Monday, February 7, 2022

What Do You Know to be True of God?

 
Nebula M78

 What do you know to be true of God?

 
A colleague texted me that question this morning. Here's my response:
 
God does not exist in a way humans can say that "God is" or that God "exists." God is outside time and space and thus is not constrained by creation. God's nature is creativity.

I believe the nature of God is love.
I believe God delights in creation and creatures.
I believe God does not keep a record of rights and wrongs like a scorecard as justification to send some of us to a fiery eternity.
I believe God wants to be in relationship with every creature and all of creation until, well beyond my ability to conceive how long.

God can't change what humans do. Our mistakes are our own. Neither does God rescue the good and let the bad live in punishment.

It was a hastily constructed text response, but it gets tot he essence of what I believe to be true of God. In this space though, let me add a bit more.

I believe we are created in the image of God by God's design. 
I believe that, in Jesus, we see the fullest revelation of God in human form.
God is our constant companion. There is never a moment we are apart from God's presence.

Peace be with you,
Jerry

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Sermon from Epiphany 3 C, January 23, 2022

 


EPIPHANY 3 C

JANUARY 23, 2022

LUKE 4:14-21

“THE REVOLUTIONARY GOSPEL”

 

14Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. 16When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18“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, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

John Lennon penned these words, “You say you want a revolution, well, you know, we all want to change the world.” Yes, but, not everyone agrees on how it should be changed.

 

The Gospel lection for today begins with these words, “Filled with the power of the Holy Spirit...,” which Jesus received on the day of his baptism (Luke 3:21-22), Jesus began his ministry in Galilee. That is where we begin today. Jesus has emerged from his baptism consumed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Emboldened by the power of the Holy Spirit. Everybody in the towns and villages around the Jordan River started talking about his preaching. Communities invited him to teach in their synagogues. He was in demand because his preaching was powerful and new. Unlike any they had heard. It seemed empowered from beyond.

 

The Gospel writer Luke makes a big deal of the Holy Spirit, both in the Gospel and in the Book of Acts. In fact, in the Acts of the Apostles, the official name of the book in the Bible would be better entitled, the Acts of the Holy Spirit. In Acts it is the Holy Spirit that is the primary actor, moving the early community of believers outward from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

 

It was THAT Holy Spirit that had inhabited the whole being of Jesus and it was pushing him forward into the world. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he went out preaching in a world that might not ultimately welcome the good news he was preaching or even see it as good news. There were many people who responded positively to his message. Luke says that the people praised his preaching. They thought well of him. He seemed to be the small-town boy making it big. Of course, we know, because we know the whole story, that as time passed and the message of the Holy Spirit infused Jesus began to sink in not everyone was impressed.

 

Where we find ourselves in Luke today is for Luke the launch of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. Jesus had come home to Nazareth where he was graciously invited to offer an interpretation of the scripture reading for the day. Jesus was enjoying a growing celebrity in the surrounding communities, so it seemed proper to invite him to his home synagogue to bless them with a bit of his Spirit-infused wisdom.

 

Luke tells us that Jesus was handed the Isaiah scroll, from which he read a word from Isaiah 61 about the ministry of the Spirit, which served to anoint a preacher who would bring good news to the poor. One is sure that Jesus read the text faithfully as he spoke the words of Isaiah detailing the nature of this good news.

 

Captives would be released.

 

The blind would receive their sight.

 

The oppressed would go free.

 

The year of Jubilee would be proclaimed.

 

Surely, the congregation at the synagogue knew these words. They were words of hope for a nation of Israel that had for centuries been overrun, enslaved, exiled and diminished. Isaiah’s Spirit-inspired message is one of justice and mercy, of righteousness and freedom, and no doubt it was solace for the weary Hebrew soul.

 

When Jesus finished reading the passage he sat down, and with every eye in the congregation focused on him, they awaited his wisdom on this passage. What would the famous teacher have to say? What fresh understanding would he bring?

 

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

In other words: I’m the one Isaiah spoke of. By the power of the Holy Spirit I am going to do these very things. You say you want a revolution? It starts today, with me.

