Giving and the Poor Widow

This past Sunday the Gospel reading was of Jesus teaching in the Temple condemning the practices of the Scribes and lifting up the example of a widow whom he observed give two small coins which was all she had to live on. I did not preach this Sunday, the Community of the Holy Trinity had it's annual community retreat and I had been able to arrange for Rev. Dave Hedges to come out to preach an preside. So I heard his take on this story as well as Abbot Andrews take on this story. Interestingly enough in comparison with both this sermon and this sermon, Abbot Andrew and Father Dave questioned our use of the story of the widow. Abbot Andrew was careful not to completely through out the widow as exemplar, but qualified this interpretation with calling on us to look at the larger context of the story including Jesus' saying in condemnation of the Scribes who live of taking advantage of the generosity of widows. What I took away from Abbot Andrew's sermon was that the widow's exemplary generosity is tragic in that it was not necessary but exists because of injustices in the system, and the practices of some religious leaders. This should lead us to examine how we benefit from the poverty of others. Jesus call's attention to a person who would be otherwise ignored to show the disparity and reorient our thinking about not only what we give but how we have gained what we have. He admitted this can be extremely complex

Father Dave, turned our attention away from the widow as exemplar of sacrificial giving: he was retooling his sermon from his stewardship sermon he gave in the morning to his parish. So his sermon was still concerned for what this passage might have to say to us about giving, and was less concerned with Abbot Andrew's emphasis on letting the reason for the Widow's poverty and exemplary generosity teach us something about the Gospel and our responsibility in the world. Father Dave directed us to see how Jesus turns our attention to the proportions and not the amounts. In a sense the proportions are out of disproportionate: The wealthy give large amounts but hardly notice the offering and are praised for their generosity, and the widow gives her whole living, and because it is such a small amount goes unnoticed except that Jesus points it out. The point is the great disparity, the proportions are unjust, it should not be looking at the amount but the proportion and a widow should not have to give all that she has to live on.

What I take from these two interpretations of the Gospel text is that in giving we are to be mindful. Mindful not only of what we give and in what proportion but of how we have what we have to give. We are not only to give proportionately (not all of what we have to live on nor an unnoticeable proportion of what we have) unconcerned about the amount, but also with the awareness of how we have attained what we have to give. Thus giving has to do with how we live, how we make money, how we develop our abilities and what we do with both our money and abilities. We can be and are called to not live as the Scribes who impoverished Widows by making a living off their disproportionate giving. This is certainly a challenge when it is not always clear where what we have comes from and who may have been impoverished so that we may have our way of life. The Fair Trade movement is one way that we can seek to not only be aware of injustices behind things we have or purchase but also seek to not share in economic processes that in the very least at their origin keep people in poverty. but there is also the challenge of the reality of Slavery in our time where slaves are often used to cultivate cocoa, that is then purchased by Chocolate manufacturers. This slavery is hidden partially at least because until recently people were not asking questions, and is coming to our awareness as we realize that slavery is alive and well around the world though not in the exact form we are most aware of from our courses in history.

Announcements

Larry will be out of town from October 23rd through November 1st. He will of course not be at his office hours until November 2nd.

This Sunday October 25, we will have our service at our regular time of 5pm, Rev. Monte Johnson will be preaching and presiding.

November 1 we will have a joint service with Immanuel Lutheran for the feast of All Saints, 10:30 am. We will not have a service at 5 pm in the chapel.
Also remember that Daylight Saving Time ends November 1, be sure to turn your clocks back 1 hour before going to bed on Saturday October 31.

November 8 we will return to our usual worship time at 5pm and Rev. Dave Hedges will be preaching and presiding.

Vacation and office hours

I am currently on vacation and will not be at my office hours this week.
Upon my return times and locations will be moved around.
Starting August 31st I will be at Ennui Cafe Tuesday evenings 7:30 to 9:30 pm.
I will be at Metropolis coffee Thursday Afternoons 3:30-5:30 pm.
And Friday early afternoons at the Coffee Studio on Clark at Hollywood, starting September 18th.

