GREAT EXPECTATIONS    

By Ruth Buxman

December 12, 2004

We have just heard and experienced the great hope, the great
expectations of Mary's Magnificat, Mary's Song.
         the mighty one has done great things for me...
         the Lord has lifted up the lowly and filled the hungry with good things...
         the Lord has scattered the proud, brought down the powerful
                  and sent the rich away empty.
What more could we want?! Isn't this what advent is all about. Waiting...
         Waiting for justice,
                  waiting for fairness,
                           waiting for God's kingdom to come, where everything is
                                    good and right. God's peacable kingdom.
Doesn't that sound good? Doesn't that sound right? Isn't that what we're waiting for?

         And Isaiah said it too. The wilderness and the dry land will be glad,
the desert will begin to rejoice and blossom... The desert will blossom.
Isn't that a beautiful thought? Life will come to dry, wild, desert land.
Isn't that what we're waiting for?

         If you are like me, when you read these passages that talk
about the peaceable kingdom, many among the prophets and some in the
New Testament, I tend to think about the future... some distant future when finally,
everything (emphasis on everything)... EVERYTHING (capital letters and underlined)
will be made right.

         I guess another way of saying it is that we, or I should say: I'm looking for a
happy ending. And isn't that OK? I mean, that is what the prophets seem to be
saying, isn't it? They often say that things will be, somewhere in the future
everything will be made right. And not just the prophets of our own religious
tradition. Black Elk, Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, said that the sacred circle
has been broken, but will be restored.

         What are our expectations? What are we waiting for? Well, if we're waiting
for something in the future, maybe we're waiting for heaven. And that's OK. For
some, that is the best they have to wait for. For those who are close to the ending
of their lives, whether it be because of age, or ill health; or whether it be because
the situation they are living in is not compatible with life--whether due to war and
the ravages of war and greed. For those who can hardly go on living, yes, heaven
is something to wait for, to look forward to, to hope for, to pray for.

         But what about the rest of us? Do we only have heaven to wait for, before
we experience what Mary seems to have seen with the eyes of her spirit? Can we
also be waiting for something good here on earth, before the ending of time, or
at least before the ending of our time here on earth.

         We can ask ourselves what are we waiting for? meaning, what are we
hoping for? We can also ask ourselves what are we waiting for? meaning,
come on, let's go! what are we waiting for?!

         In the Gospel passage for this third Sunday of Advent (which we didn't
read directly, but was alluded to in the "call to awaken"), Matthew 11, we read:
When John the Baptist heard in prison about the things that Christ was doing,
he sent some of his disciples to Jesus to ask him: "Are you the one who was
going to come, or should we wait for someone else?"

Jesus answered, "Go back and tell John what you are hearing and seeing;
         the blind can see,
         the lame can walk,
         those who suffer dreaded diseases are made clean,
         the deaf hear, the dead are brought back to life,
         and the Good News is preached to the poor.
How happy are those who have no doubts about me!"

         Jesus' answer to the question: "Are you the one who is supposed
to come, or should we wait for someone else?" was not "Yes I am the one"
Rather, Jesus answered them by asking "what are you seeing and hearing?"
The question is not, am I the one, but rather, what do you see and what do you
hear.

         Jesus' activity was evidence of who he was and what he was about.
Jesus worked at bringing the kingdom to earth. But I have another question.
Did Jesus accomplish his task? Did he do enough? Could he have done more?

         I find those questions rather comforting. I mean, if Jesus couldn't do it all,
how can we do it all. That's the first comfort, for me, and for all those like me, who
think they are supposed to do it all. But the second comfort is even better, because
the second comfort says that if you are looking for the kingdom of God then you need
to look for the evidence of the kingdom. And the evidence isn't everywhere, but it's
here, and it's there, and it's there and there, and here ...

         ... it's where Gail is, when she's laughing and crying and praying with her
young moms;
         ... it's with Cathy and Paul and me and Alan and Georgia
and probably all of us at some time or another when we're with family or colleagues
or friends with whom we disagree about some of the most important things, but
with whom we rise to the occassion to let the Christ within us greet the Christ within
them to transform our experience from anger to love;
         ... it's in Premier Iglesia Menonita with Juan and Carmen and Manuel and
Guillermina and the many other faithful who take in strangers and homeless because
there is a need and who stand in for the troubled in their midst with prayer and good
deeds;
         ... it's with the teachers in our midst who show up everyday for their students,
whether they feel like it or not, and in those moments when the needs of their
students are great, are able to communicate a God-inspired care;
         ... it's with Mennonite Central Committee and Christian Peacemaker Teams
and Voices in the Wilderness and missionaries and peacemakers of all faiths
and nations and races who stand with others in their time of need;
         ... it's anywhere and everywhere we are able to go beyond ourselves and our
own concerns to reach someone who needs our touch, to stand with someone
maligned, or provide a hand to someone who needs support.

         The Great Hope that we are hoping for is already present, anywhere and
everywhere that we see and hear people and situations being healed and
restored; anywhere and everywhere where light brightens darkness; where hearing
and understanding happens; where life comes out of what seems like death; and
where Good News is found among the poor.

         There may come that time in the future where all is made right and good,
but that future is also present now -- not all the time, not everywhere -- but it is
present fully, completely, each time we respond to God's call, to step out, to act,
to be present. It doesn't depend on any one of us alone, but it does depend
on all of us doing our part.





        

John 9

We find ourselves confronted, maybe assaulted, again this morning by the prophet John of Patmos’s apocalyptic letter to the churches in Asia.  We’ve just heard this wild, outlandish text from Revelation 13 and into chapter 14.  I’ve read it over and over again but it goes far beyond my imagination.  A beast from the sea.  A beast from the earth.  The first one has ten horns and seven heads.  The second has two horns and speaks like a dragon.  The first beast reminds John of a leopard, but its feet are more like a bear’s, and its mouth resembles a lion’s. 

What’s with all this crazy far-out talk?  Please, oh please, give me Jesus.  Jesus, sitting down, calling the children together and saying “you’ve got to be like a child.”  Or Jesus, standing near a lake, saying “there once was a man who had two sons.  The first one…”  Oh, how much I long for a good story, or one of those mind-puzzling parables. 

But no, today it’s John of Patmos, and the things he describes in his apocalyptic vision.  I was moaning about this at home the other day.  “Why, oh why, I don’t get this stuff.  I read words but they make no sense…”  So Glena cuts to the chase, “so why in the world did you pick Revelation in the first place?”  Well, we have this theme of transformation this year, and Revelation seems to have something to do with big cataclysmic changes, and it’s a book we want to ignore, but yet lots of people read it, so maybe we ought to try to own the book rather than ignore it.

And besides that, there are important Anabaptist/Mennonite scholars who are digging into this book and it is worth our effort to hear what they have to say.  As Christians who read the Bible through an Anabaptist/Mennonite lens, we are instinctively drawn to the important themes of Jesus centeredness, of service, of community, and of working towards God’s just peace.  We look for ways in which the book draws us in the ways of faithful, radical discipleship, which seems so central to the call of Jesus.

I think that Revelation is a serious book and we honor it as Holy Scripture when we read it carefully and appropriately.  That’s why, along with most people, I don’t read it literally.  I also do not read it as predictive prophecy.  That is, I don’t see it as some great puzzle to figure out, and if you can just decipher all the clues, you can figure out what the future will literally look like.   But the figures do mean something, and meant something to the early readers, and that is an important first step to figure out.  Then from there we try to figure out, how do these themes apply to us today. 

But of course reading the Bible more baldly and boldly, I won’t deny, can have its place.  And some of the early Anabaptists, living in circumstances far different from our own, found reason to use Revelation. 

You can find in Martyrs Mirror the story of Hans de Vette and eleven other Anabaptists in Flanders, today Belgium , in the city of Ghent .  It was 1559 and they were rounded up, largely for their views on believers baptism.  During the course of one of the interrogations, de Vette was being pressed on who baptized him, since he had openly admitted to his rebaptism.  They were verbally jousting around who they were and where they came from.  The authority said “perhaps I am just an orphan of unknown parentage.”  To which de Vette snapped  “yes, John’s Revelation (13:1) speaks of a beast, which rose up out of the sea; you may belong to that race.”  (Martyrs Mirror, p. 621)   Responding in this acidic way probably didn’t help his cause.  In due course, all twelve, men and women alike, were either burned at the stake or beheaded.  That’s not a very pretty way of saying that I want to take Revelation seriously.

Reading these chapters I find several key verses which I believe are the words we stand upon, that we cling to.  Chapter 13 begins with this description of the first beast, rising out of the sea.  And then in the middle of the chapter we hear these words:

And

Then there is a detailed description of a second beast, this one rising out of the earth.  But then at the conclusion this word of counsel:

Followed by the confusing;

Then the next chapter begins with John of Patmos saying

In the Old Testament apocalyptic book of Daniel four ancient empires were represented as beasts, beasts rising from the sea, beasts representing threatening empires in that day.  In Revelation 13 there are two beasts, and they too connote that which is evil.  I will go along with those who say that in the time this was written, towards the end of the first century, the beasts are symbols for the Roman Empire.  The commentator William Barclay puts it forcefully For John the Roman Empire was so satanic and terrible that in itself it included all the evil terrors of the evil empires which had gone before.  It was, as it were, the sum total of all evil.” (Barclay quoted in Yeats, Revelation, p. 242). 

More particularly, people reading this in the early centuries would see in the beast rising out of the sea as the Roman Empire.  The empire at that time was ruled by Domitian, who could have been seen as Nero, the first great persecutor of Christians, incarnate. 

