be seen, thirsty to be in a community that will accept her, thirsty to understand her purpose and worth, thirsty to know God.  And as all of this rises to the surface, in this one conversation, she runs from Jesus and goes back to the community that does not accept her and proclaims:   ²⁹ “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah,^[e] can he?”

As we journey through this season of Lent, things are not unfolding the way I had planned for them to unfold.  But that is okay, the Holy Spirit is still with us and is still at work and is still guiding us.  We may feel for the next few weeks that we are in the wilderness.  The wilderness that I had wanted to use as the place where seeds and eggs are in the right environment to hatch or germinate.  And then, as the season of wilderness ends, and a new season begins, as the caterpillar hatches or the seed germinates, there is a hunger, and there is amazing growth.  When these caterpillars arrived on Monday, they were tiny.  In just one week, they have more then quadrupled in size.  The only way for them to grow like this is to eat.  This is the season to spiritually eat, or spiritually drink.  As the woman at the well breaks out of her shell, out of the bonds of the labels that have held her captive within her community, as her wilderness comes to an end, she thirsts.  She and the caterpillar are wired the same way.  Shed the egg, the shell, the hardness that holds us back, and drink in God’s love for us.   Chew on the word of God, find ways for your spiritual hunger to be fed.  We are called to growth, no matter what age we are, God has given us the living water.  If you thirst, if you hunger, that means the Holy Spirit is with you, is nudging you, is calling you into a new season of faith.  Just like the caterpillar cannot ever become an egg again, we too can only go forward.  And God provides the food and drink that we need to engage this season of life. 

In the wilderness of the next few weeks, stay hydrated.  We may not be able to meet together as a people in one place, but we can make phone calls to each other, we can email, send letters, pray, and spend time reading scripture and even engage in various spiritual practices.  I will do my best to send ideas out to you.  Amen. 

When did we see you Naked?

When did I see you Naked?

               This past summer, on our mission staycation, we looked at When did we see You naked, as those who are most vulnerable.  Who are those that need shelter?  And another resource I just found interprets the naked as those in poverty.  But as we look at this specific topic, we can think about the various agencies that are indeed, clothing people.  This past week on the moms of morris facebook page, there was a post that one of the local colleges is starting a clothing closet for professional clothing.  So, when college students, who are usually financially strained, have interviews, they can come to the clothing closet for interview clothing.  How we present ourselves, at least for interviews, can impact whether or not we are chosen for a job.  There are several other agencies out there with the same vision.  Dress for Success is probably the best known and I know my local YMCA collected for them last year.  When did we see you naked?  Well, we might not actually see people naked, but perhaps we can see the challenges people face when trying to take the next step to employment and can assist with an outfit that looks professional. 

            There are also numerous churches and agencies that provide clothing to people.  When I first started here, I thought Roxbury Social Services just provide food through their food pantry.  I had no idea they had clothes as well.  Our deacons were purchasing new sweatshirts for the clients of Faith Kitchen.  In Dover, there is a program out the Episcopal church called North Porch and they focus on providing diapers and baby clothing.  And Market Street Mission is one of the few places that really focuses on men’s clothing.  As the men graduate from their program, they will need professional clothing as well. 

But when did we see you naked can also include blankets.  This past summer, we started to make fleece blankets for the men at Market Street mission.  When they come in off the street, they often have just a few items and a fresh and clean blanket is a real gift.  Because the program can only handle so many men at a time, the first step in getting into the program involves sleeping on the floor in the main room.  A blanket can really help make sleep just a little more comfortable.  And what about bathing items, collecting soap and shampoo, razors, deodorant, toothbrushes and tooth paste, and towels.  There is always a need. 

And what about laundry?  There is a ministry called:  Laundry Love where congregations will actually sponsor an evening at a local laundry mat and pay for the clients to have their clothes cleaned.  And the last time I was at Triennium, I met a pastor with a ministry called:  Sacred Spark, that works directly with the homeless and one of their ministries is laundry.  She has the children’s programs all throughout the region collecting quarters so that they can do the laundry for those living in the homeless camps.  As much as we might complain about doing laundry, having clean clothes is important.  And maybe you are like me, I love the smell of fresh sheets on my bed.   I can’t imagine never having the ability to put fresh sheets on my bed. 