Health Care Reform

I have also posted my current thoughts on health care reform on my Priestly Goth Blog. Those are my personal opinions and they inform what I would say pastorally but they are not intended as that on my blog.

As a pastor and minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ I remind all that for the Church and as disciples of Christ we must begin our thinking with Jesus' and God's concern for the "least of these", and the poor. Given this it seems that the staggering numbers of those who are without insurance and that among those are people working two perhaps more jobs to support their families and who cannot afford basic health care nor the insurance that would enable them to afford basic health care, is unacceptable given this need to care for the least of these. We as Christians should be concerned about this situation. A public option is one way to address this issue. The Gospel and any moral mandate does not though demand a public option, what is demanded is that we make choices not out of our own self preservation but out of a sense of justice and righteousness and a care for the outcast stranger, poor and other. Those who are Christian and oppose a public option then need to offer ways in which such an opposition is more than simply passing by on the other side of the road convinced that there is nothing we can do to help, and being self-satisfied in our private and personal charity. In part this is so because still a majority of people claim to be Christian in this country, which means that there is a good chance that Christians are among those who profit off a system that in the least is as concerned with making a profit as it is for peoples health. This also means that Christians are also among those who cannot afford health care and are without insurance. If we simply oppose health care reform based on some sense that the church and personal charity should fill in the gaps of our for profit system, it is clear that this is not happening, that we are not providing care for those who do not have access to it. Show how the churches and their institutions and members are stepping in and providing the care for those our system does not care for and I will listen.

Yet for those who support health care reform, I urge caution. We should ask from a Christian POV how much power should we give the government. Even well meaning politicians and rulers can make selfish and power appropriating decisions in the name of the Good. In the Revised Common Lectionary in year B we have been following the story of the Kings of Israel starting with Saul and now reading about Solomon, all duly appointed and anointed of God, all in varying degrees failed to act in true justice and righteousness, and found the temptations of power to be too great to resist. I do not think we as Christians can ignore the dangers of increasing the ways in which a government can have a say in our day to day lives. Justice and the Gospel do not call us to accept whatever a legislature may give us as possible reform. Our scriptures give us a healthy dose skepticism even of good government.

So as we as followers of Christ seek to wade through this current morass two things we need to keep in mind: that we are called away from self preservation and moved to seek to help and care for the least of these and the poor, and government and the power to do something does not make it necessarily just, even if it is well intentioned and done by a legitimate power structure.

For us at Reconciler I suggest that perhaps we use this current legislation as a case study for our fall study on Biblical and Christian perspectives on government and justice, and take the time to examine the ins and outs and the justice of the proposed legislation.

Glennwood Ave. Arts Fest

We have a booth at the 8th annual Glennwood Arts Fest. Arists Clove, Kate Setzer Kamphausen and Larry Kamphausen will be showing their work. Members of the congregation are staffing the booth with the artists. Come out and see us and enjoy the festival, Saturday August 22 and Sunday August 23rd noon to 8pm.

This is our second time at the festival. In 2007 it was a fun time, and there are always great artists.

Sermon Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, August 9 2009

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Psalm 130
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51

