Preamble to the US Constitution text for Sunday 10 January 2020

PREAMBLE

to the United States Constitution

Signed in convention September 17, 1787. 

Ratified June 21, 1788

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Reflection        Every week from the pulpit I issue a call to action aimed at what is right. Last week it was, “From time to time throughout each day pause and say, ‘How awesome is this place. How awesome this moment,’ then experience how that feels in your body.” Ever since my early career days as a clinical researcher I have lived and worked according to the ethic, “Never ask people to do something that I have not done or am not willing to do.”

My daily practice declaring “How awesome is this place. How awesome this moment,” proved rather satisfying until Wednesday around noon when I left my office to walk through the sanctuary heading to the kitchen to heat some wild mushroom soup for lunch. Rapt in a clamor of chaos and confusion I discover two of our Christ Ship Enterprise team members, Paul and Dale, with eyes glued to their new AV computer screen, ladders abandoned and wires for the cameras they were installing dangling from the ceiling. 

Like a moth drawn to a flame I move to see what is so captivating. The first image that assaults me is of someone with a long pole like object smashing a window and people pushing others through it, the image cuts to a man in black hanging by one hand from the side of a wall, then cut to an interior scene of men in suits crouching with guns aimed through a decorative window. “What is this?” I ask. Wide eyed and incredulous Paul replies, “It is the Capitol, the Capitol building. Rioters have invaded it. The Vice President and congress are being evacuated under armed guard.” Along with my eyes the camera lens widens to encompass a storming sea of people ramming their way into the building. Hot tears cut a river across my cheek. 

“How awesome is this place? How awesome this moment?” Looking toward the altar I shake my heart at God. “How can this be? How can this be happening? How can I say, “How awesome is this place? How awesome this moment?” Where are You God?” Heartsick and nauseated I retreat to my office. But work as usual eludes me. Even my trusted antidote to whatever ails me, walking four-legged Mojo along the Way of the Cross, fails me. 

Although I can mutter the words, “How awesome is this place. How awesome this moment,” like stale bread I have been exposed to too much heat and have become hardened. Steeped in images of smashed windows, fear and furious faces, I have no feel for the awesome; beautiful, magnificent or grand. 

Hours later listening to the radio I hear someone say, “We are better than this.” But I say, “No. What we see are the consequences of our hardened hearts and brutish behaviors. We, the people of these relatively young United States have not yet grown into our dream of “establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” In our races to win, our grabs for power, our adulation of celebrity we have  forgotten our responsibility for the commonwealth and common good. We have lost sight of the audacious dream defined in the Preamble to our Constitution, a dream that we as Christians understand to be aligned in the will of God. 

It is time for every single one of us to look into the mirror and admit we are responsible for the anger, alienation and atrocities provoked by our actions and inaction. We, the people of God, are meant to live for something greater than our personal rights and well being. We are meant to live with and for each other in a just and orderly nation aligned in the will of God.

Now, looking at footage of the Wednesday siege of the United States Capitol building we can say, “How awesome is this place. How awesome this moment,” because we remember that awesome also means alarming, dreadful and horrifying.  And we, the people of God, the people of this young country, must stand up and face the alarming, dreadful and horrifying consequences of forgetting to care for our commonwealth and common good.  Yes God, there you are clamoring up the steps of the US Capitol building, hiding behind a chair on the US Senate floor, shouting obscenities and whispering prayer. Yes God, there you are exposing all the peoples fear.

It is time to take responsibility for our missteps as well as the unintended consequences of our triumphs. It is time to move beyond blame and shame and aspire to our country’s audacious dream of “establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” 

Perhaps you will join me living according to the premise“Never ask people to do something that you have not done or are not willing to do. Never ask people to live in a way you have not lived or are not willing to live.”

      Be sure to listen to "The Prayer"  - a bit of medicine for our souls - click on upper right link. 

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Gospel text for Sunday 18 October 2020

Matthew 22:15-22        The Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

Reflection

Are you Republican or Democrat? I say, “Yes.”

Are you pro choice or pro life? I say, “Yes.”

Are you capitalist or environmentalist? I say, “Yes.”

I experience these as forced choice questions, questions designed to assign me to a particular category or group, questions aligned with a narrowly defined set of values or ideology, questions meant to make me smaller and separate me from you. I do not want to bite. 

Do you want drinkable water and breathable air or freedom from government over reach? What answer could we possibly have but, “Yes?”

