-Palms, Pilate and Protest By The Prince of Peace
By Administrator | March 16, 2008
Palms, Pilate and Protest by the Prince of Peace
a Palm Sunday Sermon
March 16, 2008, at Palm Bay, Fl
by Rev. Scott Elliott
Those of you who are able are invited to raise your hands and move them about your head. Put them down. Now you can all claim you waived “palms” on Palm Sunday!
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner makes the claim that “religion without humor is blasphemy.” 1
I don’t think the good rabbi was referring to preachers making fools out of themselves by tripping on the way up to the pulpit, tripping over scripture, or tripping over goofy theologies.
What I think he meant was that God is in all of life and shines most particularly in the good and the joyful and if we stifle humor in our religion we do a great disservice to God and ourselves. Humor is a good and Godly gift. And to deny it is to deny a part of God’s creation.
Those of you who have been here before have probably figured out by now that I love humor. I look for it everywhere and embrace it whenever I can.
I even used to read the Bible and privately laugh at many of the stories. Stories that I think were meant to be funny.
I did this in private for years out of fear we were not supposed to guffaw while contemplating the Sacred stories of our faith. But in seminary I decided to come out of that comedic canonical closet. Mainly because in seminary I kept seeing more and more humor in the Bible and I began to wonder about a theology of humor.
“Theology” is the study of “divine things or religious truth.” Humor is a “comic [or] absurd situation causing amusement.” 2 So, if you will, a theology of humor amounts to the study of divine things or religious truth in comic and absurd situations.
Frankly as a whole at church we don’t often consider the Bible as full of both religious truths and humor. But it is. Our cultural ethos of piety seems to keep us from seeing or acknowledging it. We tend to check our sense of humor at the church door.
Oh, we laugh at little jokes, but usually we stick with serious views of the Bible. By doing so we miss out on some fun stuff in the Bible. And if God did not put it in there for us to use, what’s it doing there?
Think about it, humans in the bible are often involved in the comic or the absurd. From David donning an over sized suit of armor (1 Sam 17:38) to Balaam’s arguing with a talking donkey (Num 22:28) to Jesus asking how we can see a speck in our neighbor’s eye when we have a log in our own (Matt 7:4), the absurd and the comedic are an integral part of the Bible.
God uses humor to teach. Jesus also used humor to protest and preach.
We can see ourselves in much of humor’s caricatures and we more easily learn from seeing how silly we are, than direct criticism.
But it is more than just teaching, laughter is good for us and apparently for God. Psalm 2:4 states that the God who “sits in the heavens will laugh.” As images of God we also laugh. It is a gift from God, as Job 8:21 notes “God fills our mouth with laughter.” 3
Indeed there is much power in humor. Science has long reported that laughter is healthy. Friends, families and life-long mates share humor together. And so do communities. It helps in our bonding, relieves stress and allows us to share in common a good laugh. I think God laughs with us, and Jesus too as we gather two or more in his name.
But humor does more than make us feel good and teach. Humor can be subversive, if it is used to point out the absurdity of oppressor’s positions, to make the oppressors less than the lofty gods of power they or we might imagine that they are and to give us new vision to alter standards of what is truly powerful.
We know that God acts in ways that are subversive. 4 From the Exodus to the Cross God subverts the status quo, and calls us to do so as well.
God often uses humor to subvert the status quo in the Bible.
Mighty Pharaoh adopts and raises a poor Hebrew child who ends up as Moses the leader of liberation and law.
Mighty Herod is driven nuts in his unsuccessful hunt for a poor little baby born to be a king in a stinking stable.
The rich we envy have about as good a chance of getting to heaven as we have of, oh say, now really picture this, stuffing a camel through the eye of a needle.
The kingdom of heaven is a mustard seed, not a golden palaces on high. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast spreading in flour, not having more wealth than others.
Or imagine this, a bad Hell’s Angels-like Samaritan can be a better neighbor than religious leaders. The story of The Good Samaritan is more than just humorous it calls us to see the world differently. Those we think of as enemies are not only as human as us, but capable of being God’s agent for good.
Putting it in today’s context: a story titled something like “The Good Hell’s Angel,” has got humor to it.
If you have ever seen the Musical Godspell you have experienced a good deal of humor straight from the gospel. Properly done the first act of that show is virtually one punch line after another from the Bible, and if properly done it is also very Love centered and spiritual, as well as scriptural.
If we ignore our culture’s piety it really does not take much to see the humor in Jesus’ stories. For example, in Godspell the story of Lazarus and the rich man plays out just like it can when we read it, with the selfish non-neighbor loving rich guy haughty as all get out before death, and then in death just as haughty, only more foolishly so. Through Jesus’ humor we see that rich man’s selfish conduct is foolish not only in Hades, but in life as well.
And that brings me to today’s reading. I have to give you some background to understand why the Palm Sunday story is not just poignant, and powerful, but, also funny.
It’s the start of Passover week. Everyone who is anybody is arriving in Jerusalem for the celebration. Not just devout celebrants, mind you but rabble rousers and rebels. Not just Jews, but, Roman legions.
Pilate, the Roman governor of Palestine arrives from Caesarea on the Sea (his year round home). He arrives to oversee the added troops and volatile multitudes which gather for Passover.
Pilate’s procession into Jerusalem was no doubt in a stately fashion, mounted on a well groomed horse leading an entourage of spiffed up legions with all the pomp and circumstance and shiny gleaming metal befit a man of worldly power and wealth.
Pilate comes into Jerusalem from the west in an imperial pageantry representing not just imperial power, but, imperial theology. Emperor Augustus was understood to be the Son of God. His father was Apollo and he was conceived by an earthly mother.
Augustus’ successor who reigned during Jesus’s final days was Tiberius who bore the same divine titles as Augustus, so Pilate embodied not only the power of Rome in the worldly reality of the very-few-wealthy-oppress-the-rest social order, but also a rival theology to Judaism, and rival idol gods to Yahweh. 5.
Pilate’s entry to Jerusalem is met – is countered by– Jesus’s supremely ironic and symbolic entry as the representative of a reign in conflict with Rome: the Reign of God. God v. Human Power. Peace v. War. Non-violence v. Violence. Christ v. Caesar. It is met in every way with opposite visual splendors by Jesus and a multitude of adoring followers.
How does Jesus come marching in? Matthew says the disciples”brought [him] the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them!” Lot’s of folks see the description of Jesus riding two animals at once as an oversight or lack of care by Matthew.
Me, well, I am like Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins, I love to laugh and it seems to me a fair read that Matthew is bright enough to get the absurdity of the visual image his words paint. Jesus humbly seated simultaneously somehow astride both a donkey and a colt.
It’s like a circus clown parody, a first century Saturday Night Live lampoon. And it is anything but a pompous promenade in a parade like Pilate’s prancing in on an over-preened pony.
This is an image of Jesus having fun with the over-the-top opulence of the pomp and circumstance of Pilate, by being over the top in his own way, an OPPOSITE WAY to Caesar’s show of authority.
John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg in the book The Last Week suggest that Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem was a staged a political demonstration. What could have been demonstrated?
How about the one that God has chosen as Son of God, the one to reign as Lord is not the one of worldly ways of military might and oppressive wealth. Or that God’s chosen human leader is way, way different than the men who lead Rome.
Jesus comes to people full of fun and life and care. He comes to people who lay before him the very coats off their backs and natural limbs – palms fronds– from God’s creation, a first century Palestine red carpet, if you will .We are told as Jesus entered the city
Jesus on his humble and humourous ride into Jerusalem is understood to be one who can save.
Jesus’s Way of love and non-violence and inclusivity is radically in opposition to Pilate’s show of crushing human power and opulence, Jesus’s extremely different way is understood as the way of salvation.Jesus on his humble and humourous ride into Jerusalem is understood to be one who can save.