            So, what does responding to those who are lacking in sufficient clothing have to do with being the salt of the earth and letting our light shine?  Well, I see it saying two things.  The first is that when we let our light shine, or when we are the salt of the earth, we respond to the needs of others.  We listen and hear what is lacking or what will be most beneficial for someone to be self sufficient and we respond.  But I also see it as for the other.  God wants everyone’s light to shine.  It can be hard to shine with your full potential if you cannot afford clothes for a job interview.   When I started my first pastoral position in Charlotte, I invested in two good outfits for Sundays, but I could not afford to have designer clothes for the rest of the week.  I did what I could, but another pastor would comment on my clothes.  What do you think that did to the light within me that was trying to shine?    

            One of my favorite stories is of a young woman I got to know in Dover.  She would always wear oversized sweatshirts and would often pull the hood up over her head.  She started attending the church and after several months, her self confidence began to grow.  A few people paid attention to her.  One family let her come over and do laundry.  She began to shine.  She started to wear other types of clothes and no longer hid behind a hood.  You don’t put a light under a basket.  She might have been homeless, living on the fringes, but she is still a child of God with a light worthy of shining.  There are so many positive stories other there, from Dress to Success to Market Street Mission of people being able to take the next step in being self sufficient due to the generosity of others.   

When did we see you Thirsty?

John 1:29-42

Congregational Vitality

            Over the next six weeks we will spend time on what it means to be a Matthew 25 congregation.  Our session voted to join the denomination on this movement last spring and our summer mission adventure last summer focused on the passage as we examined what it means when we ask the questions:  When did we see you hungry, or thirsty, when did we see you a stranger or naked, when did we see you in prison or sick?  These six areas are very clear ways to be in ministry, to care for others.  But what is not so clear are the three areas that the denomination has broken this movement into:  Congregational vitality, eradicating structural racism, and systemic poverty. 

            Today, we are going to focus on congregational vitality.  I think this is something that is near and dear to all of our hearts.  We truly want this congregation to be vital.  So, directly from the Matthew 25 website I share this:  You might think that the vitality of a congregation or worshiping community is based on the number of members, the scope of programs, the size of financial gifts or some other statistics.

Not so — at least not entirely.

Rather, a community’s vitality is primarily its spiritual strength and its capacity for purposeful mission. Congregational vitality is evident in a worshiping community when its structural systems, finances and discipleship practices are aligned in such a way that the community is actively engaged in the mission of God in their local community and the world, and they are powerfully focused on growing as disciples in the way of Jesus Christ. Faith comes alive when we boldly engage God’s mission and share the hope we have in Christ.

            And so we need to ask ourselves:  are we spiritually exhausted, financially fragile and structurally unsound?  And if we are, what can we do about it?  The first, spiritually exhausted needs to be held in distinction from just being exhausted.  I think as a society, we are exhausted.  But sometime, out of doing ministry and feeling exhausted by it, we are actually spiritually renewed.  So, we need to pay very clear attention to what energizes us and what really causes us deep exhaustion.  Does Olde Suckasunny Day zap our energy and our spiritual strength?  Or do we engage in the day feeling a greater connection to our community and energized by our fundraising and efforts to be a visible presence in our neighborhood?  Mission trips are always good examples of being physically exhausted but spiritual energized.  So, as we move forward this year, the question we need to ask ourselves before engaging in any sort of activity, ministry, or event is – how will this impact us spiritually? 

            Are we financially fragile?  Yes, and no.  We are learning to do ministry within our means and are blessed by a yearly bequest as well as other legacy gifts to the church.  Could we be more financially sound?  Absolutely, and we have been praying about the ways in which to share our building with the greater community.  Are we structurally sound?  Yes.  We have a strong leadership within the church, we have committees and ministry teams that function, and our building itself is in good shape.  Is there more that can be done, absolutely.  But when we put our minds to something, it really seems to happen.