Using forced choice questions to distract, divide and entrap people is nothing new. This is what we witness in our gospel text as the Jewish religious officials, the Pharisees, along with the men who profit by collecting taxes for the Romans, the Herodians, try to entrap Jesus with their question, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

The first thing to remember is, the Pharisees and the Herodians are opposing groups. The Pharisees enforce strict worship of God in prayer and study of the Jewish law. The Herodians support the monarchy of Herod who is the source of their livelihood. Together they are trying to force Jesus to choose sides. If Jesus protests against paying taxes to Rome, the Herodians will quickly accuse him of treason and inciting the people to rebel against Roman authority. If Jesus supports paying taxes to Rome he will be counseling the Jews to use idolatrous coins  that not only sport Caesar’s image but also the inscription, “Tiberius Caesar, Augustus, son of divine Augustus.” Jewish law definitively prohibits the use of such idolatrous objects. Furthermore, Jesus’ followers who are suffering beneath the burden of excessive taxes will feel betrayed. 

We have all been there, caught between a train and a platform. Are you for profitable business or are you for healthcare? Are you for free speech or for civil discourse? Are you for free enterprise or environmental regulation? Whenever we are faced with these forced choice questions our antennae need to rise and we must become wise, wise as Jesus, and refuse to be distracted, divided and entrapped. Refuse to bite.

Let us with wisdom look at a contemporary example of a forced choice question intended by each party to entrap and incriminate the opposition. Are you for environmentalism or capitalism? How do we begin to wisely engage this question? Wisdom begins by asking, what are the fundamental values and downsides of each? Please pardon this simplified description.

Capitalism affirms peoples rights to private ownership (many of us own our home and car). Capitalism maintains our freedom to use our resources for profit (invest our money), and privileges individual rights (to own property including guns and to have custody over our bodies). Overall, capitalism has led the U.S. to great economic success. 

Environmentalism values protection and conservation of natural resources (many of us are mindful of our use of power and water). Environmentalism privileges the common good (we care about our neighbors and our planet). Environmentalism has protected public lands and provided national parks and seashores available for all to enjoy. 

A downside of environmentalism is that action aimed for the common good can impinge on individual rights eg to do fracking on my privately owned land.  A downside of capitalism is private ownership of resources does not incentivize action aimed at the common good, eg manufacturing practices tend to privilege profit over the side effects of contaminants on the shared resources of earth and air. 

So let me ask again, Are you for capitalism or environmentalism? If we are honest with our selves what can we say but, “Yes?” What then shall we do?

As people of faith I believe we must refuse to be distracted, divided and entrapped. Distracted by the high emotion with which each group spins their story, divided by shrinking ourselves to fit into a singular category or group, entrapped by political ideologues, who, like the Pharisees and Herodians are bent on winning by getting us to shrink into their side. We must not bite.

As people of faith we affirm that all of creation is good, including the earth and all that dwells in and on and around her, so, we are environmentalists. As people of faith we affirm that from the beginning human beings are very good with the right to freedom and fullness of life, so, we are also capitalists. Therefore, the question is not, “Are you for capitalism or environmentalism?” The question is, “How do we embody our value for both the individual and the collective, for personal agency and the common good?” 

Is it fair to appropriate Jesus’ words and say, “Give therefore to the individual the things that are the individuals, and to collective the things that are the collectives?” 

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Gospel text for Sunday 13 May 2018

John 17:6-19        Jesus prayed for his disciples, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

Reflection        OK, today it is time for a reboot, time to install a new operating system. Our old way of thinking and being in the world is no longer working. One after another of our systems are crashing, our programs are failing, and so today we glue ourselves to Jesus and pray for a new operating system. Which, by the way, is what I believe Jesus was doing two thousand years ago while standing within earshot of the disciples and praying aloud to God affirming that the Word, the truth that he has passed on to the disciples, is  setting them crosswise with the world’s status quo such that they no longer belong and need protection. 

In and of and through his life Jesus passes on the revelation of God’s Incarnate Presence to the disciples and “now they have everything” (a new operating system) that God has given to Jesus. The disciples have received the way and truth and life as incarnated by Jesus. They have heard Jesus’ words, witnessed his compassionate actions and participated in his ministry of healing. The questions now are, “When Jesus is no longer physically present, will the disciples hold fast to the truth they have received? Will they continue to act out of the new operating system? Or will they be vulnerable to a world that hates their way of compassion, community, and common good and revert to the old zero-sum system of competition for power and privilege? When Jesus is no longer physically present, will the disciples (and by extension us) will we succumb to the countervailing forces in the world that promote ill will,  self-worship and separation - the defunct and dysfunctional old operating system?”