 

We all want to change the world, but we don’t all agree on how it should be changed, or what it should look like after the changes. For Jesus, the blueprint for revolution was this passage from Isaiah 61. It was controversial and revolutionary from the start, from the moment he sat down and told his hometown powerbrokers that he was the one, powered by the Holy Spirit, that was ushering in a change. The world was about to turn upside down, and inside out.

 

Each year on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day our Facebook feeds, our Twitter timelines are filled with quotes. Each one of them important and inspirational. Dr. King reminds us that we are called to something bigger and more important than our own selfish desires. He calls us to a blessed community where all are valued. He was not always so beloved, as you may recall. In the 1960’s his was a message that was roundly rejected and so was he. Dr. King was not only a controversial figure, he was loathed. The FBI investigated him actively. He was the subject of violence and threats daily, and his family as well. Even his clergy colleagues urged him to tone down his rhetoric. In Birmingham, AL the clergy colleagues wrote a letter published in local papers asking him not to engage in public demonstrations for the poor, the incarcerated and the oppressed in their town. Dr. King, infused by the power of the Holy Spirit kept working for what he believed Isaiah and Jesus called him to do. Then, one day, he was murdered from afar.

 

Revolutions that unseat power can extract a price; I suppose. Jesus surely was not oblivious to that when he stood to read the scroll from Isaiah, nor when he sat down to proclaim its fulfillment in the hearing of his hometown neighbors; the people he had known and who had known him all his life. The audacity of the carpenter’s son. Who does he think he is?

 

Ah, we love Jesus. 2000 years since his passing we who are Christian proclaim our love for him, but his words of revolution and transformation and systemic change are often ignored by a church that is comfortable and entrenched. His words that so offended the people of his hometown and of his own faith that they openly plotted his demise often barely intersect our lives.

 

Where is the power of the Holy Spirit now? How do we find the revolutionary Jesus in sermons whose transient truths are as fickle as the Kentucky weather?

 

Once upon a time, long ago, a person said to me after worship that they would have preferred I preach less social justice and more gospel, more good news. OK. I heard you. But I respectfully disagree with your premise and your conclusion. Look how Luke introduces the ministry of Jesus here. “God 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.”

 

Here is how I read this. If the Good News we proclaim as a church, if the Gospel we are preaching isn’t good news to the poor, isn’t good news to the captives, isn’t good news to those who are blinded, isn’t good news about freedom for those who we have systematically oppressed, isn’t good news about the Kingdom of God on earth as it already is in heaven, then it isn’t the Good News that the Holy Spirit inspired in Jesus.

 

Is that radical? Is that revolutionary? Yes. If it wasn’t then the Jewish religious authorities and the Roman oppressors wouldn’t have paid him any attention. People wouldn’t have given up everything they own to follow him. And the world would have just kept on going as it was. Without hope. Without a promise. Without a savior. Without the revolutionary Jesus.

 

Jesus, standing with the scroll of Isaiah in his hand in the synagogue where he grew up and was on the cradle roll, where attended Hebrew school; looked at the people who had known him since birth and dreamed of a world infused by the Holy Spirit, where the oppressed were set free, where the blind recovered their sight, where the poor received good news and where the Kingdom of God broke into Galilee like it already was in heaven.

 

Today, he told them, I am going to make good on this passage. And he did. All his days from that day forward were spent doing just what he said he would do. Just about every moment of his every day forward was spent working on good news to the poor, recovery of sight for the blind, setting the oppressed free and proclaiming God’s Kingdom come to earth.

 

I have to ask myself when I prepare a sermon every week. Every week. How can I be faithful to the text, to the Good News? If you take it lightly it doesn’t really amount to much. If you take it seriously, well, then you must call yourself as the preacher and the church as your hearers to account. Jesus has told us what the Good News is. May the same Holy Spirit that emboldened and empowered Jesus infiltrate this community until there is Good News for all. Amen.

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

My Uncle David

 1 3 2022


My Uncle David died tonight. My heart is broken. He was my Mom's younger brother. 82 years old.