The second beast, the one that rises out of the earth, is one that pushes people to worship the first beast.  We can think of the second beast as representing “emperor worship” itself.  Domitian, in his time, began to compel citizens to refer to him as “lord” and “god.” 

Using a literary method, apocalyptic, not particularly uncommon it its time, John of Patmos shocks his readers with these large, aggressive images.  Remember, he is writing to churches in Asia.  He worries about the temptation of too much acculturation, a too easy drifting into the broad way of doing things like everyone else does them.   He sketches these outlandish beastly characters as a way of shaking his listeners to say, “look, can’t you see?!”

What’s important for us is to detect what this might mean for us.  John Yeatts (who wrote the Believer’s Church commentary on Revelation) reminds us that:

Although these are the best referents for the beastly symbols, their meaning can apply to any time when the state assumes power that should be God’s   The spirit of the beast is present when any states demands complete allegiance, whether that state be communist, Nazi, or capitalist; the spirit of the beast from the earth is present in any church that advocates allegiance to such a government, whether that church be the orthodox church of Russia, the state church of Nazi Germany, or ultra-patriotic fundamentalism in the United States.  The passage warns the faithful that refusal to give such allegiance may mean death. (Yeats, p. 253)

To that I expect we all can say in unison, why of course!  Of course we don’t want to get caught up in the “spirit of the beast” which calls for our complete allegiance, pushing God to the side.  But you know, things that seem as obvious as a big fat pimple right on the tip of your nose don’t seem so obvious when you are right in the middle of it.  Sometimes, maybe most of the time, it is hard to discern.

Look a little closer at the beasts.  The beast from the sea, in the vision, suffers a tremendous wound, a mortal wound even, but incredibly is healed.  And the second beast, the one from the earth, performs great signs.  It even makes fire come down from heaven. 

It reminds us how there were prophets, magicians, and others who performed magical signs.  Jesus warned that there would be false messiahs who, nevertheless, performed mighty deeds.  In that most troubling part of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said

This is a call to the critical task of discernment, of distinguishing between signs and deeds which point towards God and those which point towards the false prophet.

The task of discernment, of “reading” the powers of this world, is daunting.  The second beast exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound has been healed.(13:12)

It is as though, yes the Roman Empire is big and that may worry you, but look at all the good it is doing in so many places all over the known world.  Surely you can ignore the minor inconveniences, which are so small anyhow, and work hard for the good of all in the great Roman Empire, so that peace and prosperity might rain upon the earth! 

The real task of the second beast is to convince everyone that the ways of the first beast are right and just and normal.  After all, this mortal wound has been miraculously healed. Something must be good and right here.  So people, fall into line, do as the first beast so kindly requests you to do!

And this is the way it is with beasts.  In John’s Revelation he makes them big and obvious.  There are neon lights pointing at them and saying in bold letters:  THESE GUYS ARE BAD!  BEWARE!  But in real life we are stunningly blind and refuse to see; we just, somehow, can’t see.

For the most part, good Christian people in Nazi Germany just figured the good so far outweighed any bad that everything must be okay.  About a hundred and fifteen years ago people were trained to believe that King Leopold was so kind to the indigenous Congolese people that it was difficult to believe those documents which pointed out that there is a huge trade imbalance between the Congo and Europe.  That somebody is getting rich off of Congolese rubber and that all the Congolese are getting in return is a gun pointed at their back.  In Cuba a good Christian might find it best to be thankful for universal health care and ignore those inklings within that warn that maybe there is more going on than what I am allowed to read.

But of course we have to look at ourselves.  If any country on the planet today resembles the great Roman Empire, it has got to be our own.  The latest Newsweek fell into our mailbox this week with a main article about the plight of chaplains serving in our military in Iraq .  It talks about their struggles, how our soldiers struggle with fear, how they have to face loss, how it tears at their families back home, the tremendous emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental anguish it breeds.  And all this, the chaplain faces and has to deal with.  Yes, yes, to all this.  These struggles are very real, very personal, and very heartbreaking. 

The problem is, this is the second beast, whispering, diverting our attention, saying this is normal, this is the way it is, yes it is tough, but this is the way it has to be.  And so we miss seeing the huge ugly beast with its precision missiles and drones high above and trucks and tanks down below.  So it is that good people hear the seductive whispers of patriotism and courage, and hear the bugle call of duty and honor.  So they go and become part of it, and they are right in the belly of the beast and don’t even know it. 

These people deserve our love and our prayers and our tears, for their fears and their grief must be unspeakable.

We have seen the beast and it is us. The powers of this world, as represented by the beasts, are not to be just spiritualized.  They are that but they are more.  They are real and they are right among us. 

Having seen the beasts, John looks up and sees the Lamb. The Lamb stands in stark contrast to the beasts and we are reminded again here, as in other parts of the Revelation, that we are followers of the Lamb. 

As such we are called to be people who are wise and discerning.  People who listen carefully and together, to learn the difference between lies and truth.  And we are people who know how to patiently endure.  We accept with courage even the worst, as Hans de Vette did, recognizing that difficulty and sometimes persecution does come as a consequence of choosing to follow the Lamb.  We do so soberly yet gladly, for we find great joy in choosing the way of Jesus, who is the way, who is our light, and who leads us in the paths of truth.  Amen.

-- May 6, 2007

During the summer months our children and youth are using Sunday School materials which come from our denomination, Mennonite Church USA .  The title of the summer series is “The Things that make for Peace.”  Over the course of the summer they will jump around the Bible from Old Testament to New Testament, reading from Genesis, I Samuel, II Kings, Leviticus, Romans, Ephesians, James, Mark and more.

We decided in our English language services to try to coordinate our worship services with some of the scriptures our young people are reading.  So, this is why we chose to read from the book of Exodus today, the 20^th chapter, the passage we know as “the Ten Commandments.” 

If we had read the previous chapter we would find Moses and the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai .  The mountain is shrouded in clouds, there is thunder and lightening, the earth shakes, the trumpet sounds, and the Lord calls Moses to climb up the mountain.  There Moses meets the Lord, and then he descends from the mountaintop.  He comes down from the mountain and pronounces the words we have already read to the people.  These are known as the Ten Commandments.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never liked that word “commandments” too much.  It feels too much like we are being ordered, to “just shut up and go over in the corner and stand there and do exactly what you are told, no questions asked!”  It feels like, oh no, here come a whole bunch of rules, and like any freedom loving, I-want-to-do-my-own-thing-kind-of-guy, I react against more rules!

But of course rules are a part of life.  I remember when I was a kid, and the weather was hot, my mom and dad nevertheless had the rule that when my brother and I came to the table, we had to have a shirt on.  Oh, how I did not like that rule!  What difference does it make, I would argue, whether or not I have a shirt on at the dinner table?  Well, I think it had to do with how we should all look when we sat together at the dinner table, though the truth is I never listened very carefully when they tried to explain.

Of course, now I am on the other side of things.  I’m older and sometimes it’s my job to decide what the rules are going to be.  And it is someone else’s turn to say why do we have that stupid rule, anyhow?

Maybe it would help those of you who are like me to call these the “ten words,” rather than the “ten commandments.”   After all, the first sentence in chapter 20 reads Then God spoke all these words .

Part of our challenge this morning is to try to understand how listening to and obeying the “ten words” help us to live in peace with God and with each other?  Can these words, these commandments, these rules, assist us and guide us in living in harmony with God and with others?

Glancing over the ten words we quickly note a few things.  Most of the commandments contain the injunction “you shall not…”  That feels on the negative side.  A few put things more positively:  “you shall have no other gods before me;” “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy;” and “Honor your father and your mother.”   The first four words all have to do with our relationship to God, to Yahweh; and the last six words have to do with relationships with other human beings. 

In the ancient Near East, which is the part of the world where these words comes from, there were other writings, contracts, and treaties which in some ways resembled what we find in Exodus 20.  I understand that the last six commandments, the relational ones between human beings, are not particularly unusual.  But the first four, the ones which speak to our relationship with God, they are unique.

But as a way to grab onto the ten commandments I think we have to latch onto the short prelude to the words, which is, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.   One person I read writes that you should read this phrase before each individual word.  So, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, therefore you shall not steal.

Why is this so important?  Because right here, in the setting forth of these ten words, the people and we are reminded of the primary, shaping event in the people’s history.  We are referring, of course, to the great Exodus event.  Remember, the people of God found themselves under Pharoah’s thumb, down in Egypt , where they were enslaved.  The people were forced to work out in the hot sun for low pay making bricks for the Egyptians.  They were a “nothing” people, a put down people, a people in desperate need of liberation.  But what happened?

God lifted up a great leader in Moses.  The story is long and complex and colorful, but in time the people crossed the Red Sea into freedom, and they gave the full credit for their victory to God. God delivered them from their enemies. God delivered them from their enslavement.  God liberated them.  God made them a free people.  So here, in the prelude to the ten words, the people are reminded of this great victory.  I am the God who brought you out of slavery, and because of that, here is how you should respond, both to God, and to your fellow human beings.

That God delivers, liberates, saves, is important in our world today, in personal ways and corporate ways.  People who are living in bondage to addictions, or abuse in their home, or their own anger, can know that God is one who longs for their deliverance.  And people who are under the thumb of oppressive governments, or economic policies that offer them no hope, or social systems which make them to be a permanent underclass can know that the God we worship and serve today desires their liberation from all that holds them down.

This deliverance, this liberation, this salvation, comes first, born within the love of God, and then God gives Israel the law.  It’s a way in which Israel can respond to the deliverance received.  And this law is given in the context of covenant, not contract.  The distinction is important.