I want us to hold this statement:  vitality connects to purposeful mission.   And I want us to remember that Jesus started his ministry with just a few people and probably very little money.  Last week was Baptism of the Lord Sunday when Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist.  Today’s passage occurs the very next day.  John is spending time with his disciples and Jesus is still in the area.  They see him walk by and John describes him by calling him “the Lamb of God”.  It seems as if John’s description is enough to get his disciples’ attention and the two of them go towards Jesus.  Jesus senses that they are following him and he engages them by asking:  What are you looking for?  Seems to me to be a rather strange way to start a conversation.  There are no introductions or basic greetings, but a straight forward question.  And they don’t answer him, but rather, they give him a title:  Rabbi, and ask him a question:  Where are you staying?  And his response:  Come, and see.  So they do and they stay visiting for him for the day. 

One of these two men was named Andrew and Andrew has a brother known as Simon Peter or Peter.  After his day spent with Jesus, Andrew leaves and goes to find his brother Simon Peter and tells him:  We have found the Messiah.  And not only does he tell him who he believes Jesus is, he brings his brother to meet Jesus.  Vitality connects to purposeful mission.  Andrew believes there is something purposeful with Jesus and he wants his brother to be included. 

As we think about congregational vitality, I want us to also think of the word thirst.  When did we see you thirsty?  We could focus on the numerous places around the world and even right here in New Jersey where people do not have clean drinking water.  But for congregational vitality, I want us to focus on spiritual thirst.  From the Beatitudes: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  And from the Psalm we heard read today:  As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.² My soul thirsts for God,  for the living God. 

According to the Matthew 25 information on Congregational vitality, there are seven marks, seven ways to determine if your congregation is vital, or it can be seen as seven ways to move the congregation towards vitality. 

Congregational vitality grows out of discipleship, and to be a disciple of

something you should thirst for it, long for it, desire it.  The Psalmist writes: my soul thirsts for God.  And Andrew, a fisherman, a man who spent his days upon the water, thirsted for something more.  First, he is with John the Baptist, learning from him, then he gravitates towards Jesus, thirsting even more, finding in him the place he desired to invest himself, and not only himself, but his brother as well.  The second mark of congregational vitality is evangelism, which is what Andrew does as he goes and finds his brother proclaiming to him:  We have found the Messiah. 

            This passage concludes with yet one more mark of congregational vitality:  Empowering every member to discover their individual calling and the gifts God has given them so they can go forth and serve.   When Simon Peter arrives, Jesus gives him a new name.  You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter^[l]), and it also means rock.  The future church will be built very literally, on the rock of Peter.  So, just in this one passage we have three marks of a vital congregation: Discipleship, evangelism, and empowerment.  And that congregational vitality is based on purposeful mission.  These first disciples of Jesus are a part of a mission, to share that Jesus is the Messiah, that God’s promised has been fulfilled. 

Baptism of the Lord - Sermon

A New Thing

                This past Halloween, I learned that there are some new names out there for our youth to gravitate towards or away from.   Andi would not tell me what she was dressing up as for Halloween.  So, when the night arrived, and she was dressed in her pretty normal clothes, all accept for her hair, which she had done up with lots of extra barrettes, I had to ask her, “Please, explain.”  She responded:  I’m a soft girl.  And that was as much information as she would give me.  So, luckily for me, I know two middle school young ladies here at the church and they became my inside source.  So, when I asked Kylie and Kendra about Soft Girls, they burst out laughing and filled me in with the scoop.  Except, they gave me even more information.  There is apparently another type of girl called a VISCO girl.  A VISCO girl uses a hydro flask water bottle.  She is all about saving the turtles, and wears hair scrunchies.  Oh my.  The best I could make of this was the Valley Girl movement back when I was in middle school.  So, I googled it and learned a bit more.  And then for Christmas, Andi went full VISCO on me by asking her grandparents for the hydro flask and other VISCO girl accessories. 