When I was just five, he asked me if I wanted to ride in an airplane. At the time he was a CFI, Certified Flight Instructor with Spartan Aviation in Tulsa. It thrilled me, this idea of flying. It quickly turned to dread as he fired the engine and we began to taxi. But, it was a harbinger of things to come for me. In 1996 when I had put a little money together I began to realize my dream of flying. It was because of Uncle David I loved airplanes.


When I was a child I began to draw WWII era fighter planes and I became fairly proficient at it. It was Uncle David that gave me a love for these high performance planes. On the wall of his house there were two paintings of Spitfires. They inspired me.


As a small child I used to love to ride in the car with Uncle David. He had an Austin Healy, then a 1967 GTO. When I was in grad school he had a 1979 Corvette. Yes, I drive a sports car today. Yes, it was his influence on me that caused me to love a sports car.


When I graduated with my Masters Degree from TCU, Uncle David took me to Nieman Marcus and bought me a $400 overcoat, in 1984 dollars. He believed I would need that overcoat and that I would need to look professional, and he was proud of me. I did need that overcoat in the Kentucky winters. I did need to look professional, and though that coat no longer fits me (it's a size 36) I still have it to this day. The gift itself matters to me. It means something to me that he did that. I will possess that coat until the day I am called to the life beyond. 


I am crushed tonight. He was my light. He was my example. Now he rests eternally with his mother and father and his sister, my beloved Mom. There is only slight consolation in this. COVID destroyed his ability to breathe, to live, to hope at all. Through many dangers, toils and snares he had already come, but this one was too much. My heart is crushed.


There is so much more I could write and say about Uncle David. He meant the world to me. That's all that really matters.


Peace and Love,

Jerry

Thursday, February 4, 2021

Where Are We Headed?

 





February 4, 2021

The pandemic has eased a bit over the last week. About 9% fewer new cases across the United States in the past week. That's a good trend. Many among us have already received the first dose of either the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine for COVID-19. That's also a good trend. In Kentucky teachers and administrators have been among those targeted to receive the vaccinations early because we all want our children back in school, and we all want our teachers safe. In Clark County where I serve at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) all educators and support staff of Clark County Public Schools who were willing to receive a vaccine have had their first round. Yet another good trend -- save for the several who refused the vaccine.

With the decline in new infections and the vaccination doses increasing in speed, there is hope that we will emerge from this exile and find ourselves on the other side of it. But, where are we headed? Will the other side of this be a land flowing with milk and honey or a foreign soil to which we have yet to acclimate? I tend to believe it to be the latter. Here's few thoughts about where we might be headed.

There is a terrible trend in the United States where People of Color are NOT getting vaccinated in a number that will significantly reduce the proliferation of the disease. The data produced on those vaccinated to date shows overwhelming evidence that People of Color are not getting the vaccine at anywhere near the rate of whites. Why? I am not qualified or knowledgeable enough to say, but I do know this. Healthcare has been distributed disproportionately between whites and people of color for a very long time. Data shows that income for whites is disproportionately higher than for people of color. And that's just the United States. People of color across the globe have been historically underserved. 


The equitable distribution of the vaccine is a raging debate. The UK and Europe are engaged in a battle over vaccines. Portugal is inundated with new cases, and in South America and sub-Saharan Africa, in India and among the poorest of the poor across the globe vulnerability to COVID-19 and access to vaccines are major hurdles. 

We are learning a new reality about how small the world is, no matter national origin or ethnicity. If someone, somewhere in the world is sick, it can and almost certainly will travel across national borders. That is the case with the new strains of COVID-19 that have proliferated in the last month. They are more transmittable and therefore are more deadly, and the effect will be disproportionally worse for People of Color. 

So, I am inclined to believe that where we are headed isn't the place we may hope we are. People keep saying, a return to normal. I do not think that phrase means what they think it means. Normal has always been a relative and subjective term, but the normal ahead of us may stretch our definition of normal.

Having offered those thoughts I would also assert that I am not a complete skeptic. I am, at least in part, a believer in the power of humans to overcome obstacles. So, I hope that where we are headed includes a renewed focus on equity; an equity that respects the dignity of every human and provides access to healthcare at a previously unprecedented level. If that's where we are headed that will be a good trend, too.