In a contract the failure of a party to hold up their end of the deal eventually negates the entire agreement.   You rent an apartment.  You sign the rental agreement.  But then you don’t pay.  Month after month goes by, and you don’t pay.  Eventually, you will get kicked out of the apartment because you didn’t hold up your end of the contract.

But the covenant is different.  There’s no strings attached.  It doesn’t say “I am the Lord your God and I brought you out of slavery in Egypt and if you steal even one time, then back into slavery you go!” 

A covenant is more relational and the failure of one party doesn’t necessarily negate the whole deal.  There’s more ambiguity in a covenant, more wiggle room.  It doesn’t mean things are taken lightly, or just swept under the carpet.   No, God has delivered us and offers us to respond with a way of living and being that is responsive to God and neighbor, and allows us to live harmoniously, and peacefully, and fruitfully, in tandem with God and neighbor.

The ten words offered here aren’t met to be comprehensive.  Obviously they don’t cover every area of life.  They do give us a taste of what the redeemed life can look like.  But remember, these ten words are not to be taken alone, apart from their deliverance out of Egypt context.

In a real sense, as we gather here today as the people of First Mennonite Church we assemble as a delivered people.  Some of us have dramatic stories of what God has done to bring us to this place today.  We’ve been really down and out but, thanks be to God, we’ve been liberated and here we are today.  For others of us, our story is far less dramatic but nevertheless we have the sense in our hearts that God is doing something within us, and among us.  So given our own setting of liberation here at FMC, what might be some words God would give us today?  Here’s an attempt, for your consideration.

The Lord God has brought the people of First Mennonite Church to this day.  In response to the grace and love shown to us, here are some commitments we can keep as the people of God in this time and in this place.

1)     We shall love and follow the Lord our God, as revealed to us through Jesus, above all else.

2)     We shall not allow the pursuit of money, or more things, or our own ideas, take precedence over following Jesus.

3)     We shall find joy in serving others, both within our church, and beyond.

4)     We shall respect the opinions of others remembering that we all see only in part.

5)     We shall be people of God’s justice and God’s peace, being active peacemakers in our homes, our community, and our world.

6)     We shall honor our fathers and our mothers, especially respecting and caring for those who are living in the last years of their lives.

7)     We shall look out for, defend, and advocate for our children, providing the support, encouragement, and mentoring they need and deserve.

8)     We shall celebrate our differences, remembering that God calls us in many different ways to be the people of God.

9)     We shall respect each other’s ideas, each other’s bodies, and we shall respect the physical facilities here at our church which we share in common.

10) We shall love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and soul, and our neighbor as ourselves.

Amen.

Comfort, comfort, O my people
This morning we have already heard played and we have sung, and now we have read, these wondrous, familiar, words from Isaiah 40:
Comfort, O comfort my people,
         says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her
that she has served her term,
         that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
         double for all her sins.

We take from this cry that the God of all creation, the God of heaven and earth, the God revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord is a God of comfort, a God of compassion, a God of grace, a God of love. And here at the beginning of Isaiah chapter 40, the prophet puts these words into the mouth of God, that as God sees it, a time of travail is over, and God looks with tenderness upon God's people.

I understand that early this week there were some stunning sights in the night sky. In the western sky the planets of Jupiter and Venus, and the moon, were seemingly in close proximity. This doesn't happen very often. Of course we couldn't see it because of the fog.

In my extended family email conversation this astrological phenomenon was discussed. My cousin, a biology professor at a New Hampshire state college, tried to interest some students in what was up in the sky. They gave it a nodding glance and then went back to their iPods. Over in Cambodia Elijah saw it as well, along with some Cambodian friends. The thought there was that a cow spirit was looking upon them. Sina, noting that the curve of the moon underneath the two planets created the look of a smile, conjectured that God was smiling upon Cambodia.

Over here the shape of the moon from our perspective may have created more the impression of a frown, than a smile, but the Asian understanding works best when thinking of Isaiah 40. Yes, God does smile upon us.

These poetic words are set in the sixth century towards the end of the time of Babylonian captivity. Early in the sixth century BC thousands of the Hebrew children were carted away to Babylon. There they hung their harps on the tree limbs and moaned, how can we sing our good `ol songs in a foreign land? But the Babylonian empire would come to an end, reaching their demise as so many great powers have through the centuries, and towards the end of the sixth century BC the Hebrew people had opportunity to return to their homeland.

The time of siege and displacement coming to an end, the prophet voices the word of God that the suffering is soon to end.

Bur our passage has more to it than just a soothing word of consolation.

Some perhaps unsettling notions
In the first few lines of Isaiah 40 the speaker is God. But then, for the most part, in the rest of the passage we listen in on a dialogue between heavenly beings. It's as though we are privy to a divine council meeting.

In the ensuing verses (4-6) we find out that the tenderness of God needs to be exhibited in strong, even forceful ways. Make a straight path through the harsh desert, a voice cries out. The valleys are to be filled in and lifted up. The mountains and hills will be made low. Uneven, rough patches are to be planed and smoothed. Then the glory of the Lord can appear, the heavenly voice concludes.

It's a reminder that though God comforts, God calls for the strength to see to it that the hills and valleys, the inequalities and unfairness that we witness in life, that these things be leveled, be made smooth.

Perhaps we feel a tension here with the strength and power of leveling things out, making things fair, on the one hand; and the tender voice of God calling out, Comfort, O comfort my people… This tension is right there at the end of the section as well. Another divine councilmember instructs to lift up your voice with strength. Then, the Lord God comes with might and his arm rules for him. But then the section ends with the tender description of a shepherd feeding his flock, gathering up his sheep in his arms. We are left with the challenge of living faithfully as servants of a God who brings comfort. And so it ought to be with us. We are left with the challenge of living faithfully as servants of a God who calls those of us, including ourselves, who have grown too lackadaisical, too easily conformed to familiar routines, too at ease with the way things are, to actually change, not just others, but ourselves.

Here's another way of reflecting on this passage. This part of Isaiah, chapters 40-55, sometimes known as ``second Isaiah,'' is framed by the idea of the ``word of God.'' In chapter 40, in response to the prophet's wondering what to say the heavenly being comments on the frail nature of humankind (people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades…). But in contrast to the finite nature of humankind the word of our God will stand forever.

A parallel idea emerges at the end of chapter 55. The word that goes out from the mouth of God will not return empty, we are told.

But the people do have a problem. While consolation and deliverance from Babylonian captivity are good things they are made uneasy by how this is coming about. In chapter 45 the Lord has clearly appointed Cyrus, the Persian king, to be the agent of deliverance from Babylon. He's the one charged to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem after having conquered Babylon. The problem becomes, how can this foreign king be the agent of deliverance? This just doesn't add up. He obviously doesn't share the same faith and values as those he is benefiting. This becomes an uncomfortable tension that the people must face.

There is yet another disconcerting notion in the ensuing chapters. We will see, beginning in chapter 42, the image of the ``servant'' appear. The God of consolation will bring deliverance and comfort, ultimately, through the vehicle of the servant. This is how the nations and all people will be blessed, through the servant. Here again the people have a challenging notion to deal with. Accustomed as they for the exertion of might and power to rule the day, the notion of influence and strength coming in the shape of a servant upsets the thinking.

Ultimately, we must live with these paradoxes. Tenderness and consolation mingle with strength and power. The work of God can happen with and through sources that would otherwise ignore him. And God's promises and blessings will come in the person of a servant (and not the mighty warrior).

Bringing comfort in these days
We are to be people of comfort and consolation, but also mountain levelers (metaphorically speaking, we don't want to knock down Jesse Morrow Mountain!), folks interested in things being just and right. We can't just sit back and enjoy our comfort food. We can't just imbibe a bottle of southern comfort and escape the realities all about us. No, we can't do that.

We get another picture of how it ought to be, and what direction we should be pointed in, when we jump over to the Mark passage. Earlier we read the first few verses of the first chapter of Mark's gospel.

Mark doesn't begin his gospel with the story of Jesus' birth. No manger bed, no Mary and Joseph, no angels, no friendly shepherds, no hospitable innkeepers, no animals, no kings from the East. No, Mark begins by describing a New Testament prophet figure, John the Baptist, who is quoting Isaiah. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make the paths straight. John the Baptist is out in the wilderness, out in the desert, dressed in camel's hair and leather, eating locusts and honey, a real wild man. And he yells it out with urgency. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make the paths straight.

And he adds to Isaiah by preaching the need of a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We sense the urgency in his voice. This is something that needs to happen right now! A dramatic turning, a dramatic reordering of priorities, this is what must happen right now!

John the Baptist's appearance and demeanor remind us of the prophets of Old Testament times. We imagine them unkempt, wandering out in the wilderness, walking into the civilized places, telling the kings, sometimes bluntly informing the people just what is right and what is wrong. So in that sense John the Baptist is linked to the past.

But John's message is pointing ahead. Someone is coming, he says. I'm not worthy of even getting down on my knees and arranging his sandals. He's not going to just baptize you with water, like I do, no, he's going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

You know, I believe God has an uncanny way of meeting us at our point of need. There are those for whom the word of the day is the assurance of God's comfort. You feel like you've been living in the midst of a great storm. You've known too much hardship in recent times. You've been like the children of Israel, carted off to a foreign land, you've been far from home, and so the word of the Lord to you is that our God is a comforting God, one who knows you by name, and who loves you. The words ``Comfort, O comfort my people'' are meant for you.