So, what does this all mean?  Identity.  It means identity.  And I was concerned that it could mean creating labels about people in order to poke fun at them, belittle them, or even dress up like them for Halloween.  Identity and labels are all around us.  Some of them are good and some of them can be damaging, humiliating, and demeaning.  I just spent the last two days at two separate events addressing the negative consequences of identity and labeling others when it takes the form of Anti-Semitism, or racism.  At least twice in my own life, I have been given derogatory names.  To think, someone had to do that.  To say or in one case write out words aimed at deeply offending and hurting.  And for some, this is a life long attack.  To see symbols of anti Semitism in one community, impacts the greater Jewish community.  Over and over and over again.  The pain is real, and it is raw, it is part of an atrocious history and to think, that someone has to make a choice to behave in such a way as to dehumanize or degrade another.  And the same holds true with racist comments, jokes, and statements. 

One of the commentaries I read shared that we are living in a day and age where our labels are dividing us more and more.  We are using labels to point fingers at each other, generalizing people into larger categories even if they don’t belong there.  Unfortunately, that has also happened with the word Christian and Church – too many people have lumped us all into one label and pointed a finger calling us hypocrites and intolerant of others. 

As we think about who we are as people gathered here in worship, it is really not about who we are, but about whose we are.  And this Sunday, the Baptism of the Lord Sunday, reminds us who Jesus is, his identity, that he is the Beloved.  And when we are baptized, we are named as children of God, children of the covenant, that is our label, beloved by God.  We are created by God, named by God, and loved by God.  Even when the world deals us the worst day of our lives, we belong to God.  And that should be what unites us.  We are diverse in so many ways, but what brings us together, what gives us our strength as the body of Christ in this place is that we are children of God, it is not our political views or our stand on issues, or how we dress, or our sexual orientation or our age.  And yet, we can use these things to pull ourselves apart from each other. 

Together, in baptism, God calls us, to work together, to pray together, to worship together, and to remember we are God’s children.  Here in this place, we are to set aside any and all labels that can divide, and put our energy, and our love towards serving God and one another.  And we are to work towards the healing of the impact of anti-Semitism and Racism both in our local community and the greater world. 

Has your name as child of God been meaningful in your own life journey?  Has it given you the strength you might need to get through rough times?  Has it been a positive reminder that you belong to God and that there is nothing that can separate you from the love of God?  If you have never thought about the full impact of your baptism on your daily journey, take time to think about it.   

And what about the identity of our church?  We have tried to name our identity through our mission statement. Last year we created two areas of focus that would enhance our identity – that we would grow in our fellowship with each other and our mission in the world.  This year, we are, in a way, focusing on baptism.  We believe baptism is an important part of our faith, and we are going to intentionally reach out to those families that have had their children baptized here within the past five to eight years if not further back. 

Baptism marks the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, it is part of the new thing God is doing.  We believe God can do a new thing in our lives and in the life of this church and so we go back to the beginning, to the story of baptism and we engage it, we engage it for our own story and we go and invite others to remember their baptism and seek to provide the spiritual nurture for those seeds that have been planted.  Let’s engage this new year and new decade with a newness of God’s love and the full understanding that we are children of God and nothing can separate us from God’s love.  Amen. 

Advent week #1

Prepare Him Room

            This year, is the three hundredth anniversary of the much-loved Christmas Carol:  Joy to the World.  Each Sunday of Advent, we will explore a verse of the song.  Isaac Watts wrote Joy to the World, not as a hymn but as a poem based on Psalm 98.  The first verse is this:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!  Let earth receive her King;  Let every heart prepare him room,  And heaven and nature sing.

The song begins with the good news:  the Lord is come!  Jesus has been born.  The hope of God’s people has become a reality.  Emmanuel is with us.  This is our joy, this is what we celebrate, God has given us his promise.   

But the next phrase is not so complete, difinitive, or absolute, it moves us from the good news, the joy of what has happened in the past into the present, into this very moment with our own decision to respond.  God has acted, joy has been sent, now it is time to respond, now let earth receive her king and now let every heart prepare him room.  This is a repetitive act for each generation, the earth received the Christ child 2,000 years ago, will it receive him again?  Hearts of million of people over the past two thousand years have prepared him room, will we also be open to the coming of Christ into our lives? 