And speaking of equitable distribution of healthcare -- if the rollout of this vaccine has shown us anything about subsidized healthcare it is this: you offer people a lifesaving drug for free and they will take it without asking who is paying for it. Lots of people say they don't want subsidized, socialized, communist healthcare until they need it to save their lives and couldn't otherwise afford it.

So, I am hopeful that one of the places we are headed is a more equitable distribution of healthcare resources. 

Where else are we headed? If the capital insurrection/attempted coup is any indication of the direction we are headed then we might be tempted to lament. Still, I believe the general response of shock and horror to the most egregious act on American soil I have witnessed in my lifetime is more indicative of America as a whole. The overwhelming majority of American people were horrified at the sight of insurrectionists hunting down congress members, building a gallows and calling for the hanging of the Vice President. Horrified may be a mild word. So, as bad as it was, and it was the most undemocratic, scary moment I have seen, I believe that our country will repudiate political violence and vengeance when history is written. Further, I believe that as dangerously close as we came to a dictatorship that the long course of history from these moments forward will arc toward democracy. If so, that will be a welcome trend.

Where are we headed? I really don't know. I really don't. I simply have hope that our better human side will prevail, even though, and I say this with a heavy heart, the Church of Jesus Christ has had a hand in fomenting the unrest, the insurrection, the refusal to accept defeat and promulgated the idea that somehow God had hand-picked the 45th President -- and thus electing the 46th was a rejection of God's will for our country. And that is sad. 

This is longer than I intended so let me finish by saying that wherever we are headed the sad isn't over, and the way is still long. May God be our guide. May peace be with every living human, animal and plant. May where we are headed be where God is calling us to be.

Peace be with you,

Jerry



Tuesday, September 1, 2020

 I am grateful for this space. One day again soon, I will write here. Today is not the day for it, but soon. Peace be with every one of you.



Monday, February 24, 2020

Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday, Year A, February 23, 2020


TRANSFIGURATION SUNDAY
FEBRUARY 23, 2020
MATTHEW 17:1-9
“A TRANSFIGURATION, A TOUCH”

1Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." 5While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" 6When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." 8And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."


A sonnet entitled, Transfiguration, from British poet, Malcolm Guite.

For that one moment, ‘in and out of time’,
On that one mountain where all moments meet,
The daily veil that covers the sublime
In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet.
There were no angels full of eyes and wings
Just living glory full of truth and grace.
The Love that dances at the heart of things
Shone out upon us from a human face
And to that light the light in us leaped up,
We felt it quicken somewhere deep within,
A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope
Trembled and tingled through the tender skin.
Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar
Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.
                                                                        Malcolm Guite, Transfiguration


A glimpse of how things really are.

What a curious thing to say about the transfiguration. I say it’s curious, because the transfiguration confounds us, and defies easy explanations. We don’t necessarily understand it or know what to make of it. So, what does the poet mean?

In the moment of Transfiguration on the mountaintop, heaven touches earth, divinity is embodied in humanity, and in Jesus we see what God intended the perfect creation to be. Engulfed in light; emanating light; becoming as light, there is Jesus, the fully human Jesus touching his disciples to calm their fears as he radiates his unity with the divine light. Life on earth how it was meant to be. A glimpse of how things really are.

And yet, at the same time a glimpse of how far we are from how it was intended to be when God, in infinite wisdom and a sudden burst of creativity spun the stars into the heavens and exploded life on earth in the garden which is now a distant memory. Perfection was imparted into every facet of creation, including humans, in the perfect love of the divine creator – who created in love. Creator and creation in perfect unity, but now, as we are all to aware, a creation beset with war and anger, a thirst for revenge, a lust for unchecked power and complete domination, all too imperfect, all too flawed. Creator and creation separated by a divide, a chasm that cannot be filled by the most righteous of efforts of the offspring of God’s love. Except by intervention of the God/Human, Jesus, child of God, child of Light, child of Mary, the embodiment of the perfection God intended.