Jesus’s Way of love and non-violence and inclusivity is radically in opposition to Pilate’s show of crushing human power and opulence, Jesus’s extremely different way is understood as the way of salvation.
On that first Palm Sunday there was a choice, the same choice we have today. The way of unjust imperial violence offered by the Pilates of the world who dominate by exclusivity, elitism and force; or the radical way of God’s inclusivity who reigns through non-violent justice and love. 7.
Jesus on his humble and humourous ride into Jerusalem is understood to be one who can save.
Jesus’s Way of love and non-violence and inclusivity is radically in opposition to Pilate’s show of crushing human power and opulence, Jesus’s extremely different way is understood as the way of salvation.
On that first Palm Sunday there was a choice, the same choice we have today. The way of unjust imperial violence offered by the Pilates of the world who dominate by exclusivity, elitism and force; or the radical way of God’s inclusivity who reigns through non-violent justice and love.
Jesus can be understood to have made a seriously funny entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, so funny we can smile at it still, so serious it caused the oppressed multitude to yell out “Hosanna!” O SAVE NOW.
Jesus’s joke made his point. Choose Caesar or choose God.
Those yelling “Hosanna” made the joyful sound of choosing God.
We can choose too, to yell out Hosanna!
In fact lets do it. Hold your palms up and wave them! Now on three shout “Hosanna!” 1….2….3 HOSANNA !!!!
AMEN.
–End Notes–1. Kushner, Harold, I recall Rabbi Lawrence Kushner stating this during an interview in Corvallis, Oregon at the “God at 2000″ conference in the winter of 2000.
2. Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (2001),”theology” and ’humor.”
3. I got the ideas and the cites and/or quotes in this paragraph from Lee van Rensburg’s book The Sense of Humor in Scripture, Theology and Worship, (Lima, Ohio:Fairway Press, 1991) 21, 33-34.
4. I got this idea primarily from Yehuda Raddy and Athalya Bremmer’s book On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible, (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1990), 100.
5. Borg, Marcus, Crossan, Dominic John, The Last Week, (HarperCollins, 2006 ). This book’s chapter on Palm Sunday, (along with Matthew 21:1-11) is the source of the descriptions in this sermon of the parade at either end of Jerusalem. This book gave me the insight and inspiration for a sermon that compared the two contrasting parades and the protest angle to Jesus’s ride. This made me think of Rabbi Kushner’s quote about religion and humor and basically the whole idea that Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus’s cleverly ironic and humorous entry into Jerusalem.
6. Westminister Dictionary of Theological terms “Hosanna.”
7. The Last Week, 215-216
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A Vision That Breathes Life Into Dry Bones
By Administrator | March 9, 2008
A Vision That Breathes Life Into Dry Bones
A sermon based on Ezekiel 37:1-14
March 9, 2008 at Palm Bay, Florida
by Rev. Scott Elliott
Ezekiel’s strange vision of a valley full of bones. . .
Ezekiel is pretty intense in the story, but, the skeletons are calm because nothing can get under their skin.
They don’t speak because, well, they had no body to speak with.
And they could not get up because they lacked the guts to do so.
The bones can’t get up, not because they are lazy bones – to flesh the story out– they can’t get up because they represent Israel in exile where truly only a skeleton of the once powerful community remained.
Babylon conquered Israel in 586 B.C. and took its culture’s elite into captivity for nearly 50 years.
In the valley of captivity the hopes of the captured were dashed and dried up; they thought they’d never get home. They thought Israel was lost forever.
The scattered bones of the nation in a foreign land were all that seemed to remain. There was not meat, nor muscle. No sinews or skin. No guts. The people of Israel felt that they had no body of a community left.
Ezekiel knows this. God shows him a valley filled with the symbolic bones of the once proud leaders and elite of the nation of Israel and God asks “Mortal can these bones live?
And Ezekiel is smart. He does not say the obvious “No way those dried up old things will live.”He does not even hem or haw or take a wild guess. He defers to God when facing the impossible. He responds “O Lord God, you know.”
And what God alone knows is remarkable. The answer God gives is incredible. It is in essence: “Yes the bones can live. Yes newness is possible”1
It defies logic, it is virtually inconceivable, but God claims that those literally hopeless, dried up bones in that valley of despair will live.
In fact God promises their spirit will be reanimated – that they will live– through God’s actions that reverse the ordinary order of decay. God promises to the bones to cause sinews to appear, to cause flesh to appear, to cause skin to appear and to cause breath that will bring them to life.
This is not the story of the creation of human kind in the Garden of Eden that we discussed a few weeks back where God directly breathes life into Adam and eventually Adam leaves Eden to toil the earth.
I mentioned in that sermon that the name “Adam” was a play on the Hebrew word “Adamah” for dirt or earth. And I suggested that Adam being sent to toil the earth could be heard as meaning that Adam was sent to work on Adam, that humans are meant by God to work on humanity, toiling to make it better.
Like the creation story, the breath of God is essential to life in this story as well. But did you catch in the story how the breath of God comes out of an act of man, Ezekiel? Humanity has the God-given power to initiate the animation of the spiritual life of even those with nothing left but the barest of a skeleton.
Even if it is just dead dry bones scattered and in pieces there is always the promise that spiritual life can live and that newness is possible! 2 Amazingly it is through humans that God works this miracle!
Ezekiel works God’s miracle by prophesying to the bones teaching them to “hear the word of the Lord.” Once they have learned to hear the word, God then builds the body back up bit by bit. Once the bodies are in shape then Ezekiel causes God’s very own to be breathed upon them so that they can live– and live they do!
This is a very hopeful story. And it is not just one for history. It is one for the present. Indeed it speaks to this very church.
A number of folks in this church grew up in the United Church of Christ or one of the traditions that formed it. But a number of folks here are amongst the scattered. Some from other denominations. Some from other religions. Some from no religion at all.
Many of us have lain in a desolate valley with hopes dashed and dried up. Nothing but bare bones to our spirituality. No meat or muscle. No sinews or skin. No guts left.
Even long time UCCers have sometimes felt all dried up with no body left to our spirit, no spiritual body at all whether individually or communally.
It would not surprise me if there are some folks here today that maybe feel that way now. It’s getting easier and easier to feel dried up spiritually and scattered to the wind. We not only move around a lot – often far from our families and hometowns– but, more and more it seems that neighbors barely talk to one another.
We often live our lives in isolation. Feeling alone in big cities bustling with people. Feeling powerless in the machinations of a culture pushing us to work, to move, to do, do, do, to buy, buy, buy, for ourselves, for the economy, for the boss, for the country, for what we called in my youth The Man.
This can lead us to feel like we are in a valley of captivity too. Where hopes feel dashed and dried up. It can feel like we’ll never get home. It can feel like our sense of being in community is lost forever.
Like the lyrics from a famous song in the 70’s we feel like “all we are is dust in the wind.” Scattered bones with no meat, no muscles, no sinews, no skin, no breath left. People can feel like there is no body of a community left. There is a sense of spiritual death, not only of self, but, of community.
Captivity can come in the form of a conquering nation. It can also come in the form of the daily grind and culture and the distant that creates from our neighbors.
The Lectionary reading today ends with these words:
What is really quite amazing is that this church is like Ezekiel. We know the skeleton of the community out there seems to be a heap of dry bones in a hopeless condition. But we prophesy, that is, we herald the Good News of the Word of God to all who enter this space. I don’t mean just here in the pulpit. I mean this whole church. You can feel God is Lord right down to the bones in this place.
God has taken the dry bones and hopelessness we have felt in our lives and built a throng here of those who know God is Lord. Not Lord as in one to cow-tow and kiss up to like The Man, but, Lord as in the One we joyfully follow and let lead. The Lord of Love, not the lord of the manor or the company we work for.