As we light the first candle of Advent, it is the cande of Hope.  The hope presented in this carol is that each heart will prepare him room which will lead to yet another hope, a hope for the future for when the world receives her King, when our hearts prepare him room, something amazing will happen, heaven and nature will sing.  The sacred will connect with the mundane, the inbreaking of heaven will be felt, heard, announced in this world and in our lives.  Truly, that is joy.  Joy, the understanding that God’s promise was not for one moment of history but is on-going for each generation, for each of us to believe.  Hope manifests itself as past, present and future.  And the future is a day and age when heaven and nature will sing, sing together in harmony, in joy, in praise of what God has done and is doing in the world.  This hope of the future extends itself all the way back to the prophet Isaiah. 

As the prophet Isaiah wrote:  The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus ² it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.  Nature will sing when the day comes when:  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

So hopefully if we are here today, we are working on ways in our own faith journey to prepare space in our hearts for God.  Advent reminds us, that even if we have been a part of the church our entire lives, this is the season to slow down, the season to reflect and ponder and find ways to grow spiritually as we seek to create space for Emmanuel to dwell within us.  Sometimes this is just something that seems so natural, other times it can be a real challenge. 

Just look at the passage from the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph struggled with what it meant to prepare room in his heart for this child that was to be born.  In fact, we are told when he heard Mary was with child, he wanted to dismiss her quietly.  In doing so, he would not just be dismissing Mary, but dismissing the child within her.  Without even knowing what he was doing, he could have just sent her away, sent the child away, and missed out on being a part of God’s story.  Thankfully for Joseph, an Angel appeared to him in a dream and explained to him that God was at work, that this child is Emmanuel, God with us.  Thankfully Joseph had enough faith, enough understanding, enough openness to the work of God in the world around him that he believed the message in his dream. 

Prepare him room, prepare space in your own life even if it comes with consequences.  Joseph did not want to expose Mary to public disgrace, or was he saving himself from public disgrace?  If Mary was dismissed quietly she would still have to find a place to go, a family member, someone that would take her in and there would still be public disgrace.  Definitely a double standard going on here. 

Are there consequences in our lives today for preparing space in our hearts for Jesus?  Do people question what we believe or why we attend church?  Do we want to quietly dismiss Mary and send this whole thing away?  Or do we hunger for the meaning behind it all?  The sacred joy that God sends into this world that is there for us to embrace. 

As we seek to prepare room in our hearts we return to this concept of hope.  What does hope mean to you?  I spent a lot time this past week pondering the word hope and I decided that it has a different meaning for each and everyone of us.  We all have different things that we are longing for, that we are waiting for, that we would like to see actualized but are not sure if it will come into being.  We may hope for something specific to ourselves such as a job, or family, or health, or we may hope for something for the greater world such as the end of hunger, homelessness, or war.  We may hope for the day when the desert will bloom like in Isaiah.  In our culture, hope manifests itself as the desire for good to overcome evil.  Hope can be seen as transforming places of despair into places of healing and wholeness.  Prosperity, thriving, fullness, completeness.  Hope is the desire that things can be better.  Hope is what brings meaning and purpose into life. 

Throughout the Thanksgiving and Christmas Season people seek to be generous and for people of faith, this is one way in which we prepare our hearts for the Christ Child.  Today, we hope to bring a little bit of joy to a child through the Toy March.  Roxbury social services seeks to bring a little bit of hope to families through the Thanksgiving food drive.  Habitat for humanity brings hope and joy to families when they receive not just a place to live but a home. 

The good news is:  Joy and hope break into our world on a daily basis when people open their hearts to the needs of others, when people seek to live a life of generosity and compassion, when people open their hearts to the calling of God.  These are all places that we can participate within creating not just good deeds or kind acts but sacred moments.  When the people of God act in the world with Christ in their hearts it is truly sacred work that is being done, and in those moments, heaven and nature sing.  Amen. 

