Sermon March 21, 2010

“Rivers in the Desert and Perfumed Feet” Isaiah 43:16-21, Psalm 126, John 12:1-8 (selections)

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

Thus starts the song “It Is Well With My Soul,” which was written after personal tragedy. It took me a long time to hear the difference in the two lines, and realize they were two separate ideas:

Whether peace is with me, OR sorrow flows over me, I say “It is Well with my Soul.”

For our church family, we've had a lot of the second this week, with three deaths, tears and sorrow have been flowing. Because of that, I've made a choice to focus on the first in today's worship. We need the peace, and joy, and goodness. Luckily, the texts today – unlike the standard Lenten texts – feed us with what we need.

The Gospel lesson today is just a little bit different then the story as we sometimes hear it. The Gospel of John tells a story VERY similar to the synoptics, EXCEPT that it is Mary the sister of Lazarus who is anointing Jesus, and not a prostitute like it is in the synoptics. This is a woman who is consistently presented as knowing the right way to be with Jesus. She's the one who sat at his feet, and received praise for doing so. And now she is the one who understands that the best thing she can do is annoint him and bless him.

Footnotes in study Bibles let you know that 300 denarii was a year's wages for the average person in those times. The extravagance is outstanding. She basically pours a $20,000 container of perfume/moisturizer on his FEET and cleaned them with her hair. I'm not sure I can imagine a more profound action.

The Gospel of John, with its poetic imagery and profound language, intends to leave us SMELLING this story. Did you hear the line “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume”?

Really, the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume as it interacted with the body of Jesus. The same perfume smells differently on different bodies, right? So we're lead to wonder, in this passage, about the fragrance of Christ. His body combined with expensive, pure, oily, essential perfume: filled the whole space with its scent. Sweet, intense, fragrance of the body of Christ. The perfume, then, becomes both itself and the symbol of the smell of Christ. That the most expensive of all oils, poured in great excess over him and combined with him creates the smell that approximates the true goodness of Christ.

I've been pondering this week, what I would associate as the smell of God. For me, the answer seems to be: water. Water, in theory, has no smell, but in function it does. The smell of the ocean is pungent. The smell of each river is distinct. Even streams have a smell. Somewhere in the goodness of the smell of moving water I find a connection to the smell of God.

That was one of the hard parts of living in the desert for me, there wasn't moving water anywhere to be found. Water in the desert is so very clearly the same thing as life in the desert. Where there are sprinklers in LA, the ground is dry pebbly sand, and nothing grows from it. (And the climate of LA is similar to the climate of Jerusalem.) In the winter, in LA, the rains fall, and the desert blooms. The water brings life where there seemed to be no life. But when the rain stops, the life goes back into hiding. And really, even the amazing bloom of the desert is stark in contrast to life here, with abundance of water. The amount of water in a place is in direct correlation to the amount of LIFE in a place. Water equals life.

So, when we hear in the Psalm and our Isaiah passage that God will bring RIVERS into the desert, we are hearing that God will transform the live-less land into a place of abundant life and profound goodness. There is no desert where there is a river. The desert stops being desert – and that's the promise God is making in the midst of the desert. It seems we come again to “when sorrows like sea billows roll.... it IS well with my soul.”

I was never very good at praying out in the desert. My throat would be parched and my skin burning and the sun would shine too brightly into my eyes. My friends who grew up in the desert were frustrated with me that I couldn't sink into the beauty of the starkness. I could see it, but it was always so unfamiliar to me that it made it harder to pray. It does, however, make it easy to connect with God as the living water, and to think about God as the drink that quenches all thirst.

And, again, since I can smell God in water, it becomes possible for me to consider the SMELL of the living water, and the joy that would come with that smell when truly thirsty in the desert. Even drinking in the SMELL of the water could fill a soul with hope, and fill in the places of fear and worry.

My brother and I took the hike of lifetime once. It was suggested to us that we go to Prarie Creek Redwood State Park and hike the James Irvine trail. That far up north CA is a totally different place. The redwoods themselves have a scent that is indescribably beautiful, if you ever have the chance, I'd encourage you to go see and smell them. The trail we hiked ran through the redwoods, down into “Fern Canyon”, out to the beach of the Pacific Ocean, and the back to the trailhead through more redwoods. The entire day was amazing. But today I want to talk about that Fern Canyon.

The state park website puts it this way:
Dim and quiet, wrapped in mist and silence, the redwoods roof a moist and mysterious world. Park trails meander over lush ground and the walker is treated to the cool feeling and fragrance of wood and water.