Through Riviera United Church of Christ God is building a community, adding sinews to the dry bones. How? The first part of our vision statement sums it up nicely. Our vision statement is Thinking Openly. Believing Passionately. Serving Boldly.
We are called to think openly. Think openly? At a church? Sounds kinda crazy. Well crazy or not that’s how it works. The United Church of Christ’s motto is “God is Still Speaking.”
In order to see a comma instead of a period, a full stop to the Word of God once the bible was finished two thousand years ago, we have to have an open mind. What I say up here is meant to open up thinking and dialog, to provoke thought. My sermons (as brilliant as they are), though, are not the final word on anything in this church.
The traditions of the church itself (as brilliant as they can be) are not the final word on anything in this church. Even the words in the bible (which are often beyond brilliant to pure genius), do not close the discussion. God adds sinews to our bare bones by allowing us to think openly here. Do not check your brain at the door here.
Do not expect to be spoon-fed the Word of God here.
Open minds – thinking openly– allow us to hear what comes after the comma, to hear that God is still speaking – and that leads us to where God is calling.
Through Riviera United Church of Christ God is building a community adding flesh to the dry bones. How? With a vision statement that calls us to believe passionately.
There can be no dryness to our faith when the blood of our passion for the love of God, self and neighbor runs through our veins. And we are certainly believing passionately in this community.
There are so many of you who give of your time and other gifts to make this place run. It’s truly remarkable. The support needed to make it through a week of all this church does is huge.
Have you ever thought about it? Believing passionately, brothers and sisters from this church do an amazing amount of work here without monetary recompense.
Hours are spent administering the non-profit corporate functions of the church as council members and officers and committee members.
People in the hospital and their families are tended to as are those who are ill at home. Anyone in jail is tended to as well.
Kind and competent parish nurses offer free services on the premises, as does a fun and caring mental health councilor. Stephen Ministers are at the ready to provide loving care a well
Teachers, cooks and child supervisors prepare food and lessons and games for children.
Folks come and share their open thinking at bible study helping others to grow.
Prayers are prayed for joys and concerns all week long.
Musicians show up and spend precious hours singing, playing instruments and preparing for choir and band offerings.
Chairs and tables are moved about with the precision of a series of downs in an NFL game.
Things are fixed and built and taken down all over our spacious building and grounds.
The place is cleaned up, essentials for the services are brought in and arranged, filled and put in place.
Infants are cared for in the nursery.
And week in and week out you bring more than gifts of action to this place. There are many saintly loving Spirit-filled folks here whose very presence provides peace and love. You also bring much needed gifts in the form of offerings, spending hard earned resources not on yourselves, but gladly on God.
Lots of passion fills this place, let me tell you.
As you can tell our passionate believing leads to serving boldly our third vision statement. Serving boldly is the skin on the bones of our community. It’s how we touch others. And it is not just here either that we serve and touch others.
Our offerings go to help the Florida Conference and the National UCC offices do their work, and they go to other places to help the needy and the oppressed, those far less fortunate than us.
Our very important capital campaigns – a new one of which kicks off in a few weeks– keep our mortgage current, and this place functioning facilitates all that we do to touch others.
Our Shepherd Fund helps the endless hands of Christ that reach out for help every week in this place.
And it’s not just our monetary offerings that serve God in and beyond this community. I already mentioned hospitals and jails and home visits. We also help out with Daily Bread and Habitat for Humanity, profitless fair trade coffee sales and numerous gifts to our own food pantry.
Just a few months ago we sent a mission team to Biloxi, Mississippi to help rebuild a little bit of Katrina’s rips in the world of our sisters and brothers there.
We share ideas on justice issues.
We sponsor a youth group and, last summer, a green vacation bible school, and for three years in a row we put together a Wednesday after school program, and we have plans in the works for a community family theatre group, lay jail ministry, young adult fellowship and men’s fellowship (we already have a women’s fellowship).
We boldly follow Jesus’s Way of Love by honoring and respecting other religions and creating a community that embraces all regardless of color, economic status, sexual orientation or past–wherever anyone is on life’s journey they are truly welcome and honored here.
Riviera United Church of Christ is serving boldly and intends to serve even bolder in the months to come.
In this church we offer to the bare bones of the bodies that make up this community the sinews of thinking openly, the flesh of believing passionately, and the skin of serving boldly.
The only thing I have not covered is the breath of God, and that dear friends is brought to being through personal action by each of you. Doing the thinking, believing and serving is great, but it will not animate the body without you bringing the Word of God to each other and to others.
We bring God’s breath, God’s very being when we exude Love. It is simply this: God is love; when we love we bring God to the fore. God’s there always, but, we have to bring God to the fore to animate, to help cause God’s breath to be breathed into bones that have dried up. Bones that have been in the valley of despair.
So here is the thing, we have to always think openly with Love. We have to always believe passionately with Love. We have to always serve boldly with Love.
When we do that, which we do a lot here at Riviera United Church of Christ, then we accomplish what Ezekiel did in his vision from God– that is: the impossible. We resurrect the spiritually dead. We give life to those whose hope is lost, who feel cut off completely.
This is happening here all the time. Riviera United Church of Christ is a God soaked, Christ drenched, Spirit-filled place and old bones are coming to life all the time and finding home here and in turn helping the world out there. AMEN!
– End Notes–
1. Texts For Preaching (Westminster John Knox, (2007)) p. 219 of CD ROM
2. Ibid.
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The Superpower Jesus Gives Us
By Administrator | March 2, 2008
The Superpower Jesus Gives Us
a sermon based on John 20:19-23
March 3, 2008 at Palm Bay, Florida
by Rev. Scott Elliott
Last week I referred to an analogy between the discordance of music and the dissonance we experience with the unequal treatment of others.
I want to use another music metaphor this week: the idea of our playing a part in the great symphony of creation that the Creator has composed for us to play when relationships are broken or in disrepair; a part that if done right, builds to an amazing crescendo of God’s presence.
We are in the midst of Lent, a time not just of contemplation, but of action. A time of responding to Christ’s call to repent, that is change our ways, and then to actually do just that by turning in a new direction, a direction toward God.
Easter is in a few weeks, and I assume I will not spoil the story by telling you that Jesus ends up being tried, convicted, sentenced and executed by Roman authorities.
The authorities kill Jesus in an effort to prevent his radical message and his Way of love and peace from spreading. From the vantage point of history this is, of course, supremely ironic since the killing of Jesus did more to spread his radical message and The Way of love and peace than any act Jesus did in life.
The killing of Jesus thankfully led to his resurrection and the resurrected Jesus can’t be stopped by the authorities.
As we heard in today’s reading from John locked doors and walls cannot even stop the resurrected Jesus, let alone Pilate or Roman legions.
This is usually a story for Easter or after Easter, but, I have chosen it as one of today’s lessons because it raises one of the most radical teachings of Jesus’ and perhaps one of the hardest areas for us to repent, that is turn around.
Although the disciples are locked up tight in a house Jesus gets in.
The disciples had ever reason to be scared, angry and frustrated, not only at Jesus’s senseless death but at the threat facing them behind those doors. Jesus returns to them as they tremble barred in a house, and Jesus’ first other-worldly words are not about how to retaliate.
We are told instead Jesus first offers them peace and shows he is the risen Christ, and then gives them what seems a strange power. “ Jesus greets them again: “Peace,” he says. “Just as the Father sent me, so now I’m sending you.” And at this he breathed over them and says “Here’s some holy spirit. Take it. If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven; if you do not release them from their sins they are not released.” (Scholars Version)
Jesus empowers them as envoys of God with the breath of the Holy Spirit and this amazing superpower– the ability to forgive. This a superpower already at their finger tips, just as it is at ours. I say “superpower” because Jesus notes that by forgiving we can make sins go away, what’s more Jesus notes that if we do not forgive then the sins will not be released, they will not go away.