Sermon: Mercy Luke 18

            When I hear the word, Mercy, it seems to take me back to when I was a kid and arm wrestling.  As we arm wrestled, we would try and twist and turn until the other person would yell out Mercy, or sometimes it was: Uncle.  Which ever word we used, the object of the game was, basically, to cause enough pain to the other person that they had to admit defeat, surrender, or give up so that you would stop hurting them.  I don’t think I ever volunteered to play this game, I think it fell into the whole sibling rivalry thing, but I do remember always being the one that had to cry out – Mercy. 

            Mercy: is it a word of defeat?  Is it a word of surrender?  Is it a word of giving up, allowing the other to be the winner?  Yes and No.  In the childhood game of arm wrestling, to call out mercy is to say, I give up, but it is also to say, you win and please stop hurting me.  Please stop doing what you are doing.  Please stop having power over me.  Please stop being the dominate one.  From Wikipedia, the definition is:  compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.  So in arm wrestling, the stronger person is in a position of power over the other and can cause harm, but is willing to have compassion on the other when he/she admits defeat. 

            So, when we think of the word, there are at least two opposing sides: one has power and the other does not.  One can punish or cause harm, the other will receive the punishment or harm.  Mercy can be asked for by the weaker or it can be given by the stronger.  Please have mercy upon me, or with compassion he had mercy on the other. 

            Parents have to pick and choose when to punish children and when it is a time to show mercy.  There does need to be consequences for behaviors and punishment can help teach a child how to make better choices in the future.  If we lean on the side of mercy all the time, our children might learn that they can always get away with bad behavior and then we will really have our hands full as they get older.  Reading through the variety of definitions for mercy, it does involve taking a lenient form of punishment rather than a harsher form of punishment. 

            What does mercy mean to you?  Often, in church, we seem to use mercy, grace, forgiveness, and compassion as synonyms.  I will often begin a prayer especially the prayer of confession with Merciful God.  Merciful God:  in these two words, we are naming God as having power over us and we are asking for compassionate treatment or forgiveness over us.  Another definition I saw mentions not just having power over the other but being in the position of care over the other.  When we think of God and mercy, we could be saying that God has power over us, but we could also be saying, God, we are under your care. 

            So, turning to our scripture passage today, I was originally going to focus on the ways in which we can pray since this is a parable of two people praying.  But the question formed for me – what is the tax collector praying for?  He is asking for one thing.  His prayer is calling out to God asking for mercy, asking the one that has power and care over him to be compassionate and forgiving with him. 

            This past Monday night, one of our small groups met and the discussion question was:  What do you long for in your life, what do you long God will do for you in your life?  Have there been things that you long for?  Things that you have turned to God in prayer and asked for?  We can long for marriage, or children, or grandchildren, or getting into our top choice college, or getting a job, we can long for getting the lead role in the play, or our sports team to win the top level of play, or making the Olympics.  Oh, I longed for this for so many years of my life.  We can long for things, goals, achievements, relationships, healing, and we can pray to God to make these things a reality. 

            In this parable there are two people praying, but only one is naming something that he longs for in his life, he longs for God to show him mercy.  The other man is praying, but he seems to long for nothing.  He names all of his accomplishments, all the things he has done right, he is good at following the rules, but there is an absence of longing, an absence of asking God to do something in his life.  This absence is magnified when he points out the faults found in others and is grateful that he is not like them. 

            What do you long for God to do in your life?  Do you long for God’s mercy?  Do you long to be shown compassion and forgiveness by God?  Do you think of yourself as someone needing forgiveness?  The tax collector was in deep pain, he felt wounded at the very core of his being, and he cried out to God for help, for healing and wholeness.  What burden do we carry? Perhaps it is shame, or guilt, or a form of addiction, or greed.  Perhaps we have a short temper or find ourselves closed minded or unable to adapt to the changing world.  Could these be places that cause spiritual pain within our beings?  Could these be issues or concerns that we could turn to God in prayer, seeking guidance, help, comfort, seeking healing and wholeness, could we ask God to continue to shape us into the people that we know we can be? 