Jesus knows all of this and so prays for protection for the disciples, something I imagine he must have done for himself every day when he wandered off by himself to pray. Jesus knows that his life depends on God the Father; it is written into the source code of his operating system. Jesus knows that all he says and does is given to him by the Father, the source. In his words, “Everything you (God) have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them (disciples.)…”

Like Jesus, like the disciples, we are sent into the world and do not belong to the world. When we attempt to go it alone, putting our faith in the old operating system, fighting to assert our individual rights and express our personal powers, we are doomed. But, if like Jesus  we remember our Source and hold fast to our new operating system, like Jesus we will be sanctified, affirmed and set apart to continue Gods’ work in the world. 

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Gospel text for Sunday 18 September 2016

I apologize, blogger is not allowing any formatting to be saved.


 Luke 16:1-13 Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” ...............

Reflection....        What can be said about a dishonest manager who lures the very same people he has cheated into cheating their master for their gain as well as that of the dishonest manager himself? And what was the master thinking when he praised the dishonest manager for colluding with the master’s debtors to cheat him? Once again it seems Jesus is spinning tales to elude our minds and awaken our spiritual consciousness “…for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”


.................Being the presumptive “children of light” the disciples and we tend to be rather clever when it comes to construing strategies to insure our security and survival. According to Jesus the same cannot be said with regard to our spiritual awareness. The dishonest manager saw money and those indebted to him as assets needed to insure his security and survival. He put his faith in himself and his cunning game plan. In so doing the dishonest manager made his grand scheme to acquire money and indebtedness his god, which of course never pays off. What the misguided manager failed to note is that money comes and money goes. One cannot secure his life by trying to hang onto it nor by coercing others into debt. This is not to say that money is not good. Money is good, except when it causes dishonesty and division between people and takes the place of God, in whom we put our faith and hope for security and survival. Money is good when it is an instrument for promoting love among all people.


.....................Which brings the current political scene to mind. What if this country spent the fifteen-hundred million dollars being dissipated on the 2016 presidential campaigns on cultivating relationships and loving our neighbors instead? What if the United States of America decided to take the Spirit of our 1789 Constitution seriously and truly sought to “promote the General welfare” of all people? What if “We, the people” chose to walk The Way of Jesus demanding those with the greatest position, power and pelf use their God given resource to cultivate relationship and promote love among all people? It is time for us individually and collectively to ask the question, “Who or what is our God? Whom do we and our leaders serve?” Because, “no slave can serve two masters,” and the way we spend our money reveals what is our God. If you found this post to be meaningful, please share by clicking on icons below. Thank you.

Gospel text for Sunday 11 May 2014

John 10:1-10        Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

Reflection        What is life? That was the first question that came to mind when I read Jesus’ words to the disciples and us, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”  I typed my question, “What is life”  into google search and guess what popped up? You are not connected! Oops? So I waited twenty-seven seconds and then received 9 billion, 600 million hits.  Now that’s connection! 

In the 1960s Lynn Margulis, the biologist who is credited with one of the great achievements of twentieth-century evolutionary biology, explained how eukaryotic cells - cells that have a nucleus and a cellular membrane and are the basis of all life - Margulis explained how these cells evolved over millions of years as a result of interdependent and cooperative relationships between once-distinct bacteria. (Which of course means our true ancestors are bacterium.) Margulis also suggested that rather than evolution being driven by competition it is determined by symbiotic or cooperative relationships between organisms of different phyla and kingdoms. In other words, at the cellular level, life is relationships between things that are not the same and that change over time.

What does that have to do with our gospel text? Well, sheep and shepherds are of different orders. Much as Margulis’ distinctively different bacterium interact and cooperate to impel evolution,  so too do the shepherd and the sheep collaborate for the common good. I believe that is Jesus’ point when he says, “I came that they may have life and have it in abundance.” I believe Jesus is saying, "I came to be in relationship with them. I came to be in interdependent and cooperative relationship with each and every one of them, like a shepherd with his sheep. See, I even know them by name and they recognize my voice. I came to pour myself out to them (and to us) so that they could pour themselves out to me. Like the ancient bacterium that engulfed one another such that both survived and evolved over millions of years and became the basic cells of life, I, Jesus came to be in intimate, deeply personal relationship with you; loving, leading and caring for you. I came like a shepherd to the sheep; reaching across the chasm of order, genus, family and species. " Jesus came to show us the way of reaching across whatever divides us, the way of bridging our differences and cooperating for the common good. 

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Gospel text for Sunday 29 April 2012

John 10:11-18
Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away-- and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father."