The tragedy of the story of David and Absalom is palpable, choices of both David and Absalom lead to Absalom’s death. This past week we remembered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the horrific end to a horrific war. A whole slew of human choices lead us to that point. So often our choices as human beings collectively and individually lead to tragedy. In history, whether of Israel or our own we are confronted with the tragedy of so much of human existence. I say this at the top because neither the story in Samuel nor the memorial of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the numerous horrors of WWII, not the least being the concentration camps, should be passed over in silence, yet this is not where I want to linger. So, acknowledging that much in this world as it has always been and is not as they should be I direct us to contemplate living in faith, a faith that should satisfy all our longings a faith that leads us to be as children towards God.
This is perhaps challenging view of faith; faith is in this view is neither simply holding certain comforting beliefs about the supernatural world and being, nor is it ones own fundamental belief about the nature of the world. This view of faith challenges us by this exhortation to be like children. What might this mean: As we grow up one of the things we desire is independence. This is especially so for us within our culture that emphasizes individuality, self-sufficiency, and independence. We want to be different from our parents, be on our own, blaze our own trail. Yet in growing up our ability to become self-sufficient and independent is a dependent process. It depends on not only one’s parents but an entire functioning system that is the adult world, which even as one grows up one both wants to enter into and rebel against. Our emphasis on independence and individuality, at times hides from us the ways in which becoming our own person depend on what we push against in this process of individuation. Our ability to become different and move out on our own from our parents depends on the care nurture, and teaching of our parents and other adults. Dependence on others never really ceases, and who we are is due to who others are and how we have been raised, and the options we have been shown. But we often hide ourselves from these webs of dependence, or downplay connection and debt of those who have gone before. This tendency to not see the web of dependence may hide from us a radical notion in our Epistle and Gospel. According to Paul and Jesus we are not meant to become independent of God. Our flowering and fulfillment as human persons depends on God and being in true relationship with God.

This sort of faith is what we reflected on last week, as that faith brings us to the waters of baptism and from the waters of baptism that our faith is sustained. Paul directs our attention to this faith as a calling as Christians members of the body of Christ. In speaking of calling I am not necessarily talking about a specific call from God to do a certain thing with your life or a period of your life, but that call which is shared by all Christians as members of the church. Paul describes what that should look like, and that this way of being is known in seeking to be imitators of God, the way children imitate adults.

Jesus in Johns Gospel pushes further on what is perhaps objectionable about Christianity: the claim that there is only one who gives life to us and the world. There is only one who gives life to the world and as such we are only to have hunger for that one. This assertion of Christ’s reveals to us one of the things that is most difficult to keep attuned to in Christian faith: our responsibility and our dependence. God is the source of all life and existence; Christ is God, the Word who sustains everything. Yet, Ephesians reminds us that all in all of Christ does not negate the importance of our actions. While it is true that God in Jesus Christ is the one who gives life to the world, if we live in death, this life not only doesn't come to us there is that potential that those who we know and the world and the world around us continues to taste death.

According to the Apostle Paul, once we understand all God has done in Jesus Christ once we have received God in Jesus Christ in faith and baptism and recognize that we are part of the people of God, the bodiy of Christ the Temple of the Holy Spirit, we then are to act in ways consistent with this reality, with life. As children we learned from adults around us what it meant to be human and human acculturated into a particular culture, we learned what it meant to be a man or a woman, how to treat people. In fact even as we wanted to be independent we also wanted to act like the adults around us. This is a complex process and there is choosing and sometimes this imitation is not of parents or a blood relative. Imitation can also be something asked up us. Someone gives us a piece of candy or bread and we are instructed to say "Thank you." We want something and the parent will tell the child "say, please may I have some candy." or we tell our children say good buy. Imitation takes on the both subtle things that a parent or another adult may not even be aware of, those things that very from culture to culture but aren't at the front of the mind, and the child imitates, and we take on delight when we see a child mimic some subtleties of someone’s personality. It is through imitation that we learn what it is to be human and what our culture understands to be appropriate human behavior. Paul's instruction here is about imitation, not of human beings but of God. God is the adult world we are to be acculturated to as Christians. We are to become like God, this is the point of faith and Baptism.

We may struggle with the reality that becoming like God is a childlike activity. Accepting this journey of faith accepts our dependence upon a reality outside ourselves, which we can not wholly grasp, comprehend, or control. The language of both our Epistle and Gospel tells us that our relation to God is always like being a child in the adult world. These passages also reminds us that our actions matter although the source of our ability to act in these ways is dependent on another reality, another person, God. When Jesus says that the one who will eat of his flesh, which is the bread of heaven, will no longer hunger is to point to the centrality of this dependence, and also that only God in Jesus Christ satisfies us allows us to be who we truly are to be. Just as children cannot become who they are to be without the nurture support and example of adults around them.