In a way this talk by the resurrected Christ, should not be surprising. While alive Jesus taught and practiced forgiveness.
He said that whenever we pray – whenever we pray– we are to forgive if we have anything against anyone.
As we heard in the reading from Matthew Jesus also teaches us that we are to forgive over and over, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Then remarkably as Jesus is dying he asks God to forgive those who tortured and hung him on the cross. Jesus does not call upon God to bring a legion of angels to his aid or that God smite a single soul. Jesus and God do not respond in kind to the violence inflicted upon Jesus in the passion narratives, rather the Divine responses are victories through non-violence, through Love and through forgiveness.
Jesus’s amazing Grace in life and at the cross have resonated through the ages. On the cross Jesus’ sacrifice and love and forgiveness – what the world might think of as weaknesses – are turned on their head by God and made everlasting strengths and means of salvation. Today the very cross that led to Jesus’ resurrection can lead to our own new life in Christ.
And forgiveness is key to our new life. It is no accident one of the last utterances remembered on the cross was about forgiveness and that one of the first utterances by Jesus after the resurrection is about forgiveness. Forgiveness is critical to living and walking Jesus’ Way.
Have you ever really thought about what the heck forgiveness really is? We tend to think of it as just forgetting harm that is done, but, that is not what it is. Martin Luther King, Jr. notes that
Simply put forgiveness is the restoration of a healthy relationship with God and others. It is needed whenever a relationship with another being is broken and in need of repair. This can mean anything from a fight over the remote to horrific acts of violence. And forgiveness is rarely easy, and at best it seems to range from hard to impossible.
While forgiveness may be hard and sometimes very, very difficult it is, in fact, never impossible. The Gospels report that Jesus forgave those who beat him and hung him on the cross to die. It may take us time, but through Jesus’s example we too can forgive even the worse of those who have sinned against us. And we can be forgiven for the worse sins we ourselves have committed.
Consider the example of the seemingly impossible-to-forgive situations in the story of apartheid in South Africa where countless acts of horror occurred, yet, a process of forgiveness unfolded.
Thankfully apartheid was brought to an end in the early 1990s without a bloody coup. This was accomplished through a remarkable process. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu reports in his book No Future Without Forgiveness 2 that the new government intended to dismantle apartheid in a manner that avoided retaliatory violence.
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created to address acts of brutality by apartheid and its opponents in a way that “‘transcend[ed] the divisions and strife of the past.’” The way chosen was amnesty for “acts, omissions and offences associated with political objectives . . .”(Tutu, 45-46).
This mandate for amnesty resulted in the formation of the Commission and one of its tasks was to take testimony from wrongdoers. If the wrongdoers fully disclosed misdeeds, they were granted amnesty (49-50). Although wrongdoers were not required to repent, most “expressed at least remorse and asked forgiveness from their victims” (Tutu, 50).
Victims of apartheid were also provided a place to be heard and some 20,000 came forward with testimony (Tutu, 91, 108). For the wrongdoers, victims and South Africa Tutu tried to set a compassionate spiritual tone to the process with, among other things, prayer and the symbolic presence of Christ. (e.g., Tutu, 113-114).
The testimonies included gruesome descriptions of horrific torture and murder. Tutu argues the disclosures demonstrated the “awful depth of depravity to which we could all sink, that we possess an extraordinary capacity for evil” (Tutu, 144). Tutu noted though that “however diabolical the act, it did not turn the perpetrator into a demon”(Tutu, 83). Amazingly Tutu went on to observe that:
As we place South Africa’s experience along side our own faith and the instructions from Jesus that we are to forgive– it is clear we are called toward forgiveness, that we all benefit from it – and suffer by failing to answer the call.
“Involvement in forgiveness” means a process that begins with either or both the victim and wrongdoer taking steps toward forgiveness. The process of forgiveness seems to have eight basic steps which can occur in any order:
Step Four is when the wrongdoer expresses regret to a victim through Apology ;6
Step Five is when the wrongdoer Requests Forgiveness: from a victim; 7
Step Seven is when the victim sees the wrongdoer “as worthful again;“ 9
and finally Step Eight is movement toward repairing the harm 10.
Any one of these steps or combination of them in any order can begin or further the process of forgiveness.
Forgiveness doesn’t usually happen overnight, although the process can be short and lead to actual complete reconciliation or forgiveness, often forgiveness is a long process that may not bear the fruit of completion.
But whether short or long, complete or incomplete, with just one step, the process always moves the parties engaged in it toward shalom and God.
So, how are we supposed to get into the process of forgiveness? And do both the victim and the wrongdoer have to be involved? Well, ideally both should be involved. 11.
When both the victim and wrongdoer are involved, more steps in the process of forgiveness can be taken. This is important since the more steps taken the more movement there is in the process. But all parties to the incident are not needed. Either the wrongdoer or the victim can move toward shalom and God and healing alone by simply taking one or more steps.
A helpful image of this forgiveness process is to imagine the steps as a musical crescendo (that hairpin “<" above a music score) with the crescendo indicating the increasingly growing experience of the vibrations of God with each step taken. In other words, the more acts that occur, the more the vibration of God is experienced and the more movement there is toward healing, restoration, reconciliation, forgiveness, shalom and God.
The concept of the Trinity can also help us to envision how God is involved in forgiveness. In fact, the process of forgiveness is something humans are called to involve themselves in by each role of God. 12.
The Creator sets the agenda for forgiveness.
Christ sets the example of forgiving.
sets the example of forgiving.The Holy Spirit initiates and sustains our forgiving practices.13.
In fact our scripture reading from John suggests as much, we can see that the Father’s plan was to send Jesus who set the example for us and gives us the means and the power through the Holy Spirit to forgive.
Taking the music metaphor a step further: the forgiveness process can also be seen on the whole as a symphony. The Father as Creator composed the score; Jesus Christ as first violinist shows us how to play the score; and the Holy Spirit conducts us through the score. We are the orchestra and our role is to show up and play our part causing a crescendo to build with each step we take.
The trouble, of course, is that we often don’t show up, and even when we do we often lack the discipline or knowledge to play our parts as written, demonstrated or conducted by the Triune God.
As a church it is our call to help each other understand the need to show up and be motivated and disciplined and empowered with the knowledge necessary to play our parts in this symphony of forgiveness that God has written.
Any movement toward forgiveness helps to begin healings for us all. If we take even one step whether it be Disclosure, Confession, Repenting, Apology, Requesting Forgiveness, Abandoning Retribution, Restoration of Worth, or Reparation we are playing our part.
And when we play our part in the symphony it helps balance the music out for all of us. We can sense the vibration of God in the playing, it is music to our ears.
And one beauty of it is that a person can enter the process alone, and this unilateral option empowers victims to play the music of forgiveness and move toward healing without the wrongdoer causing more harm by not participating.
All of this forgiveness stuff is hard work. But as Bishop Tutu has pointed out:
Our part in God’s plan is to show up and work hard at playing our part – and helping others play theirs – in this movement, this symphony of forgiveness that God has written for us. AMEN! 15.
- ENDNOTES-
1. Hoskins, Lotte, ed. “I Have a Dream” The Quotations of Martin Luther King Jr., Grosset & Dunlap, New York, (1968), 44.
2. Tutu, Desmond, No Future Without Forgiveness, New York: Doubleday, (1997).
Tutu, Desmond,, New York: Doubleday, (1997).3 E.g., Augsburg, David, Helping People Forgive, Louisville: Westminister John Knox Press, (1996) 68-72; Jones, Gregory, Embodying Forgiveness, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., (1995)., 15, 247; Tutu, 27, 165.