The tax collector did not feel fulfilled.  He had a great job but something was not complete and so he turned to God, naming what he felt he needed spiritually, he needed God’s mercy.  He needed God’s care over him.  He was acknowledging that he was a child of God and as God’s child, he needed the parent, the creator, the mentor, the one that had power over him, to be involved in his life.  There is a song called:  Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.  As I worked through this text, this song come to mind over and over.  Humbly thyself in the sight of the Lord, and he, and he, will lift you up, higher and higher, and he and he will lift you up.   

sermon: Chopped

Our final game show this summer is on the Food Network and is called Chopped.  I thought something food related would be fun on this Labor Day weekend.  This show pits four chefs against each other as they compete for a chance to win $10,000.  At the beginning of each round, the chefs are each given a basket containing four mystery ingredients and are expected to create dishes that use all of them in some way.  For example:  the Appetizer ingredients consisted of watermelon, canned sardines, pepper jack cheese, and zucchini. The chefs are given unlimited access to a pantry and refrigerator stocked with a wide variety of other ingredients, and each chef has his/her own stations for preparing and cooking food. Each round has a time limit, typically 20 minutes for Appetizer, and 30 minutes each for Entrée and Dessert.  At the end of each round, the judges have sampled the dishes and decide which chef will be chopped.  They reveal the loosing dish by having it under a serving dish and lifting up the cover. 

            I do have to remind myself that these are chefs, when I watch the show.  To watch them just come up with an idea as to what to do with these ingredients and just run with it, no recipe, I find myself rather amazed.  Watermelon and Zucchini are definitely in season right now, and most people will probably have a watermelon or two at their Labor Day picnics, but to add cheese and some sardines into the mix – what would your family and friends say? 

            Baskets of food, this is how our worship service started today with the call to worship.  As the Israelites make their way through the wilderness they will one day arrive to a new land.  And when they do, they are gather a basket of the first fruits of the land, their first harvest, and they are to bring their baskets to the priest, and they are to remember their past and give thanks to their God for bringing them to this new land.  Baskets of food, perhaps food that is completely new and different to them.  Many of them only know the manna and the quail of the wilderness.  What are these mystery ingredients, these new foods that they will learn to love?  They will collect grapes, figs, dates, and olives.  On this first harvest, they might just have the most basic of ingredients. 

            But before they get to this new land, their baskets are pretty much bare.  Each morning they have manna to collect and eat and each evening they have quail to eat.  The people complain against Moses, they are ready to have him chopped, as they remember the good foods they had back in Egypt.  They are struggling with an important question:  is it better to be oppressed but still have food to eat, or is it better to be a free people with a very limited diet?  If I could only eat two food items for the rest of my life, I know my body would crave foods of my past.  And although their baskets are never empty, the monotony of the food feels like scarcity. 

            But then, we have this other story.  One with a basket of just a few items, a couple loaves of bread and a few fish.  Ingredients very similar to manna and quail, and yet there are no complaints this day.  This day those very limited ingredients multiply and feed the thousands.  What seems like scarcity is transformed into abundance.  Whereas the people wanted to chop Moses, Jesus moves on to the next round.  Interesting how similar ingredients can be received so differently depending on who the judges are. 

            God gives us all our own baskets, filled with a variety of fruits, fruits of the Spirit.  Sometimes we look at our basket and wonder how to use some of those fruits.  There are definitely a handful that are familiar, easy to incorporate into our lives, But there are times when we almost have to force ourselves to embrace them.  Just like forcing ourselves to use sardines with watermelon.  And there are times when we know we just didn’t manage to be our best self.  But the thing is, even when the chefs are chopped, they are still chefs, they gave that situation their best effort, they took risks, and they hopefully learned something new.  We too, are like those chefs, there are going to be moments when we feel as if we have been chopped, but we are still children of God, learning, growing, taking risks, and always given the opportunity to be renewed in God’s love. 

So, as we take the simple basket we have before us today of bread and juice, God is able to transform these ingredients into a holy meal of grace, forgiveness, renewal, spiritual sustenance, and love.  The contestants on chopped know who the judges are, they know to whom they are preparing the meal.  To often we forget who the judges are, we allow the world around us to be our judge instead of realizing the only judge we have before us is God.  Just as a chef prepares a meal for the tastes of the judge, we too should be preparing the meal of our life, they way in which we live, for our loving and grace filled Creator. 

,  love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.