Some of us may be in the position of knowing, even right now, that we are not so much in need of consolation ourselves, but we know others who could use an arm around their shoulder, a friend to lean on. If that's you, I hope you can be that kind of agent of comfort and consolation.

Or maybe this is the day for repentance. Yes, the times are stormy with the economic crisis out there, the wars that are raging. But deep down, we know that greed and violence have found a way to work their devious tactics within us. And if that's you, the first step is to acknowledge that reality to your self and to God, so that you can become a recipient of God's healing, cleansing and forgiveness.

When God's Spirit grabs hold of us, when we take a deep breath, and do the reordering of our choices and priorities which are necessary, then we will be energized by God's empowering Spirit to walk the path that provides comfort to not only ourselves, but the nations.

--December 7, 2008
--First Mennonite Church, Reedley

Christmas is coming
We gather at church on this third Sunday of Advent well aware that Christmas is drawing nigh. It's little more than ten days away, that's all. Many of us are older but we remember how when we were younger we might count the days till Christmas. Now it is different. When you are older your perspective on Christmas changes. Christmas can become a more pleasant, satisfying, or meaningful season. Those words describe the season more than, say, ``exciting.''

I think we can all agree that we want to observe Christmas of the right reasons and in good ways. I assume that most all of us will want to participate in some sort of gift-sharing in a way that does not feel like crass commercialism.

We want Christmas to have some depth to it, some deeper, sustaining significance. Something more than a wreathe hung on a door. Something more than another candle lit on this, the third Sunday. Something more than lights rimming the house, trees, holly and ivy, and jingle bells. Can Christmas, with its roots in the baby Jesus born to Mary and Joseph so long ago, can it take on power and meaning even today?

We are in a tough time
Earlier we heard the string group play ``In the bleak mid-winter.'' This is based on a poem by Christina Rossetti written in 1872 for Scribner's magazine, a British magazine. Rossetti came with her family as political exiles from their Italian homeland. The poem begins with this stanza:
         In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
         Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.
         Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
         In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

It's a stark portrait of life at low ebb. The moaning wind, the hardened earth floor, water frozen. It's a time of depression, frustration, sorrow and suffering. All of creation, all of life, is yearning for restoration and for life. It's the bleak midwinter time of life.

Amnesty International tells the story of Amina Masood Janjua of Pakistan. In July, 2005 she and her three children had breakfast with their husband and father, Masood Ahmed Janjua, before he went off to work. They haven't seen him since as he slipped away into Pakistan's secretive intelligence never-never land, a world from which such ``disappeared'' often never return. For Amina and her three children, it's the bleak midwinter.

For a couple of families in our community, who just in the past couple of weeks lost their sons in car accidents, it's the bleak midwinter. The Herrald family lives over near the high school and the Egoians live out in the country east of town. Some of our youth, particularly Ben and Oscar, were good friends. And now, in just that one horrible moment, life is over.
I noticed in the obituaries, during this same week, the obituaries of two high school girls. A girl interested in the outdoors and horses from one of the Fresno high schools. The other a Redwood High School of Visalia strong student and water polo player. The fog has been settling over us at night and into the morning. For all these families, and the vast web of friends who surround them, it's the bleak midwinter. The earth is hard and silent, water frozen and cold.

Then there are our friends who are older, whose bodies are weak and tired. I visited with one friend this week who told me in response to my perfunctory ``how are you?'' that ``I'd be less than honest if I said it is going really well. The truth of the matter is that I am very weak and tired.'' Then as we talked more his mind kept turning, over and over again, to the same refrains, repeating them over and over again, with all sincerity. It's sad to see this slow deterioration in people we love, and whom we remember, not so long ago it seems, as vigorous and strong. And now they are a shell of what they once were. Here too, midst the joyful strains of Christmas time, it's the bleak midwinter.

And I remember on this December morning friends I know who are struggling in that most intimate of areas, for their marriages are under great stress. Some of us have been there in our own lives and so we know this pain. For these folks too, while somewhere the sleigh bells ring, they are living the bleak midwinter.

Every one of us is impacted in some way by the economic downturn which is steadily tightening its grip around businesses, corporations, government, schools, and families. Private school teachers let go just before Christmas, a trucking company finding it difficult to make ends meet, the American auto industry hemorrhaging, postponed doctors' visitssome of us have more of a cushion to fall back upon, to soften the blow, but more people than before are near the precipice. It's the bleak midwinter.

Isaiah 61
The familiar Isaiah passage we read was given to people who had just returned from Babylonian exile. As they return Isaiah it is given to the prophet to remind the people of what kind of people they are to be, of what the ``good news'' is all about, after all. They are returning to find their land in shambles but are given this word, that in time, that they will rebuild ``the ancient ruins.'' But for what purpose?

The people who were carted away into Babylonian captivity tended to be from the upper crust of Hebrew society. Now, as they return, they hear the words of Isaiah directed less toward them and more toward others. Isaiah says that the good news he has been anointed to give is really for the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives, and the prisoners.'' He couches his words in Jubilee language, saying this is ``the year of the Lord's favor.'' Isaiah wants it to be known that he has been anointed, called, appointed, to bring this good word, this good news that those who have been ignored, those who have been left out, those over to the side, that their day is at hand, the Lord's favor is upon them.

It's made very clear in Isaiah. The Lord desires justice and righteousness, the Lord wants righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. And also, the Lord disdains robbery and wrongdoing. The Lord wants those who praise him, who call upon him, to practice what is right and fair, and to do what is just and true.

This 2008 Christmas season
This week I've found my heart and mind pin-balling back and forth, around and sideways, up and down, all over the place. It was on NPR the other day that I heard an interview with a Pakistani journalist describing his plight and that of his country. He's for an open, more progressive, inclusive Pakistan. He says these things in print and has received a series of death threats. His country, he fears, is being overrun by people, religious people, with whom ``you cannot hold a civil debate. They are not open to a free and honest dialogue.''

Also, my mind and heart keep returning to the recent teenage deaths in our town. I think about a young man teetering on the edge of gang life. Then it's back to Zimbabwe and the cholera outbreak, and the stubborn President Mugabe. I was at a meeting yesterday in Pasadena so some of our conference issues infiltrate my mind. The other night we were reminded again about Iran. Francisco Rodriguez will be paid 37 million dollars to pitch the ninth inning for the New York Mets over the next three years. I read a review of a new book The Bridge at the Edge of the World, about environmental issues and global warming, which was very sobering. The complexities of Afghanistan. How people can ever survive in Congo. The tremendous challenges facing pubic education. The severe challenges facing Mennonite colleges.

And in the middle of all of this, in the middle of all the craziness and complexity and desperation of our world, into this world comes Jesus, a lowly infant baby, born in a stable bed. And somehow, facing this world with all the pain and struggle we know of, we are supposed to adhere to this baby?

Isaiah seems to say to us that since the Spirit of the Lord God has been upon him, anointing him to bring this good news to the oppressed, the broken down, those in captivity, the prisoners, bringing comfort to all who mourn, that this is our challenge too.

And indeed, when this baby grew up and became a man, and then one day walked into the temple at Nazareth, he found a scroll. He took the scroll in hand and took a position where everyone would have to listen to him. He unfurled the scroll and found a passage from Isaiah. He began to read:
         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 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.
And then he set the scroll to the side on a table, looked around at everyone, and announced, to the astonishment of everyone who was there that, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. The words of Isaiah are taking new life and meaning in Jesus.

We have the utter audacity today, in the midst of all that is wrong and unfair in our world, in the face of unexpected death and total unreasonableness, we nevertheless say that this infant holy, this infant lowly, is the one in whom we place our trust, our hope. This Jesus offers comfort and this Jesus restores as we line up our lives with his, as we give our lives to him in faith and trust.

He beckons us to take up the cross with him and find our way standing with the brokenhearted and to releasing those who are in bondage. It's a huge task, a sacred responsibility.

But we do well to remember this as well. One of our readings for today was from John 1, about John the Baptist.

John was out in the desert, doing his thing. People started coming around, and eventually some of the more religious and leader type folks asked the blunt question, just who are you. They asked things like are you Elijah, or perhaps a prophet, just who are you. John denied it all, and to the implicit suggestion that he thought of himself as a messiah he made it very clear, I am not the Messiah.

No, he said, I'm but a pale reflection of what is to come. I'm just the guy out here in the desert saying, get ready, get things in order, make straight the way of the Lord.

It's a good word for us to remember. You and I are called to do a lot. We want to be faithful. We want to serve the Lord. We want to be that kind of Spirit anointed person who pays attention to those who are being left behind. At the same time it's comforting (to me at least) to remember that I am not the Messiah. I'm not going to get it right much of the time. I'm not going to care as I ought to. I'm going to look out for myself instead of someone more deserving more often than I ought to. So it's good to remember, it's not all up to me, for I am not the Messiah. I want to be like John the Baptist, something of an imitation, even a faint one, of the one who is to come.

So our call is an old familiar one. Even in the midst of this complex, slowly crumbling world, we take on this baby Jesus as our very own. We remember that this baby Jesus was born for you, and born for me. Born for you, and born for me, to love, to serve, and to follow.

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God in heaven cannot hold him nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.
IN the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed,
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But his mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give him: give my heart.

Amen.

--December 14, 2008
--First Mennonite Church, Reedley

It was Christmas Eve and Danny Jones and Lori Garcia sat together on their padded chairs at the Riverside Mennonite Church, their shoulders touching. It was the night of the annual Christmas program, which adults and children alike shared in. The chairs had been slid into a semi-circle so that everyone had a good view of the manger scene towards the back of the small stage in the middle of the room.