4 E.g., Augsburger 17-18, Jones, 15, 19 151(summarizing Swinburne)184, 196, 274; Tutu 50, 270.
5 Augsburger, 65, 15; Jones, 21, 147, 274, 288; Tutu, 50, 177, 271.
6 Augsburger 40-41; Tutu, 50, 181.
7 Augsburger, 17-18; Tutu, 50, 261.
8 Augsburger, 15-16, 123; Jones, 217, 256, 264; Tutu, 272.
9 Augsburger, 15, 28, 96-98; Jones, 195, 246-248, 263, 267; Tutu, 144, 271.
10 Augsburger, 21, 55, 67, 117; Jones, 63, 288; Tutu, 229, 260, 273.
11 Augsburger, 6, 61, 97; Jones, 63, 194.
12 E.g., Jones, 101-162, 207.
13 Jones, 207.
14 Tutu, 158.
15. This sermon is based on a course at Eden Theological Seminary called Forgiveness that was taught in the fall of 2004 by Dr. Joretta Marshal. Parts of this sermon also appeared in a sermon I gave at Evangelical UCC in Webster Groves in the Spring of 2005.
Scott Elliott Copyright © 2008
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It’s a Good Thing That We Squirm
By Administrator | February 24, 2008
a sermon relating to Black History Month
Palm Bay, Fl, February 24, 2008
By Scott Elliott
It’s been a few weeks since I have been able to sing in the choir. I love to sing in the choir.
Being around Shelle’s bubbly personality and the great members of the choir is fun and uplifting. I hope to be back in the choir soon, it’s too much fun and friendship to miss!
But I have to confess I’m afraid to return. Not because there is a rumor I will have to sing a solo; my fear arises out of a conversation with Shelle about our having been in choirs that sang Happy Birthday to members in as discordant a fashion as possible. We talked about how fun it was to hear such awful noise, because it makes you squirm and feel very uncomfortable. My fear is that Shelle will be adding this tradition to our choir rehearsals!
The discord that choirs bring when they sing Happy Birthday out-of-whack is in fun.
But there are lots of things that strike discord in our lives that are not fun. This month we have been commemorating Black History Month, a time when we remember ordinary and extraordinary African Americans gifts of deeds of valor and courage, deeds of love and compassion, deeds of marvel and glory, these are not discordance, but, harmony. The discord comes because as a part of these remembrances we have to face the mistreatment of African Americans and its dissonance with the promise of our nation’s founding to see and treat all as created equal.
The purity of the sound of that promise is harmonious; even today it rings right and true. But the unfolding of reality has often been far from that promise, resulting in a long sustained discordance, and it makes us squirm and feel uncomfortable.
There have been a lot of African-Americans in our history who have offered much to remember including: Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, George Washington Carver, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King, Jr.
That’s quite a list to be thankful for. Of course there are many others too.For a moment I want to focus a little bit on one lesser know Black man in our history and then discuss where God can be found in America’s promise and in our hearts in relation to racism.
In 1770 at this very time of year the first shots of the Revolution rang out in what is known as The Boston Massacre. Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave, led a protest that escalated into a crowd throwing snow balls at a British soldier. Support troops arrived. Tension mounted. Shots were fired. Five men died, including Attucks who was known to this country’s founders as “The first to defy, the first to die.”
Attucks was lauded as a true martyr and until the signing of the Declaration of Independence Boston celebrated Crispus Attucks Day, after the signing Boston celebrated the 4th of July.
The Fourth of July wasn’t the first event to overshadow Crispus Attucks’ martyrdom as the first to die in the cause of Revolution. There’s a famous print of the massacre by Paul Revere. It shows the runaway slave being mortally wounded – the first to die for the cause– not as the person of color that he was, but, as a Caucasian.
A few months after the massacre the soldiers who fired on the crowd were tried. The lawyer representing the captain of the guard was John Adams, a soon to be revolutionary and future president. Adams’ successful defense of the captain included “playing the race card.” Adams argued that Attucks and the other protesters were no more than “a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes (sic) and molattoes (sic), Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs.”
Ugly stuff, that. Of course we all know it gets uglier. Blacks in America were bought and sold and treated as chattel – enslaved– for another ninety-five years. Then for the next ninety-five years Blacks had to endure cruel treatment under Jim Crow laws in the south and unnamed forms of racism in the North.
Make no mistake about it today, even today, citizens no less Black than Crispus Attucks, endure racism. My seminary days were spent in St. Louis, which is said to be the most segregated city in America. I had the displeasure of observing segregation; towns were divided with Blacks in one part, Whites in another. Black neighborhoods tended to be poorer– some were so desolate they looked like a war zone.
I see some segregation here in Florida, not as much as in St. Louis, but, some older neighborhoods are segregated. I even read that a wall built during Jim Crow for segregation still stands in Melbourne as a reminder of the overt racism once ingrained in the culture.
African Americans raised in poor neighborhoods often have little choice but to have the inequities imposed on the generations before them continue on, as not enough effort has been made to lift the poor out of despair and into more hopeful surroundings.
Missing are equal chances at good jobs; good colleges and modern medicine, as Black babies die in this country at Third World rates. We have made it so doors to better places are allowed to be opened by African Americans, but, we have not unlocked the doors or given the keys to the poor among us so they can open them.
In fairness I think it is easy for someone from the real west coast to criticize. Missouri and Florida were slave states and African Americans have rightfully made both places home. Folks here face the problem of Blacks and Whites living together. Oregon, though has few Blacks.
The town I lived in had little opportunity to prove they’d treat African-Americans well. Frankly, Oregon is segregated, relatively few people of color live there. This is not by chance, it’s a part of their history. I once bought a house in Oregon that had an old unlawful clause in the deed preventing a sale to people of color.
Even today that town in Oregon still remains unwelcoming. Last time I was there I saw the familiar ugly racist name “Sambo’s” at a restaurant. People can quibble about the quaintness of the word and how it reminds them of a cute little story, but there is no getting around the fact the word is an ugly racist epithet.
Crispus Attucks would have been derisively called Sambo. And I dare say that African Americans visiting that small town in Oregon find the “Sambos” sign derisive. So while I can criticize Revere and Adams’ and St. Louis and Florida for racism, as much as I hate to say it, it was not far from the front door of my old church and house back in Oregon.
I don’t really know how talk of racism makes you feel. My guess is most of us are getting a bit squirmy and uncomfortable. I know I am. Who likes to face the ugly stuff of racism?
Well, believe it or not our discomfort is a good thing, the source of that goodness and our uncomfortableness is our Creator’s lure and call that exudes not just from our bible, but from the primary founding document of this country The Declaration of Independence that Crispus Attucks helped bring about.
The fact that Jefferson had slaves, and that Adams derided Blacks cannot keep the fundamental truths of The Declaration of Independence from guiding us today. When it comes right down to it we really do “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Those truths are so valuable to us we squirm with discomfort when we hear our neighbors are being alienated from those rights, whether in Oregon, Missouri or right here in Florida.
Those truths ring true and we feel great discomfort with the discord inequality brings to anyone. The ever present Christ within makes us uneasy with inequality. Christ lures us to an awareness of the self-evident truth that we are all created equal, that we have unalienable rights. Racism toward Crispus Attucks, racism in the rest of our history, racism anywhere in the country, and racism in our community today is in disharmony with these truths.
Despite what you may otherwise hear Jefferson and many other founding fathers were not fundamentalists, indeed many, including Jefferson, were Deists, that is they thought creation was created by God and then left like a perpetually wound clock to run on its own. They believed God was not actively present in the world, however, before leaving us to our own devises God was understood to have created us equal and endowed us with certain unalienable rights.