Paul's instruction is what we are to look like Christ as we are sustained by Christ. As we are given life, even as we still find that we are hungering after other things than God, We are to seek only after God to satisfy all we are and desire. Perhaps this feels limiting and constricting? Perhaps this is too much? We want our passions and hungers, they seem to give us life, but they exhaust us and never ultimately satisfy. The one of whom we are to eat and let satisfy our hunger sustains us, and is the creator of the entire universe, all that we see, of our very beings, thus is only what can ultimately satisfy our desires. The truth that in comparison to God we are like infants and toddlers all of humanity: we don't know anything about how to be, or what to eat, or how to live. Only in Christ only by allowing Jesus Christ to satisfy us completely, only by focusing on who God is, seeking to imitate and be sustained by God, can we know what true desire is, and what it means to be truly human. At times certainly this restrains, but like a parent who keeps a child from chasing their favorite ball out into a busy street this sense of restriction is safety and life. In some fashion our culture sees all this when we focus on righting injustices and seek after justice. Yet as a society as a whole in seeking for justice we aren't looking beyond ourselves but solely relying on our human understanding, as if children could know how to be adult without first imitating adult behavior. Our desire for justice is true but we do not want to look to the one who in Jesus Christ’s life death and resurrection showed us the meaning and source of the only justice that deserves the name. The Christian claim the claim of Jesus Christ and his Apostle Paul is that we cannot know life and justice without first learning of them from God, and being sustained by the very flesh of God. Or we have no ability to truly change ourselves and the world, unless, as some mystics have put it, we suckle on the very breasts of God. Amen.

Revisting Sharing our Faith

A month ago I reflected outreach as sharing our faith. At our last council meeting I asked us to reflect on events that we could have that would allow us to share with others our faith. Thinking more on this I have been wondering how best to keep anything we plan to do as natural and organic to our life together as a congregation. This line of thought is trying to think through why our one Beer Bread and the Bible was something we as a congregation found enriching to our faith and community life and a place where our friends Christian and non-christian felt welcome to come and participate. There are couple things that I think were important for the Beer Bread and the Bible: we were interested in reading James and the in the themes of James, it was a moment of outreach but it was not for the purpose of getting members for Reconciler.

As I push us to think more about outreach, I feel we can begin feel pressure of something in addition to our Bible studies and fellowship as a congregation. Thus another thing we need to add to our busy schedules. Yet, I am hopping that our approach can be more integrated and integral when it comes to outreach. So,I keep coming back to the one Beer Bread and the Bible is not because I think we have to replicate exactly what Jeremy and Charity did in hosting and having it, but it emerged organically from both Jeremy and Charity's desires but also the character of the congregation at the time. It was something people who did not attend Reconciler came to and felt comfortable attending without any push to be part of the congregation. Also the reading of James and then discussing was a Bible study that it allowed people with differing levels of experience with and understanding of the Bible to enter in and come away with something. Lastly it was a time of fellowship for our congregation but also with friends who were either Christian or not Christian. These three things tell me that it wasn't something we added on but something that came from who we were, and we wanted to share it with others, without expectation or strings.

What I feel we can learn from this is that anything we do for outreach first should be something that we want to do and are interested in. Second it should be an opportunity for us as a congregation to connect with each other. Third it needs to be open to others participation even if they never attend Reconciler. If we keep these three things in mind perhaps some of the pressure is off of "creating" an outreach event.

I am thinking that as we plan to gather in September to talk about Christian faith and Baptism as Chrissy and Will prepare to be baptized, and as we (0r I) solidify what we want to study for the fall and as we have potlucks, that we see at least some of these as places to invite our friends and acquaintances as well as times for us to gather as a congregation. This is also how our presence at the Glennwood Arts Festival came about we have had visual artists as members of Reconciler, I am a painter, so it made sense to be there, as our congregations changes and grows perhaps there are other ways we can integrate members talents and involvement with Reconciler's visible presence in the community.