The church bought cheap land on the poor side of town in the 1960s, not long after it was officially organized. They built a simply constructed all-purpose room which continued to be, decades later, the heart of the church. Members of the church, many of them having found their way to Riverside from the farmlands of the San Joaquin Valley or the Midwest, went all out for the Christmas program. For Christmas Eve the entire room had been tastefully decorated with festive greenery, silver bows, and poinsettias. The advent wreath was beautiful with its four candles burning bright.

This was the church that had nurtured Danny when he was a boy. Riverside Mennonite held a Vacation Bible School every summer. Danny's parents split when he was very young and so his mom would send him to VBS as a way to help make it through the summer. That's where Danny met Mr. Hostetler and Mr. Karber, who gave him rides, taught his classes, and played catch with him. When he was in high school they taught his Sunday School class often embellishing the Bibles stories with their own special exegesis. They frequently made reference to their Voluntary Service days, recounting colorful tales of their varied experiences. Mr. Hostetler was especially fond of remembering, always with a twinkle in his eye, how it was in the VS unit house in Miami that he met Susan from Saskatchewan, who became his wife.

The room was dark and Lori leaned over to whisper in his ear, ``who is that?'' He noticed her hand brush the outside of his knee. Lori's fingernails were painted bright red, with specks of silver sprinkled in, like distant stars against a crimson sun, setting on the horizon. The impact was dazzling, each tiny silver dot so perfectly positioned. He wasn't sure it was the right thing to do, especially on a night like this, but he slid his hand into hers, their fingers interlocking. ``I think it's Bob Kraybill, the science teacher,'' he said.

He had known Lori for a long time, all the way back to high school. Her family owned a restaurant, El Sombrero Rojo, which was the classiest Mexican restaurant in town. Lori was working as a hostess the summer after they graduated from high school when he got a job as a busboy at the restaurant. He had no master plan, no grand scheme, but he did work hard cleaning tables. As he worked he couldn't help but notice Lori glide by, statuesque, her hair pulled back, her earrings dangling.

While bussing tables Danny was often within ear shot of Lori's mom. Mrs. Garcia loved to mingle with her customers, especially the regulars. She had the special gift of being able to find something interesting to talk about with everybody. If someone had just visited their children on the East Coast she was ready with stories from her trip to New York and Washington DC in the summer of 2004. If the conversation turned to sports she offered her opinion on the lack of an NFL team in Los Angeles. When the subject was education she could tell the heart-breaking story of how her parents began school not knowing a word of English. ``But it was the best thing that ever happened to them,'' she would often say, ``this bi-lingual education stuff doesn't really help kids at all!''

Danny's friends couldn't believe their ears when he told them he was hanging out with Lori Garcia after work. ``How can this be?'' they exclaimed as one. ``Look at her,'' they said, ``isn't she going to UCLA next year?'' they wondered. ``And you,'' his friends loved to pile it on, ``you look like you've been tanning in an icebox.''

Actually, it seemed to be true, everything they said. Lori breezed through UCLA, receiving her BA in business right on schedule, after four years. Danny, meanwhile, couldn't seem to find any direction. After four years he had barely finished junior college, and still wasn't sure what to major in. The last year he had gone to Dallas, Texas, where his dad had relocated. He took a few classes at a local junior college and worked some odd jobs. His favorite was a part-time job at a local community center. He was hired as an aide and spent most of time out on the playground supervising the kids. He didn't know what it was, but they seemed to like him. There were the black kids, all the Latinos, quite a few whites, a sprinkling of Asians, everyone was there, the entire rainbow. ``Danny, Danny,'' they would shout in their high-pitched voices, ``watch, me, please watch me!'' He would always watch, whoever it was, and then try to have something good to say. He loved those kids. Sometimes he thought he saw some of himself in them.

While he was in Texas he kept up with Lori, by phone, email and text messages. There was always this electricity between them even though, they both knew, they came from different worlds. They figured there was something special between them though they refused to try to define it.

It was probably Irma who threatened their relationship more than anyone else. Irma managed the community center. She was in her 40s, roundish, and passionately Latina. She worked every day to jog Danny's memory as to what he had learned in high school Spanish. She liked to call him her muchacho and she regaled him with stories of what the kids in the center, and beyond the walls of the community center, were going through.

She pushed him all the time. ``Learn about their families,'' she would say, ``and what their parents do.´ ``Ask them to read to you. Find out what they want to do when they get older. Try to see the world like they see it. Imagine what it would be like to be in their shoes. Really, Danny,'' she would often say, ``you've got to get inside of their heads.''

Irma forever took the side of her kids at the community center. To listen to Irma it seemed they could do no wrong. There were always forces out there, somewhere beyond, conspiring against them. The government was adding more regulations. The higher-ups were making them raise prices and some parents could not afford the higher rates. Salaries for the workers were stagnant, and this made Irma furious. She was forever angry at people she couldn't quite reach.

Danny felt Lori's thin, smooth fingers within his. He looked up and saw some familiar people, and some new ones too, move to the center of the church. They seemed a motley crew, and called themselves the Ragamuffins. The piano played a few bars and then they began to sing Mary's song, the Magnificat. A young woman sang a solo part, My soul is filled with joy, she said, putting to melody the words of Mary. They they all joined in on the chorus, and holy is your name through all generations they sang, the men arching their voices towards the high notes, the women folding their voices together, glancing at the music, then looking up and out into the dark room. Danny always marveled at how the people at Riverside Mennonite could sing in parts, and he found himself, as the song continued, more and more, lost in the words, and in the sincerity of the voices harmonizing as one.

Danny stole a glance at Lori. She was staring intently at the singers too, studying them. Danny listened carefully to the words. Then, late in the song, the young woman sang:
         To the hungry you give food, send the rich away empty.
         In your mercy you are mindful of the people you have chosen.
Danny felt something burning within. Yes, he found his soul crying out, breathing the words with the soprano. To the hungry you give food, send the rich away empty. Yes, a thousand times, yes, he found himself shouting inside, the words reverberating through his heart.

Danny looked at Lori again. He thought he saw a tear forming while the ensemble sang the chorus again: and holy is your name, through all generations!

When it was all over Danny and Lori mingled with the people of the Riverside Mennonite Church. There were cookies, fruit, and coffee, more than enough for everyone. Mr. Hostetler, Mr. Karber, and Mr Kraybill, all made a point of greeting them. They asked him how he was doing and if he liked Texas. Searching for a way to include her, Mr. Karber told Lori how much he liked the carne asada at El Sombrero Rojo, but that his wife preferred the plain cheese enchiladas. She nodded politely and said she hoped to see him there in the near future.

``Are you still a hostess at the restaurant, now that you have your BA'' Mr. Kraybill asked.

``I still do that, but actually kind of everything because I'm part of the management team now,'' she answered.

``Wow, you must be busy. But you must be glad at least that you are done with school.''

``I guess I like to stay busy, and actually, I'm starting a MBA program at UCLA, but very part-time,'' she said.

``So what's next for you?'' Mr. Hostetler asked Danny. ``Oh, I've got some ideas,'' he said, not really wanting to talk about it.

``Well, keep us posted.''

``I'll be sure to do that.''

When it was all over at the church they decided to go to a coffee shop just around the corner from Lori's place. They ordered some hot drinks and found a place over in the corner that was relatively private. Lori tried to look into Danny's eyes. It seemed that something was going on there.

``How did you like the program?'' Danny finally asked, not really knowing how to start.

``It was beautiful, I thought. Your church is different, somehow, I can't quite put my finger on it.''

``They sure know how to sing, that's for sure, I don't know how they do it,'' Danny offered. ``I wish I could sing with them, but I can't so I just listen. It's beautiful.''

``The people are sort of different too, kind of simple in a way, but they are very nice,'' Lori said.

``Yeah, that's true,'' said Danny, remembering all the times Mr. Hostetler had given him a ride somewhere.

They sat silently, looking down at their coffee cups. Danny looked out the window, through the winter scene painted on the glass window. Outside, an older man was opening the car door for his wife. ``Why did it have to come to this,'' he thought to himself, especially on Christmas Eve.

While he was still in Texas he read an advice columnist who said that when you break-up with someone it is best to do so decisively and cleanly. Yes, it's going to hurt, but it's the best way. Danny didn't know if this could be defined precisely as a break-up, but he assumed the advice was solid. So he figured now was the moment.

``Lori,'' he began, ``I've got to tell you about what I'm thinking.''

``Sure, go ahead.''

``Well, you know, you are so good at everything you do, and I just haven't found my way yet, I guess. School doesn't seem to be it for me, so what I want to do is to go away for awhile, maybe for a couple of years. I talked to some people that Mr. Karber knew, he gave me a phone number a few years ago, and they found a place for me.''

``And where is that?'' Lori asked coldly.

``Actually, in Miami, just like Mr. Hostetler. I'm going to work at a welcome center for new immigrants. These people are really destitute, and, I don't know, I just want to throw myself into that world for awhile. I feel like if I go there I can really take their side. They've got a lot stacked against them.''

Danny couldn't look up.

``And when do you leave?''

``On January 6^th.''

``So what am I supposed to make of this? Aren't there immigrants right here in Riverside?''

``Of course there are but I need, you know, to sort of find myself. I need some space, Lori, I need to get away from everything. It's like I'm feeling something inside of me, pushing me. I've got to obey that voice. I know that means I won't see you but, maybe it's best we just sort of, you know, let go.''

``So we are officially breaking-up, and this is where we say `let's just be friends,' right?''

``Ýeah, that's about it, I guess.''

And that was it. They didn't say another word to each other. In silence they split the tab fifty-fifty. They walked out the door and into the Christmas Eve night, going their separate ways.