I think as Christians we can agree with Jefferson on at least this count: our Creator did indeed create us equal, and endowed us with rights that cannot be taken from us. But where the Deists differ from most of us here today is that Scripture indicates God has not left us and from that divine presence we sense God crying out incessantly that we are equal and that we should experience in full our inalienable rights.
There’s Biblical warrant for this. Genesis 1 tells us that God created all of human kind in God’s image: “male and female” God created them (Gen 1:26-28). And God blessed them. It doesn’t say some of humankind was blessed, but that all of humankind was blessed. It doesn’t say that some are created in God’s image, but that all are.
In Galatians it’s made even clearer that Christians are to see all humankind as equal. Paul writes: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28)
These biblical truths resonate within us, and we feel great discomfort with the discordance inequality brings. Racism toward Crispus Attucks, racism in the rest of our history, racism in our community is in disharmony with these truths.
Our discomfort is a good thing. It is in God that we live and move and have our being. It’s Christ within and without that makes us squirm and want Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for all our neighbors.
Life is an inalienable right. Our country does not adhere to many of the ten commandments in its laws, but it universally sanctifies one: “You Shall Not Kill” (Ex 20:13). We all are entitled to life by God’s law, and America’s laws aim to prevent life from being taken away without due process. This has not always been so on our soil.
Crispus Attucks had his life taken, so did the millions of Africans and African-Americans who died in the holocaust of slave ships, slave ownership, mob violence and the unjust justice of racism. It’s Christ within that makes us squirm at this horrifying deprivation of life. It’s the Christ within that tells us red and yellow, black and white all are precious in God’s sight, and that Life is an inalienable right.
Liberty is an inalienable right. We are to be free. Exodus is a major theme of the bible. God helps to liberate those who are not free.
When Jesus prophesied in his hometown he emphasized that he came to fulfill these words from Isaiah about freedom: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim the release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk 4:18).
Jesus wants us all to be free. Our country’s constitution guarantees our right to liberty. It’s the Christ within that tells us red and yellow, black and white all are precious in God’s sight, and that Liberty is an inalienable right.
And Pursuing happiness is also such a right. God wants us to be happy. In the invocation that I read from Ecclesiastes it is clear that God’s aim is happiness for us. God longs for no more sounds of weeping and cries of distress. God’s call is for a world where “[t]he wolf and the lamb shall feed together [and] the lion shall eat straw like the ox . . .” It’s a world where no one will hurt or destroy (Isaiah 65:19b-25). All of humankind is lured by God to be happy.
In 1 Thessalonians we are told to “Rejoice always . . . for this is the will of God in Jesus Christ for you” (1 Thess. 5: 16) . It’s the Christ within that tells us that red and yellow, black and white all are precious in God’s sight, and that Pursuit of Happiness is an inalienable right.
Deep in our souls Christ vibrates the unmistakable pure harmonics of the music of equality for all, and the music of undeniable rights for all. The founders of our nation captured the essence of this music and brought it to the surface to vibrate through the two hundred and thirty-two and half years since our nation’s birth with the beautiful words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
When we hear of inequality, of the denial of these rights it strikes a resounding discord that makes us squirm with discomfort as that news is in disharmony with God’s way and the words of both our Bible and our Declaration of Independence, the very document this country was founded upon. That is a good thing, a very good thing indeed. That discomfort has served to move us to change from a country that thrived on slavery, to a country that abhors it. That discomfort has served to move us from a country that tolerated Jim Crow to one that will not tolerate it.
That discomfort serves to move us today to disdain racism and other discrimination and oppression – and to strain to move away from it. And as odd as it may sound that discomfort is a part of our own pursuit of happiness, for as the Psalmist tells us “Happy are those who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times” (Ps 106:3).
The Declaration of Independence and the very country it served to found are full of the promise of equality and important rights, and regardless of our no doubt differing views on how far the nation is from fulfillment of that promise, we can all celebrate the promise and the birth of the nation that has moved closer and closer toward it, even while suffering from the pain oppression of others causes all of us.
God’s call can be heard in the words of the Declaration of Independence, God’s cries can be heard in the mistreatment of African Americans in our history and even today.
God’s tears make us squirm.
God’s call makes us move away from oppression and celebrate its demise. Black History Week brings both God’s tears and call to the forefront of our lives. That’s a great thing since it keeps us moving toward justice and righteousness and shalom.
Amen.
Note: I gave an earlier version of this sermon in the summer of 2005 at Lincoln City, Oregon.
Scott Elliott Copyright 2008
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Pastoral Prayer 2.17.08
By Administrator | February 19, 2008
God of Peace,
We gather here today grateful for this wondrous world you have created and have allowed us to help maintain as your partners and agents on earth. It’s truly a great creation. And we care for it, God. We not only love and enjoy all that is right with the world, but our souls tremble and our hearts ache when things are not right.
God we have to admit that most of what is not right has to do with human choice and human conduct. We sit here today worried in particular about violence in the world. A world that you, dear God, long to, strive to, call us to, bring peace.
This week we are stung and sorrowful at another senseless episode of violence involving young adults in yet another school. We have heard about killings and brutality elsewhere in the world. We have heard about bombings and wars and upheaval in many places and threats of more violence hangs in the air.
God, dear God, we know that this is not right. We know that this is not how You want the world to be. It is shameful to admit but we have not been the best of partners for You. Sometimes we are saddened to admit we are the only partners that you have. But the truth of the matter is, as St. Augustine said long ago, “God without us will not as we without God cannot.
Guide us please to understand, to get, that You are dependant upon us to work toward the peace you long for. Guide us, please, to understand, to get, that we are dependant upon You to accomplish and bring about that peace.
Teach us to be your blessed peacemakers in the world today.
Hear us now as we pray in name of the Prince of Peace. AMEN
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GOD SO LOVES THE WHOLE WORLD, WE GOTTA DO SOMETHING
By Administrator | February 17, 2008
GOD SO LOVES THE WHOLE WORLD, WE GOTTA DO SOMETHING
a sermon based on John 3:16
February 17, 2008 at Palm Bay, FL
by Rev. Scott Elliott
For a few years during elementary school I attended a conservative Baptist church. A very nice older woman down the block made it her business to see that my older sister and I got there. I say older woman because that is how I perceived her as a six-year old.In retrospect though she may very well have been younger than I am now! So it may be more accurate to describe her as aged-just-right.
The one bit of scripture I learned was not “Jesus wept” (I must have missed the day that one came around). No, the only scripture I memorized was one of today’s verses, John 3:16. I have long thought it quite ironic that one verse used by conservative Christians to claim that Christianity is the only way to avoid perishing and gaining eternal life is the one verse I have had in my head for more than forty-years.
In fact Jesus does this type of intellectual sparing. For instance in Luke we hear him asked how he can work on the Sabbath picking grain and healing people. Jesus goes to the bible in reply noting that David broke Torah to eat and he points out the Sabbath was made to do good not harm. Two judo flips, two bible references. Score one for Jesus!
I mention all this, because I want to look at John 3:16 and flip a common interpretation of this verse completely on it’s head. No matter what you have heard about this verse, take a deep breath and set it all aside for a moment. It won’t hurt.
So some of you by now may be secretly groaning at the lawyer tricks. . .legal skills by now. But I am only reading it literally. See it is impossible to read it literally without some interpretation. Which him is it? Well it is probably the Son, but can you see how it could be interpreted as God?
Alright let’s assume that it is the Son at issue and so belief makes you non-perishable and gets believers eternal life. Well, first of all is this literally true? Have you ever met a Christian that is or was non-perishable? St Francis died and so he perished. Sister Teresa died too and perished too. Jerry Falwell died and perished as well. It is safe to say that literally ever Christian who has passed away has literally perished.
But let’s say that a non-perishable Christian means their souls live forever– they get eternal life.