A couple beautiful “fern canyons” are found along the North Coast, but the Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park is undoubtedly the most awe-inspiring. Five-finger, deer, lady, sword, and chain ferns smother the precipitous walls of the canyon. Bright yellow monkeyflowers abound, as well as fairy lanterns, those creamy white, or greenish, bell-shaped flowers that hang in clusters. Ferns are descendants of an ancient group of plants which were much more numerous 200 million years ago. Ferns have roots and stems similar to flowering plants, but are considered to be a primitive form of plant life because they reproduce by spores, not seeds.

In Fern Canyon you hear water slowly dripping down stone walls, cushioned by vibrant green plants. The floor is pebbles, flat and easy to walk on. The Redwoods shoot high, starting at the top of the canyon walls and going on forever. It is so green you can't believe it with all the walls covered in ferns. (You don't get the color, but you get the coverage on the cover of your bulletin.) And the smell, that's what got me to remembering Fern Canyon this week. All at once you can smell the ferns – with their light, bright, vital scent, and the water, with its freshness and coolness, and the redwoods … that smell like … like wisdom, and the lightest waft of the ocean too, as its less than a mile away. The smell in that place, along with the beauty and peace that it inspired, lead me to say that Fern Canyon comes the closest in my life to smelling of God.

Our God is water in the desert. Our God fills our souls when nothing else is doing it. Our God offers us beauty for all of our senses, as reminders of God's own goodness. Go out from this place, my friends, and use all of your senses to let God fill up your souls.

Amen

Sermon March 14, 2010

“ Manna, Pig Pods, Feasts” Joshua 5:9-12, Luke 15:11b-32 3/14/10

For many of us the prodigal is such a familiar story that we tune it out. “Yeah, yeah, I know that one.” For the sake of hearing it anew, and maybe even a little bit differently, we're going to try it in modern times and with women:
There was baker, a woman in her late forties, who had two daughters, both of them worked with her in her two bakeries. The younger one said to her one day, “I'm sick of this and I'm sick of you. When you die, I'll get one of the bakeries. Sell it now and give me the money so I can live the life I want!” The mother did so, and the daughter went off far away, and wasted all the money just before a recession hit.
She found herself in dire straights, desperate, hurting, and degrading herself to make enough money to almost fill her belly. When she came to her senses, she decided to go home. She knew she wasn't going to be daughter to her mother anymore, but at least she could work in the bakery and have some dignity and a full belly. She prepared her words all the long journey home, “I've hurt you and I've hurt God. I'm no daughter of yours. But, I beg of you, let me just wash dishes and sweep floors under your watch.”
Her mother, though, heard she was coming, and ran out to meet her with arms open. She kissed her daughter and cried with joy. When the daughter tried to start her well-worked speech, the mother called to the bakery workers, “Find my daughter's chef jacket, and some better shoes. Get out cakes and cookies, and the good champagne in the back of the fridge! My daughter, who was dead to me, is home and alive! She was lost, but now she is found!
So the party began, but the older daughter, the one who had been loyal and faithful, couldn't just look the other way. She was sulking outside when her mother found her. The daughter said, “I've been here working and you've never given me a bag of cookies to take with me to a party, but when SHE comes back you empty out the whole display case for her! She's been off being a whore and you throw her a party!”
The mother was persistent though. “My daughter, you miss the point! You work by my side day by day, and all that is mine is in fact yours! You have the choice to take cookies whenever you wish! But right now we have to celebrate! Your sister was dead and now she's alive. We lost her, but now she's home again!”


There are three deep truths about forgiveness in this prodigal story. I would remind you that the word prodigal means excessive – and speaks both to the younger child's spending AND the parent's generosity! The younger child, in the midst of utter failure, and living a life that degrades, still struggles to turn around and go home. It doesn't even seem like an option until all of a sudden she sees herself and the situation she is in clearly. Once she lets herself see it, she also realizes that it isn't the way it has to be. She doesn't expect the forgiveness, that's clear in the story. But she realizes that whatever she's done, she doesn't have to live degraded forever. I like the phrasing “when she came to her senses.” Before there can be forgiveness, we have to realize what we've done and what impact it has had. That sudden awakening is the first step, and nothing can happen beyond it.