A week later, on New Year's Eve, Danny saw a familiar name pop up in his in-box: Lori Garcia. His fingers shook as he double clicked on the message title, ``hello.'' It read.

Danny, This may be the last email you get from me. But I've been thinking and I have to tell you this. You can go to Miami and work with immigrants and all that is good. I've got no problem. Go ahead, ``obey the voice,'' as you say. But be careful what you think about me, and about my family, and about people like us. Don't think we have no heart, that we don't' care about immigrants and other people like that, people who don't have much. You don't know the half of it, Danny. You don't know what we've seen. You don't know how hard it is to be in our shoes. You really don't. Still, I wish you the best. Good luck. Lori.

On the first Sunday of January Danny went back to the Riverside Mennonite Church. During the sharing time he stood up and told everyone how he was going to Miami in VS. After he spoke there was applause, then first Mr. Karber, and then others, came over to him and gave him a hugs, one after the other. The pastor walked over and put her hand on his shoulder and prayed that God would bless him. The room was filled with joy.

Soon it was the 6^th. Danny got all his belongings into one big duffle bag. His mom took him to the train station. He got in line, waiting to confirm his ticket. Returning to his mom he found Mr. Karber, Mr. Hostetler, and Mr Kraybill, all standing by his mom. They greeted him with hearty hugs and wished him well again.

``Be sure to keep us posted, they said, and God bless you.''

``Thanks, I'll be sure to do that.''

Then they walked away.

``You can go too, mom,'' Danny said.

``I'll just wait," she said, "I'm going to miss you.''

When it was time to board Danny said good-bye to his mom and began to walk towards the train.

That's when he saw her, over to the side, a bag over her shoulder. She stepped out of the crowd towards him.

``Hi Danny,'' she said.

``Hi Lori,'' he answered.

``Here's something to eat on the train, it should stay warm,'' she said.

He noticed her fingernails were painted a deep purple as she handed him the bag from El Sombrero Rojo.

``Thanks, Lori,'' this means a lot to me, his voice starting to crack.

``I wanted to do it,'' she said, touching his elbow lightly.

Then she turned to walk away. He watched her. She took a few steps then turned, a slight smile on her face.

``Peace,'' she said, giving him the sign.


--December 21, 2008
--First Mennonite Church, Reedley

The place of the cross around our church
It's been a few weeks now since loyal city employees spent a few days taking out the trees around our church. Those Japanese fruitless plum trees had become something of a nuisance. Paul spent hours and hours raking leaves. The berries fell on the sidewalk and were annoying scrunching underneath our feet, and they were a danger too when things got slippery. So though no one particularly likes the idea of chopping down a tree these were eliminated and now we are waiting for the pistachio trees to be planted in their place.

I've sure noticed how striking our church building looks without the row of trees in front. Our building has this stark beauty about it without the trees. Though I'm for the planting of the new trees I rather like the way it looks without any trees at all.

People who come and visit us here at FMC often comment on how beautiful our meeting place. People admire the architecture, the deep brown of the pews, the curious shape of the building, the stained glass windows, the organ pipes, and more. We all recognize that the building is not really the church, the people inside are, but still the building does communicate.

Our text from Paul's letter to the Corinthians has a lot to do with the cross. When I started attending our church back in 1985 one of the things I noticed was the ``minimalist'' way in which the cross was used around our church. We don't follow literally the dictates of number 321 in our hymnal, ``Lift High the Cross!'' The cross isn't immediately and obviously visible around our campus. In some churches it is there, big and obvious, in a prominent place on the church façade, or big and obvious within the sanctuary.

We are far more subtle. You see it here on the stand that holds the old Bible. It's small and natural in one of the stained glass windows. On the church sign outside, over on the corner, it's integrated into the old General Conference Mennonite Church symbol. And we often have this cross from India right here on the communion table in front of me. There's an intriguing cross in the Fellowship Hall, in the PIM worship space, that Denny and Bob donated. I guess if you add it all up the cross is tastefully visible around our church campus. But it doesn't just jump out at you, at least not in my judgment.

Paul writes to the Corinthians
Paul was instrumental in starting a group of small house churches in Corinth. Corinth, a port city in modern day Greece, was a cosmopolitan city where Paul, on an early missionary journey, settled in with Aquila and Priscilla, a couple of tentmakers. They were Jews, and had been kicked out of Rome. They found a place in Corinth which gathered up disparate folks from many different places. Here folks without a strong sense of ethnic identity could settle in and try to make a name for themselves, and money too.

Paul was in Corinth for eighteen months, and then moved on. But in due course he received news, some through letters, from his old friends in Corinth. They ask questions, and they raise concerns in Paul's mind. He may have written them more letters but we have preserved in our Bibles two of them that we know as I and II Corinthians.

Now these young Christians in Corinth were living in a lively Greco-Roman culture. They were living in an environment distinctly removed from the world of the ancient patriarchs, prophets, and the world of Jesus, for that matter. They faced the question, what about our culture is okay and acceptable for a Christ follower to take part in, and what about our culture is categorically unacceptable? This basic issue got sorted through in a series of case studies.

In the letter to the Corinthians Paul tackles questions around marriage and sexuality, eating food sacrificed in the temple of gods, and trying to climb the social status ladder. He invites the Corinthian Christians, who are mostly Gentiles, to creatively see themselves as true heirs of the Jesus story and to, together, sort through what faithful living might look like in their own time.

It's like this. We live in a consumer society. The other day in the Business section of the Bee opinion writer Michelle Singletary asked herself the question, ``do I want this on my tombstone: Michelle, she was a consumer?'' How much consuming is okay and just a normal part of being a member of this society, and when does it go too far?

Or take the NFL. We are getting into the really exciting time of the year, these big games leading up to the Super Bowl. But wait a minute. Aren't these just a bunch of glorified gladiators, dressed to do battle every week? People are paying them absurd amounts of money to play this violent game. Fans spend huge sums of money on tickets and gambling associated with the game. So is this kind of conspicuous consumption of the valuable resources of time and money on such aggressive entertainment really okay for the Christ-follower to be involved in. Maybe if you don't spend any money and only watch on tv. Or maybe it's okay if you only watch the fourth quarter. Or maybe only if the tv is on mute. Or maybe if you limit yourself to just one game every two weeks.

In the particular verses we read earlier Paul speaks to the problem of divisions within the church. People were apparently picking their favorite leader and aligning themselves with that individual. ``I belong to Paul.'' ``I belong to Apollos.'' ``I belong to Cephas,'' he quotes them.

Maybe it's like if we were to say ``I listen only to Willard Swartley,'' or ``I follow only Rick Warren,'' or ``I belong to Marcus Borg!'' Now, obviously, I assume that Paul would agree that everyone is different and we have our leanings and opinions but Paul seems to be worried that things in Corinth have gone too far. The factionalism itself, the divisions themselves, are ruinous. And so what Paul does in these verses is to talk about the cross, the place of the cross in the Christian's life. Paul calls his readers to adhere to the ``message of the cross'' (1:18) even though, he would admit, it is mighty crazy, dumbfounding, in fact. As a matter of fact, for many people this ``Christ crucified'' idea is nothing but sheer foolishness.

Knowing God
Paul wants his readers to consider how they may ``know'' God. We might say, well, I see the snow capped Sierras and the yawning Pacific Ocean, and thus, seeing God in nature like that, I know something of God. Paul seems to say that such knowledge of the creation can carry you a certain distance.

We might add that feelings and experience, the warm buzz inside, that can teach us, and help us to know God. Maybe knowledge can teach us a lot about God. Becoming very wise and understanding about the world we live in.

But what Paul does argue is the better way of knowing God was confounding then and it is confounding now. We just so naturally are attracted to places of influence, glitz, and power. We're attracted to the silver-tongued speakers, the persuasive politicians, the glamorous entertainers, the sharp-tongued commentators, the intellectual giantsin other words, towards people of sway and power. But God, Paul says, chooses to be known in death on a cross, with all its attendant implications. And this is stunning to Paul's listeners because no Messiah is to suffer such a shameful death. And for us too, we don't want to turn to some back-alley blood stained, course and rugged cross.

And for Paul this ``knowing'' about the cross is not just sort of gathering up some information up in the brain somewhere. The kind of ``knowing'' that allows one to maybe admire a smooth gold cross, lifted high and beautiful over a lovely sanctuary filled with lovely well-dressed people. That is the kind of cross that you can stylize and make look pretty standing in front of your church, or perhaps in miniature form, around your neck. But knowing the cross for Paul is not just gaining information about Jesus' crucifixion, it is bringing this cross into our own being, deeply embracing it, committing ourselves to this Christ, the crucified one, and this way. We become bearers of the cross ourselves.

Unity and the cross
Now let's return to Paul's concern about the different factions the Corinthians were dividing into. Some follow Apollos! Some follow Cephas! Paul thinks that it is the cross, this foolishness to the wise that can become the basis for unity, a unity strong enough to stretch around all the competing loyalties.

Now this unity stuff is really tough for me. I resonate with the way Paul talks about the cross, its utter foolishness yet its power. A power rooted not in glitz or might but in love and humility. Clearly, Paul is speaking of the cross as a way of being, a way of living, and not referencing it in substitutionary atonement language that would see it only as a tool to appease the wrath of an angry God. But I wonder, with my suspicious mind, are other Christians whom I am supposed to be united with, are they imaging the same cross I am? How do we have unity in the cross if we are not talking about the same kind of cross?