Okay. Fine. So now what does this famous verse say happens to non-believers? Does it say anywhere that they shall perish? No, it does not. Does it say they in any way forgo eternal life? No, it does not! It says God loves the world, it says some, those who believe (whatever that means) in him (presumably Jesus), get eternal life.
Importantly it does not say those who don’t believe don’t also get eternal life. Nor does it say that they can’t otherwise find a way to eternal life; and it certainly does not say that non-believers are damned to hell. John 3:16 literally does not pronounce Christians alone as saved– nor does it condemn others in the world. That’s a judo flip. It’s also a verse that says God loves the whole world, not just Christians.
Now you may be thinking – as I surmise some in seminary did– something like:”Oh come on all this fancy word play is smoke and mirrors. Anyone can isolate a verse and play around with it.” Well, my response is “Hey, I read it literally and did not add anything to it and it says what it says don’t blame me.” The judo flip is built-in.
And I’ll even dare to go to the next verse John 3:17. Make that I will dare anyone who read John 3:16 as condemning the world to go to John 3:17. Here is what it says in the NRSV: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
The world is literally not condemned by God’s sending the Son, but rather through him it might be saved. No condemnation. None. The Son was literally only meant to be a way to save.
The word translated as “save” in Greek means to deliver or protect, to heal, preserve or make whole.1. Jesus the Christ is a means, a gate an access an opening in the universe through which the world can be protected and made whole. Now that’s my kind of salvation. Jesus is a blessing to the world not just to Christians.
How could he be a blessing to the world if his coming means those who don’t believe in him will be condemned? How could God, whom we are told loves the world, have literally sent his Son “not to condemn the world” while at the same time causing the world to be condemned for not believing in him? This is not lawyer’s trick it is literally an impossibility.
I am running out of time but Verses 18 and 19 which were not in the Lectionary reading go on to indicate that those who do not believe are in Greek “judged” and the judgment is that those who are deemed to have loved darkness rather than light are found to be evil, the Greek word for evil actually means hurtful, but, note that there is no mention of hell!
The Old Testament Lectionary reading for today is from Genesis 12 (the verse I read at the invocation). Genesis 12 indicates that Abraham was sent to be a blessing not just to his family or the families of the Jewish people. We are told he was to be a blessing to all families. God did not send Abraham to the world to only work in favor of the Jews, or to condemn non-Jews. God gave Abraham as vehicle through which all the world would be blessed.
It is no accident that this verse in coupled with John 3:16. Like Abraham it is through Jesus that all families of the earth are to be blessed. How? Through us. Jesus saves, protects and makes the world whole, not by our belief in him, but in our faithful actions through him.
Our good deeds are Christ’s good deeds . . . are God’s good deeds.
Sometimes the deeds take a long time to render salvation. Like abolition and the civil rights movement. Sad, but, true it took thousands of years to recognize slavery as evil. It’s taken another 100 years to get serious moves going on with civil rights in this country. Sometimes it takes time.
But sometimes we can move more quickly to help save our own part of the world, protect and make whole our communities and our friends and neighbors.
The five people who have been commissioned as Stephen Ministers today are going out in the world to literally do just that. Their mission is not to save the world by converting personal beliefs, their mission is far greater that. It is one of the missions and ministries that we are all called to. It’s not romantic stuff of stereo typical save the world concepts. It is the save-the-world stuff of everyday reality where salvation can come in the form of an ear that listens, a mouth speaks care and comfort, or just being Christ’s presence in the moment for someone in trouble or in need.
These Stephen ministers’ belief in God’s begotten Son has led them to take up Scared Holy tasks like care for people who are grieving, injured, let down by others or even let down by themselves.
Their belief in God’s begotten Son has led them to offer care for folks facing surgery in the hospital or those in waiting rooms.
Their belief in God’s begotten Son has led them to offer to care for those in the darkness and confusion of divorce, death and despair.
The Stephen Ministers have spent many, many hours in lessons and prayer leading to this day when they could be commissioned to go into the world to save it, to work toward making it whole one person and one moment at a time.
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A Prayer for Black History Month
By Administrator | February 12, 2008
Pastoral Prayer 2.10.08
God who sides with all who are oppressed on this side of Eden,
We gather before you this morning in the middle of Black History Month. A time set aside for us to recognize the amazing role that African-Americans have played in our lives, in our history, in our culture. Ignored for the greater part of our history this is the time we look back and take grasp of the wondrous works, you dear, God, have done through human beings that other humans oppressed, enslaved and held down. Guide us to hear your call, your tears and your shouts for us to never again embrace or ignore the ugliness of such inhumanity to humanity that we now see in those grave injustices. Guide us also to hear the incredible power in acts of love and justice for those African-Americans who, while tyrannized, found a way to be your instruments in the world, and for those, whether African- American or not, who did not stand idly by, but, sought to be your instruments as well.
We are grateful, and thank you still for your courageous and compassionate agents; people like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, W. E. B. DuBois, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. Coretta Scott King and many, many others.
We are especially grateful for the miracle of a vote in Alabama this week. Alabama, the home of great oppression in many of our lifetimes, this week nominated a Black man as their Democratic candidate for president of the United States. No matter what side of the aisle we are on in politics this is a great sign, a sign of how far we have come, and how far we can go. It is a sign of your work in the world.
God, help us hear your call to continue to better the world and vanquish racism and oppression of all kinds. Guide us to learn from Black History Month that you can do your work in those the world may see as unworthy, because all, all, humans are worthy in your eyes. And all, all oppression is ungodly.
In the name of Jesus, the greatest opponent of oppression this world has ever known, AMEN
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The Rocky Road of Human Choice
By Administrator | February 10, 2008
The Rocky Road of Human Choice
a sermon based on Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
February 10, 2008 at Palm Bay, FL
by Rev. Scott Elliott
Ahh, the Genesis creation story of humankind in the Garden of Eden. This little story has been the source of much controversy over time. Today you can hear folks arguing whether the story represents a factual account of the way humankind began, or if it is myth or metaphor.
Whichever side you may be on in the debate it’s important to understand the story is ultimately meant to help us understand God and our relationship with God.
Often lost in the debate about it’s factuality is the depth of the story’s meaning. Whether factual or not the story is simply packed full of meaning, and I gotta tell it also has a lot of humor. The whole creation story was originally told aloud and was never meant to be heard as a dry and somber expose’ on humanity. It’s a very clever story woven with meaning and humor.
There is more meaning and humor than I could preach on in fifteen minutes. I thought I’d just go ahead and preach for three or four hours, but, Shelle and Kim pointed out that even my beautiful voice might get tiresome in that amount of time, plus we’d have to move the time of Sunday school and second service. I am not sure about my voice getting tiresome, but I saw their point on moving things, so relax, the sermon will be short, and only touch a small portion of cool things.
For starters did you know that the Hebrew word for the ground, for dirt is “Adamah.” 1 The name Adam is a play on that word. It’s like saying humus is human. 2. In modern English the first human made from the ground might have been named Clay 3, or Dusty, 4 or Sandy, or Rocky. We tend to miss that the story is supposed to include humor from the start giving the first human a rather punny first name that is also self-depreciating. From this story we learn our name is Mud.
Some folks argue that Adam is one person either from history or mythology. Others argue Adam is an allegorical representation of all men. Still others assert that before Eve, when Adam was first made, Adam represented all of humanity so that Adam has been seen as either a combination of both sexes (placed back to back kinda like conjoined twins) or just asexual. 5
Here we are three minutes into the sermon and Adam is already a muddy multi-sexual being, I am sure I could preach an hour on that alone. But thanks to Shelle and Kim you’ll have to wrestle with it on your own, for now.
Just before the Lectionary cutting for today’s reading Genesis 2 provides that:”[T]he LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Thus the man became a living creature.”