Secondly, the parent figure in this story is totally over the top with generosity. There is no doubt that this is a God-figure, willing to let the child have free will, and willing to accept the child back with unbelievable joy, and without imposing guilt. Few human parents could be so unconditionally generous. What an image it gives us of God! This parent-figure is so delighted to have the child alive and found that the child can't even speak the words of guilt and remorse. The parent already knows, and the forgiveness is running out to meet the child. How good it is to be a child of this kind of parent!

Finally, the older child speaks to us another truth. If you notice, the story leaves a cliff-hanger. Does the older child go into the party? Can she forgive? Can she rejoice? Does she hear her mother's statement that she and mother are one? Does she realize that staying home, working hard, and being part of the family IS part of her reward – that a life well lived is something her sister is jealous of? It is my guess that we aren't told because its our choice. We live this story over and over – in all the roles. But in the end, we have choices about how we play them.

I just finished reading Desmond Tutu's No Future Without Forgiveness. He tells the story of his work with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. The commission hear the stories of victims and perpetrators during decades of violence under the rule of apartheid. Many were kidnapped, tortured, raped, and killed – often never to be found during those years. The commission, however, did not punish. Instead, anyone willing to share the whole truth of what they had done was granted amnesty from future prosecution. Even the way this was carried was highly controversial, but the leaders of the government were some of the most prosecuted victims of apartheid, and they choose the way forward. They intentionally did not follow a Nuremberg trial model, which was not truly an option because there had not been a war with a victor. But, in any cause they were intending instead to build stable peace in a land where almost all were victims and very many were perpetrators. So punishing was not going to help – and it would probably keep the truth from coming out. They also intentionally chose not to ignore what had happened and bury it under the rug. They believed that damage had been done and to ignore it would mean that it would rise again later.

So, they set up ways to listen, they heard stories. People willing to say what they had done and ask forgiveness were granted amnesty. They found, to their astonishment, that more people were able to offer forgiveness (for terrible wrongs) then the number willing to ask.

The power to name what has been done is immense! It is like the moment when the younger child comes to her senses. To share the story, and say you are sorry, does make a real difference.

In South Africa, as well, there were monetary sums paid to the victims, recompense for their losses. The intention was not to buy it away, but acknowledge that it had been.

The whole book is a stance for restorative justice (rather than retributive). The country had lived escalating violence for decades, and they choose to step out of it, to speak of it, to forgive, to remember, and then to try to move forward.

Bishop Tutu offers these reflections:
“God does not give up on anyone, for God loved us from all eternity, God loves us now and God will always love us, all of us good and bad, forever and ever. His love will not let us go, for God's love for us, all of us, good and bad, is unchanging, is unchangable. Someone has said there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, for God loves me perfectly already. And wonderfully, there is nothing I can do to make God love me less. God loves me as I am to help me become all that I have it in me to become, and when I realize the deep love God has for me, I will strive for love's sake to do what pleases my Lover. Those who think this opens the door for moral laxity have obviously never been in love, for love is much more demanding than law. An exhausted mother, ready to drop dead into bed, will think nothing of sitting the whole night through by the bed of her sick child.”1
As God forgives, so are we to forgive. To forgive frees two people. One can move from being a victim to being a full human again, and another from perpetrator back to full human. Sometimes, genuinely, that is not so easy to do.

Tutu offers this real life story that comes to the same question as the Prodigal leaves us with. It is, however, not his story, its Simon Wiesnthals:
Simon Wiesenthal in the anthology The Sunflower, On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, tells the story of how he was unable to forgive a Nazi soldier who asked to be forgiven. The soldier had been part of a group that rounded up a number of Jews, locked them up in a building, and proceed to set it alight, burning those inside to death. The soldier was now on his deathbed. His troubled conscious sought the relief that might come through unburdening himself, confessing his complicity and getting absolution from a Jew. Simon listened to his terrible story in silence. When the soldier had ended his narration, Simon left without uttering a word, certainly not one of forgiveness. He asks at the end of his account, “What would you have done?”


What would you have done?
And, more importantly, what will you do?

Amen

Lenten Devotional Booklet, March 10th

Luke 11:14-23
Sara Baron

In the United Methodist Church today, elders are ordained clergy people, leaders within the faith. It would be easy to take this passage as instructions only for church leaders, and ignore it if you aren't one. Yet, all people in the church are responsible for being examples. We all look to each other for ideas of how to act and who we should be. No one is excluded, and actions that bring glory to God count as a blessing when any person does them! Remember, even when you don't think anyone is looking, that you are an example and a leader. What you do matters!