One of the challenges to unity is that the stories which have shaped us, within the Christian community, are so different. Part of this is just a function of the generation we are part of. If you grew up in the Depression, and you remember the taste of dirt between your teeth, and now you've reached a place of relative comfort, and your descendants have gone to college, that's one world to have experienced. It's different from those who've grown up with technology at their fingertips, whose fingers can nimbly text, and who remember iconic moments like ``I did not have sexual relations with that woman'' and a triumphant speech in front of a ``mission accomplished'' sign. We could go on and on. The world of Woodstock and ``the times they are a changing'' is different from being shaped by the disco 80s or the collapse of the Iron Curtain. And this is without even mentioning the difference that arises from people coming together who have grown up in different parts of the world.

Paul dares to think that the cross is strong enough to speak into our world, no matter our time and place. I think he would argue that the cross confronts, debates, challenges the things in which we might boast. This could be our sense of national pride. It could be our sense of religious pride and understanding. It could be any triumphal sense we have lurking within that we sort of have things figured out. The cross confronts our pride and our power and calls us to walk a narrow path

Koyama's crucified hands
We know God best, and we experience a deeper unity, when we are bonded together in the way of the cross, the way of the crucified One.

I wish to conclude by sharing a thing or two I've been puzzling over from the book No Handle on the Cross by Kosuke Koyama from Japan. Koyama, now in his 80s, is from Japan and did his doctoral work at Princeton. For a time he was a missionary in Thailand. Later he taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

In this little book he spends time thinking about the cross. Jesus said to ``take up the cross'' and here in Corinthians Paul advocates for the foolishness of the cross. Yet, Koyama says, we are tempted to put a handle on it, and carry it around like a businessperson carries a briefcase or a lunchbox. We want to domesticate it. Control it. Understand it. Systemize it. Organize it. But the cross, in actuality, is awkward and clumsy to carry. You can't pick it up easily. You can't tame it.

And then, having stared for a time at an artist's rendition of Jesus on the cross, he focused on Jesus' hands, nailed to the cross. The hands were slightly cupped, open in a way but also bending, towards the nail.

He contrasted these hands to others he had seen, none of them bad, just different. There's the open hand, completely welcoming and invitational. And there's the closed hand (in a fist) that shows determination and commitment, but the crucified hand is somewhere in-between, not completely open, not completely closed. He says, ``in its'weakness' and `foolishness' it (the crucified hand) becomes far more resourceful than all the `lunchboxes' put together.'' (Koyama, No Handle…, p. 26)

We are again on the cusp of a mystery. Our challenge and our call is this, that in taking the cross up for ourselves we move towards a greater, stronger unity with others and we come to know in a deeper more mysterious way, the heart of God.

Amen.

--January 11, 2009
--2009.2
--First Mennonite Church, Reedley

The ideal and the real
I had a conversation this week with a good friend. I'll confess that I maintain an active interest in how the mighty and powerful, those who seem to have it all going their way, can stumble and fall, sometimes spectacularly. How can this be? I think to myself. I'm curious about the details though I don't want to be voyeuristic.

It's the stuff of good drama. Countless books and plays work with this theme. Shakespeare is full of it.

Perhaps in my conversation I was coming off as a little sanctimonious and gave the impression that most people live in a bubble similar to the one I inhabit. But my friend tried to bring me down to earth. Look, he said, this untidy, messy stuff is a lot more common than you think. In other words, he said, wake up and recognize that there is a lot of manure out there.

We ended the conversation with me saying something like, well, you know, I want to live pointing towards the ideal. Yes, my friend said, we talk about the ideal but we live in the real.

And, of course, my friend is right. We live in the real. For me this was another reminder that maybe it's true, maybe I'm too naïve, far too insulated from life's rough and tumble. Now, I don't want to go around assuming the worst in everyone else, constantly being suspicious, subscribing to conspiracy theories left and right, assuming sinister motives in everyone around. But it is true that there are people who, yes, they are loved by God but it's confounding to unpack all their craziness to figure out what is going on. And there are certainly surly sorts out there who traffic children, and there are unscrupulous, violent men who deal in drugs and order hits on gang rivals.

And then there are greedy types sitting behind reputable desks or who find themselves enshrined with political power. And there are those who enforce it all, using all the power the authorities grant them. So, don't call me naïve, I know this stuff is out there.

What happened in Philippi
Our story from the days of the early church, found in Acts 16, has a gritty, this-is-the-world-as-it-really-is quality to it. It doesn't take a whole lot of fleshing out, a whole lot of coloring between the lines, to imagine a modern cast for this old play.

There's the young girl, a ``slave-girl'' she's called, being used by men for their own advantage. She seems possessed, crazy perhaps, yet she's insightful. She can drive you mad. She followed Paul and company around for a couple days yelling out at the most inappropriate times. Ironically, she spoke a truth. ``These men are slaves of the most High God,'' she said. They proclaim ``the way to salvation.'' It was true but Paul knew that the words emerged from the mouth of a beaten down, damaged soul, a girl in need of the kind of salvation, the shalom, that he was preaching. The girl was incessantly yelling at the top of her lungs and after a couple days of it Paul was going mad himself. Finally he turns to her and says, ``In the name of Jesus Christ come out of her.'' And she found release, release from the domination of wickedness.

But this was not good news for her handlers, her pimp bosses who controlled her life and made good money off of her fortune telling. Now they saw just an ordinary girl with a calm spirit--there was no money in that. For Paul, it might have been a little bit intoxicating to have the girl throw compliments his way, but her health and well-being were far more important to him.

What do the slave-owners do, now that they face a huge loss in their profits? They bring Paul and Silas and company straight to the Roman civil authorities. In front of those who must decide they say nothing about the sudden turn downward in their business fortunes, but instead they dredge up the charge that Paul and Silas were advocating religious practices deemed illegal by the Romans. It's a trumped up accusation and, clearly, the pimps are out for revenge, out to get the evangelists who ruined one of their business enterprises. And somehow, they get a mob of people on their side, calling out for a pound of flesh.

The compliant magistrates, the Roman authorities, had them stripped and flogged and then dragged off to jail. There they are under the authority of the unnamed jailer. The jailer's job isn't to ask questions about the legitimacy of the charges against his subjects, he's just supposed to make sure that everyone stays in their cells. The rules and the punishment must be enforced.

So we have everything in place for an old or a modern tale of this is ``the way it really is.'' There is a crazy but strangely truthful girl whose life is controlled by greedy handlers. We've got a mob scene on the streets and we've got politicians without backbone. And finally we have willing civil servants ready to enforce the status quo.

God breaks in
It was the experience of the early church to witness the strange, powerful in-breaking of God's Spirit into their world. The old had better move aside because a new day is dawning. The fixed ways, the seemingly entrenched patterns of life where people are controlled by forces beyond themselves, where self-interest, survival, and preserving the commonly accepted are agreed to be normalall this is stood on its head. The ideal has invaded the world of the real, though it wouldn't be necessarily easy or without pain.

The possessed young girl actually gets it right. Paul and Silas are indeed announcing a new way of salvation, an alternative way to healing and wholeness. But it is a way that exposes a lot of folks for what they are, they are frauds.

The young girl is healed spiritually for the evil spirit departs. She's free of that spirit but she's not free yet because she is a slave in the hands of bad men. Her full and complete freedom has not yet arrived. These money-grubbers appeal to nationalism and anti-Semitism (these guys, Paul and Silas, are Jews!) and they appeal to good ol' religion (they are advocating customs that are not lawful for us) in order to punish both the girl and Paul and Silas. And for awhile they win. Paul and Silas are dragged off for a beating, then sent straight to jail.

In their cells, deep within the bowels of the jail, they sing and pray. And it is as though the heavens hear their entreaties and respond. A mighty earthquake shakes the prison doors open and loosens the shackles around the prisoners' hands and feet. Just like the young girl they move from enslavement and imprisonment to freedom.

But the story doesn't end there. The jailer, seeing what has happened, knows he has lost his control, and he knows that the one big thing he is supposed to dokeep the prisoners locked upis over. If the prisoners get away then he will be executed. So he knows too what it means he must do. To preempt the inevitable he will just take his own life.

That's what he's preparing to do when he hears a voice, Paul's voice. ``We are all here,'' says Paul. ``Don't do any harm to yourself!'' The earthquake would seem, at first blush, to signal that God is dramatically liberating all the prisoners. But this would mean the loss of a life, for the jailer would surely die as a result of the earth's trembling. Paul wouldn't stand for that.

As such, we witness a fundamental movement from a dramatic act of nature in the Old Testament to this incident in the New Testament. Remember the liberation of the people of Israel in the Old Testament from captivity in Egypt? Moses leads the great caravan of former slaves across the Red Sea en route to the Promised Land. It's the paradigm moment in the Old Testament, the signal that God is a liberating, slave-freeing God.

The uncomfortable part of the story is that Pharaoh's army all perishes in the Red Sea. The Israelites (the good guys) go free but the military forces of Pharaoh (the bad guys) all drown. In Acts 16 there is a tremendous act of nature. The earth shakes, the prisoners can go free. But the liberation of many means the death of one, the jailer. And Paul won't allow that to happen.
Just like the young girl is not to be sacrificed for the benefit of others, so the jailer is not to be shunted to the side for the expediency of others.

Receiving a reprieve the jailer asks for life in all its fullness. ``Believe in the Lord Jesus,'' is Paul's simple word. Just turn to Jesus, lean on him, and go where he takes you.

It's amazing what follows. There's a great scene of cleansing and healing. The jailer and all his household find wholeness, restoration, and salvation. They are all brought into the Christian camp, just like Lydia and her household earlier in the same chapter. They gather at the river and one by one absorb the cleansing baptismal waters.