However one chooses to see Adam, it cannot be doubted that in the story God takes a bit of ordinary molecules found on earth and does something utterly fantastic. God breathes into humanity the very breath of life. Our breath is not only a gift from God it is in fact God’s very own breath. Adults take on average about 15 breaths a minute, that’s nearly 2200 breaths a day. That’s a lot of God daily coming in and out of our life. Truly, as the book of Acts basically asserts it is in Christ we live and breath and have our being– meaning that our lives are extraordinary if all we do is live and breathe and just be!
Once God had made the breathing living man from mud, only then does God plant a garden in Eden.
Eden is not in reference to the seminary that I attended– I am not that old! Eden is either a mythical place, or a place of unknown geographic origin, depending on whether you think the story is fact or metaphor. Eden in Hebrew literally means “delight;” in the land of delight God planted a garden for humans, and put humanity there to live and dwell delighting in the world and, as we are told earlier in the story, humanity is free to eat of the tree of life.
But God, aware of the potential of humans to know – and to choose– both good and evil, also placed in the garden the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God knows humanity was made with the potential, the ability and the freedom of mind to choose. Knowing the dangers that lurk with the power to choose God forbade eating of that tree: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”God seems to have intended, and apparently hoped, that humanity, while being able to choose otherwise, would remain innocent and live in delight.
Let me ask you this: isn’t that the very same hope most parents hold on to as long as they can for their children? We long for our children to live in delight innocent of the difference between good and evil, because once you know the difference you cannot live with only good in your life, by definition you have to face the reality that evil is there as well, and also figure out which is which and choose between them.
In this story humans are God’s children and like any loving parent God has the same longing to avoid what surely must happen: the loss of innocence .
The Lectionary reading sets out God’s command to Adam to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil but then skips Genesis 2:18-24, which has pretty interesting stuff: God says
In fact the story tell us God was trying to make a partner 6 to be by man’s side not beneath him or behind him, not a junior partner but an equal partner. God did not use a foot bone or a backbone. It is no accident that God took a rib from the middle of man to make an equal partner. She is purposefully not out of something higher or lower 7 than Adam’s side, but, from middle ground. Ground. Adam. Get it? Make no bones about it Eve is someone Adam can stand with side-by-side throughout life (In fact we can honestly say she took his side from the start).
The first commandment is not don’t eat of a tree. We are kind of prudish and so it’s not much talked about but, God’s first commandment is found in Genesis 1: 28 which reads: “Be fruitful and multiply.” 8 Forgive me for saying so, but, that is a commandment surely intended to be fun to follow. 9
But the commandment in the garden to not eat of the tree of good and evil is impossible. As humans grow they cannot help but partake of it. And like the serpent claims we do not literally die when we ingest that knowledge, but it is true our innocence as children dies, our childhood is put to rest.
On behalf of Adam and Eve I want to point out that since the story indicates that like young children Adam and Eve had no knowledge of good and evil when they decided to eat of the tree, they lacked all culpability for their conduct.
Think about it. We do not hold young children responsible for their acts because they don’t appreciate right from wrong. If Adam and Eve did not have knowledge of good and evil how could they know whether obeying God was good or disobeying God was evil? They couldn’t.
You can put a dish of cookies in the middle of a table two toddlers are at and command them all you want not to eat the cookies while you go to another room. However, since they don’t have a grasp of what good and bad is, of right and wrong, they will eat of the cookies. The same can be said of Adam and Eve. The story tells us they did not know good and evil, it stands to reason they could not knowingly commit either until after they ate from that tree.
Despite what many think Satan is not in this story. The serpent we are told, though, is crafty. In Hebrew the word for crafty is “arum” and the word for naked is “arom.” So there is this great play on words. The best I could come up with is that it is like saying the “bad” serpent caused Adam and Eve to know their own “bod.” Humans are born naked, but, they are not crafty until they have knowledge of good and evil. And once knowing good and evil they must work at covering up their craftiness. The story then has the humans craftily hiding their craftiness after the crafty serpent causes them to lose their innocence.
And notice how the serpent is crafty. First the serpent questions what God said 10 “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’” (Gen 3:1). After Eve explains the commandment about not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or they would die, the serpent contradicts God’s edict and undermines the trust the original children had going with God. The serpent says: “You will not die. God knows that as soon as you eat it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing both good and evil.” 11.
The craftiest part of the serpent’s contradiction is that it is true – they did not die and ended up knowing good and evil as God did– but the serpent fails to disclose all of the truth. God also knew that once these first children’s innocence is poisoned with the ingestion of the knowledge of good and evil life will be hard. They will know they are naked, they will have to hide their craftiness from themselves, from one another, and even try to hide it from God.
In the garden of delight Adam and Eve were innocent children made to be equal partners while absorbing life. It was inevitable one day they would know good and evil.
Try as God might God could not stop the choice given humans at creation. Humans one day would long for knowledge and then knowledge itself would mean choices between good and evil– and inevitably craftiness, if only to hide or hold back thoughts of evil acts. Adam and Eve’s only–only– mistake was to disobey God. And no matter what we may have been taught about this story that mistake was innocent because to do evil one must know what evil is and at the time they ate the fruit the story clearly tells us they had no inkling of what evil was.
So why this story? And why now at Lent?
Well Lent is a time of reflection. It’s a time about choices to follow God’s call or follow the crafty call of other things in life– calls to live differently than what God calls us too. Like a parent God longs for us to remain innocent as a toddler, but once we know good and evil the innocence of a babe is not possible.
We are moved out of the garden of our childhood delight and into the real world covering up, working at hiding our propensity for craftiness. You see since we all have knowledge of good and evil, our knowledge of good and of God, calls us away not from knowledge of evil, but from acts of evil.
The Garden of Eden story ends with God sending humanity out of that garden “to till the ground from which he was taken.” The word “ground’ is adamah in this verse and the word “till” means “work” or “labor.” This phrase is usually heard to mean “work the earth hard like a farmer.”
But I want to go back to the adamah-adam (that is the humus-human) pun and suggest it can also mean that Adam was sent out to work on Adam. Humans as adults leaving the innocence and delight of childhood, are meant by God to work on humanity, that is ourselves individually and collectively.
Once we have knowledge of good and evil we must continually work on choosing between them. God always, always, calls us toward good. There is little doubt that is our calling from God. The choice though is still ours to make! We must work at making the right choice, the good choice.
AMEN.
1. Rosenberg, David, Book of J, trans, Harold Bloom(New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990) 126; Trible, Phyllis, “Not a Jot, Not a Tittle: Genesis 2-3 after Twenty Years,” in Eve & Adam, ed. K. Kvam, L Schearing, V. Ziegler (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999),440.
2. Trible, Phyllis, 440.
3. Brothers, Greg, QuickStart to the Books of the Bible,( Nampa: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 2002), 47. Rev. Brothers is a very funny man. He gave me this particular Seventh Day Adventist study book that he authored and I thought I would see if he had any funny ideas to the Garden of Eden story, and sure enough he did.
4. Borg,, Marcus, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, (San Francisco: Harper, 2001),69.
5. The idea is from a Jewish tradition which imagines the first human as one being with two body fronts which God severed and “two backs resulted, one back for the male and another back for the female. See e.g., Levi, Rabbi, “Leviticus Rabbah14.1,” in Midrash Rababah in Eve & Adam, ed. K. Kvam, L Schearing, V. Ziegler (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 78. This tradition supports a present feminist argument that Adam and Eve came into existence at the same time out of a single being who was either both genders or neither. Trible, Phyllis, 432; 440-443.
6. Gen. 2:19.
7. Cf., Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologiae, 229.
8. Gen 1:28
9. See, Gen 3:16.
10. Texts for Preaching, Year A, p. 184
11. Gen 3:4-5
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One God, Three Roles Transforming the World
By Administrator | February 4, 2008