Lenten Devotional Booklet, March 9th

Deuteronomy 4:1, 5-9
Matthew Harrington



I feel God is at work through people. He is at work through me when I help out at church by doing things to help people. Those things are Harvest Supper, VBS, and Sunday School, etc. But I think God is always at work in each of us.

Lenten Devotional Booklet, March 8th

Psalm 25:3-9
George Hillis



In this passage, David tells of God’s guidance and instructions. He also asks God to be patient and kind and to forgive each wrong done as a young person. As we ourselves get older, we should remember these words and apply them to our lives. We should mentor the youth and remind them of God’s teachings and of his forgiveness.

David says “God leads humble people to do what is right.” We as God’s people can lead others to do what is right.

Announcements, March 7, 2010

In just two weeks we'll have the Turkey and Biscuit Dinner after worship (Free will offering, combined with a talent show and a silent auction! Items for the auction can be left in the nave (entryway). We look forward to seeing your talents!

The deadline approaches for the Oneonta District Spring Lay Speaking school in Greene on April 10th and 17th is TODAY. Pastor Sara is teaching basic and would love to have you in the class. Click here for more info.

On April 24th we'll be heading on Oneonta to build with Habitat. Please come! Sign up by e-mail, comment on the blog, or on the sheet on the clipboard table.

We're still looking for people willing to brainstorm about a Community Meal. If you are willing, talk to Mike Virgil!

Is there anyone out there willing to coordinate Local Church? Its not a hard job, really!

Signs ups are in the nave for cleaning the church, hour with Sara, and the Habitat Day!

Next week we'll receive the “One Great Hour of Sharing” offering.

Sermon (March 7, 2010)

“Delight in Rich Food and Steadfast Love” Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63; Luke 13:6-9

The young people of this congregation are very wise.

We discussed joy in confirmation class a few weeks ago, and they said that the shortest spurts of happiness come from material gifts, while the longest living joy comes from relationships. They understood, as well, that happiness is fleeting, but joy comes from within.

When I prepare funerals, I ask families to tell me what the person loved. Almost always the first answer is relational – spouse, children, family, friends, all of the above.... And then come the answers that are active: gardening, sports, some club, travel, cooking, etc. (Often sports affiliations also arise. Loving or hating the Yankees is, after all, identity forming – and very active!) Rarely, however, are more things listed than relationships and activities.

I've been wondering how my family, or friends, would answer for me. What would they say I love? I'm sure just about anyone could say people and skiing and Sky Lake, but beyond that its not fully clear. Our concept of what we love may be different than what others see of us. What we love is visible by what we DO, not just what we think about doing.

Hopefully what we DO, what we spend our time on and show our love for, are the bread and wine that truly feed us. That is, we seek to live so that the places we put our love may be the ones that feed our inner spring of joy. The book of Isaiah almost outdoes itself with the questions of 55:2: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” Why DO we spend our time on activities that don't feed our souls? Why DO we spend money on things that won't feed any part of us?

Why would we do that, especially when God is prodding us toward the good choices, offering us the bread of life and the actions of wholeness. In fact, in this passage, food and wine and milk are free for the asking. What is needed is provided. God makes sure that life continues.

At first, the gospel might seem like a different story. Rather than free food, we see a fruit-tree that isn't giving fruit. And, may we remember, that nurturing a tree in the desert of Israel takes serious resources. Water is scarce, but the tree needs water! Fertile soil takes effort. The gardener doesn't want to give up on the tree that has been wasting resources though. Instead, the gardner wants to GIVE MORE to that tree – to bury it in manure and give it every chance it might have to bear fruit. Rather than blame the tree, the gardner seems to take blame on himself, for not giving it all it needs.

Really the nurture of the tree becomes the same as the abundant life-giving food of Isaiah. God desires good living for us - body and soul. This is familiar information. The 23rd Psalm makes it just as clear – that God is like the shepherd guiding sheep to still, drinkable water, and full, nurturing fields of green. Today's Psalm 63 says the same, but more clearly pointing out the feeding is not only physical, “My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips.”

We have already been fed at the communion table: God has given us the food and the drink to feed our bodies and souls. May the continual prodding of God keep you making decisions to stay full. May the love you have guide your relationships and actions. May you notice what fills you, and keep coming back for more. And, when things dry up and there is no fruit, may you be patient enough to let God the gardener try harder to care for you.

May you receive the gifts of rich food and steadfast love.

Amen