And they aren't the only ones who get wet. The jailer has invited Paul and Silas to his home. There they are baptized and immediately they go to work. Paul and Silas had been flogged so the jailer tends to their wounds, lovingly cleaning them. Others in the household tend to matters of hospitality. They prepare a meal. Soon there is a spread. Everyone rejoices.

It's a new day and it happens right in the middle of the real world. The ideal, the possibility that the old cobwebs can be cleared out so that light can shine in, it actually happens. The new didn't come cheaply. No one is claiming that God will do a magical thing and that thenbingoeverything will be alright.

No, Paul and Silas pay a heavy price. The fresh winds blow into the young girl's life and though her soul is now cleansed, she still has to live with her memories and find her way forward. And Paul and Silas, upon witnessing God's good graces fall upon the girl, get beat up and imprisoned for their efforts. They live, after all, in the real world, and it's the price faithful people may have to pay for pointing to the light. We live in the real world, but may God help us to always keep our hearts and mind trained on the vision of God's will being done, on earth as it is in heaven, right smack in the middle of the chaos, the distortions, the greed, the violence, the mistrust of this very real world. Our calling is to live as people of hope right in the middle of the real, living out the crazy truth of it all, the crazy truth that God through Jesus Christ casts out fear so that the young girls and the jailers, the politicians and the mobs, the gangsters and the A students, the preachers and the homeless, the destitute and the prosperousso that we can all ``receive heaven's mercy for the new day that is just dawning.'' (J. Larson in Rejoice) Amen.

--May 16, 2010 , --2010.23 , --First Mennonite Church, Reedley

Experiences around the table
One of life's great joys is when the time rolls around, as it does every day, to sit down at the table to eat. Now I usually have a meal or two a day where it's just me, all by myself, with a newspaper in hand, eating. But I'm really thinking here of those shared meals, with my family, or together with friends, whether in a home or out at an eating establishment. The food, the conversation, it's just all so special. The food itself has a way of greasing the wheels , of providing a commonly understood natural backdrop for the real human interaction.

Eating is something all humans share in common. Customs surrounding eating differ from place to place. Some tables are very orderly and polite, ``pass me the squash, would you please'' and ``can I offer you some more chicken celery casserole?'' while other tables are veritable free-for-alls, every man, woman, and child for him/herself. Some people sit at tables; others maneuver onto a mat on the floor. Some tables are segregated by gender or age, others are not. We could make a long list.

Cuisines are different around the world. Food is a great vehicle for understanding other people. Learning to appreciate and actually enjoy different tastes and foods helps to build appreciation for other people. Dare we say, food can help to build peace?

But it can also present daunting challenges. I remember once sitting in a circle with Glena up in the northern reaches of Upper Volta (nor Burkina Faso) visiting with folks. Hospitality called for a gourd filled with water to be served to us, the special guests. And so some gnarled hands presented the water to me. I looked into the large bowl. The water was dirty, visible brownish specks floating around. This can't be good for me, I naturally thought. But I steeled my nerves and drank from the common cup. Another time I was at a Mennonite potluck on a Sunday afternoon at a church on the West Coast. We were in the church's Fellowship Hall and for some reason my nose picked up a smell that just revolted me. I wasn't sure if it was from the walls of the room, the food, the people, but it just turned my stomach sour. I suffered through that meal, trying to be pleasant, until finally , thankfully, it was over.

What Peter must have felt
Peter must have experienced his own confusion, or perhaps outright revulsion, back in Joppa. The story is first told in Acts 10, and then retold in Acts 11 in more abbreviated form. It was the middle of the day and Peter went up on his roof to pray. He got tired and hungry and fell into a trance-like sleep, it seems, and then had a wild dream. In the dream he saw a large sheet descend from the sky supporting an array of four-footed creatures, reptiles and birds. All of these creatures, according to Jewish Levitical law, were ritually unclean and unfit for consumption. But the voice of the Lord instructed him very bluntly: ``kill and eat.'' He objected but in his dream it was made clear that what God has called clean you should no longer call profane.

Peter's dream coincided with a visit from men sent by the Roman centurion Cornelius. A centurion was a Roman military commander in charge of a hundred men. Cornelius was a devout man, a God-fearing man, who had his own vision. His vision leads him to send for Peter and so, subsequently, Peter goes up the coast to Caesarea to the home of Cornelius. Cornelius, amazingly, falls to the ground in front of Peter, ``worshiping him,'' Luke (the writer of Acts) says. Peter then opens the dialogue by saying, basically, you know we Jews are to have nothing to do with you Gentiles but God has shown me that I should no longer call anything profane or unclean, so tell me, why in the world did you invite me here in the first place?''

The conversation continues. Peter preaches the message of Jesus, saying that anyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness. Peter and his friends see obvious evidence of the Holy Spirit (they were even speaking in tongues) and they have to shake their heads in amazement, what in the world has God done now?! How can this be?

When he got back to Jerusalem among his own people Peter had to face his own people. They strongly critiqued him for eating with these uncircumcised men. Over there in Cornelius' home Peter had dared to sit down at the table and eat with Gentiles. And furthermore, Luke takes pains to point out, Peter's friends said that you ate with uncircumcised men in Caesarea .

Of course it is incredible to our minds today how anyone could make a big deal out of a little medical procedure performed on the private parts of eight day old male babies. But we have to understand that this circumcision was very important, it is found right there in the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 17), an explicit sign, a reminder, of God's blessing promised for God's people.

While the sign of circumcision may be impossible for us to understand we probably can understand prejudices built around food. The law clearly taught that some foods were clean and others unclean. Ethical issues related to food are not foreign to us. Just think of your own prejudices, biases, or at least strong opinions built up around fast food, junk food, vegetarian diets, vegan diets, slow food, fast food, p easant food, soul food, home-made food, healthy food, organic food, grass-fed cattle, fresh food, pre- packaged food, fresh-from-the-garden food, frozen meals, natural food, meat eaters, free range eggs , gourmet food, and you could lengthen my list. If we admit to the mix of environmental, political, economic, religious, and personal taste factors that enter into our own feelings about food maybe we can begin to get in a touch to some small degree with the seeming hysteria surrounding food back when Peter was talking to his friends.

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson, a research professor in Strasbourg, writes this:
Food is not merely symbolic. It's either the common sustenance of the community or the cause of division. The truth is that there's always some good reason (religious, ethical, economic, political) to refuse someone else's food, but God rejects those reasons. (in the April 20 Christian Century , p. 21)
Someone may say, y ou can't eat that, it was presented to an idol. Or you can't eat that, we haven't prayed yet. Or, do you realize those eggs came from Foster Farms? Or, why that's not fair trade coffee, how can you drink it? Or, that meal is way too overpriced. But again, there are a lot of good reasons to refuse someone's food, but God rejects those reasons.

In Peter's time, what was the result of this kind of fervor around food? Not only did it say that ``food'' goes out to the dumpster, but the people who would eat it are kicked out in the alley too.

What Peter did in response
It's very interesting, and I believe instructive, how Peter responds to his questioning brothers back in Judea. Why did you sit down at table with those uncircumcised and eat with them that unclean food?

Peter's response, in my book, is simply a testimony. He tells the simple, unadulterated story of his own experience. He does so ``step by step.'' This is what happened to me. It all began one afternoon in Joppa. I went up on the roof to pray as is my custom. As I was praying I had this dream…. And the story went on from there. The simple, profound story of God's working in his life. And it led to the conclusion that if God can do this with them, then who am I to stand in the way of God, trying to block God from doing what God wants to do.

And in this case, in Acts 11, those hard-nosed, ritually pure and very circumcised men surrounding Peter had to stand amazed in the presence of what they had just heard. Our ``God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to li fe '' they determine. They were floored that it had happened but they had to accept this completely new reality. It seems that they quickly came to accept this new reality gladly.

What about us?
The sermon now reaches that familiar point, towards the end, where we need to make some practical application. What does this mean for me, for us? We may be plowing familiar ground here but it doesn't hurt us to pass by this place again.

Who are those uncircumcised people in my life, in our life? If I saw a sheet coming down from heaven challenging me to hang out with those people, who might they be?

This was a huge change for Peter and his circumcised Jewish friends to make. And I want to be a little defensive here and just say that every new idea, every proposed change, isn't necessarily always for the better. Maybe sometimes the way we've always done it, the way it's always been, the way we always have thought, well, actually, the old ways still hold merit. I think that's a truth.

But at the s ame time there seems to be considerable biblical and experiential weight behind the notion that the breath of the Spirit often seems to prod us to shake loose from the rusty chains of what has long been, or what we have long thought. Obviously, once again, we need some discernment, some thoughtful consideration with its implicit requirement of non-judgmental listening, to figure out, together, just what God might be saying to us in our own time.

You sat down at the table with them? You listened to who? You belong to that? You went there? Who did you say you read? You think that's okay?

If the sheet came down in front of you, who might be in it? What might be in it? Those loud -mouthed, tree-hugging environmentalists ? Those fundamentalists? Those corporate barons? Those self-righteous liberals? Those bored teenagers? Those lazy welfare bums? Those Tea Partyers? Those sleazy politicians? Those expert consultants?

We all have a story to share. Like Peter, it's important to be able to give testimony to what we have seen and heard. And like Peter, it's important to take the time to sit and listen and experience we might never have managed before. It's important to sometime share a tomato or a french-fry with someone else.

Maybe now is the time to sit and eat and share together. Amen.

--May 2, 2010
--2010.21
--First Mennonite Church, Reedley