Such a blending of human and divine is foreign to us in our modern existence. We don’t see it. We don’t experience it. It is almost inconceivable. What we so more often see is the imperfect human side of life. The parts of us, deep within the recesses of our being where little light shines that are envy, jealousy, insecurity, and even enmity. We have felt that envy for the blessings of another – their athletic grace, their physical beauty, their wealth beyond our attaining. We are familiar with our jealous preoccupations with the ability of another to be witty and smart. We are pierced at times by our insecurities that remind us we are not as good as, not as much as that successful person. We have known the heat of anger because we simply hated another human.

These are the parts of life with which we are more familiar; which we experience in ourselves and in others. The disciples were not unlike us, you know. They lived in the milieu of negative human behaviors and emotions and experienced such themselves. Thus, we know that they had ambitions to sit next to the throne of Christ in eternity, to be the best of the best of the disciples.

They too, like we, did not necessarily know what to make of a Jesus transfigured before them in a shower of light and divinity. And so they cowered. They covered their eyes and their heads. They fell to the ground. They feared. And they retreated. It was only when Jesus reached down and touched them that they were comforted. When his human hand made contact with them, their humanity was settled.

And then it dawned on them to worship. In the presence of the God/Human Jesus who emanated the holiness of the One creator of all that is in a moment in time before their very eyes they thought to stop, worship, honor, commemorate. It was a moment in time like no other had experienced before. Maybe worship was the only thing they knew they could do.

When heaven and earth are transfigured in the One, in this Jesus, who touches us with healing and wholeness, perhaps worship. And then, his hand, lifting these disciples from their cowering pose, leads them down the mountain. Down from the place of worship and into the place of real life, as we are fond of calling it. Outside the walls of the church. And in their descent from heaven come to earth in Jesus, the man with whom they walk, he says to them, tell no one what you just saw, what you heard, how you felt. Keep it a secret unto yourselves, until after I die. And they know right away, yes, they are certain of it, he just told them he would die while they were yet alive in that real world at the base of the mountain.

And what does that mean that he will die before their eyes? Didn’t they just witness glory? Didn’t they hear the very voice of God? Doesn’t that change things? He was transfigured in their presence for goodness’ sake! Doesn’t that change everything?

Does wealth and power still prevail if he is gone? Is might still right when Jesus returns from earth to heaven? Are the weak left to the mercy of the powerful? Are the poor to remain poor?

Didn’t heaven and earth come together in this man just at the moment they reached the pinnacle of the mountain? Did not Moses and Elijah bear witness to the awesome and unchecked governance of the Prince of Peace?

Tell. No one. Until I am gone.

A transfiguration. A touch. Voices of prophets. The thunder of God. And then, silence.

When you are atop a mountain sometimes you are surrounded by clouds. I went to Mt. St. Helens in Washington in 2005. The higher I drove the deeper I was in the clouds. Visibility was almost nil, but it wasn’t dark. The sun above the clouds shone through, but that didn’t help my seeing, until at once the car exited the cloud and the bright sun was all around, and there in the distance was the volcano as clear as it could be.

You can see a long way from the top of a mountain. You can see all the way to a cross on a hill far away. Jesus did. Tell no one until I am gone, he told them. And down the mountain they went back among the people clamoring for health and wholeness, clamoring to be free from slavery to ruthless masters, clamoring for a messiah to save them and take away all the earth and leave only heaven behind.

But that cannot be. Yet. In Jesus, earth and heaven touched, and in his glory he was transfigured on that day so long ago, atop that mountain that seems light years away from us.

And so we worship, and we wait, and we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar; Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are. Come, Lord Jesus, come.


Monday, November 11, 2019

The Little Free Pantry

November 11, 2019



Today we placed the Little Free Pantry at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Winchester, KY. It is a way for people who need just a bit of food to have access to it. I am really honored and grateful for this project. The congregation has been really supportive of the effort and I can't wait to see what blessings may result.

Of course it's possible it will be vandalized.

Of course it's possible someone will abuse it, clean it out and take everything.

It's worth the risk.

Thanks to Meredith Peck Guy for the idea. Cecil Walson for building it. (I helped a little.) Mason Guy for financing it and helping get it installed. Lee Kidd for helping get it installed. Kelly Johns for the graphics work she does so well. The youth and children of the church for filling it up for the first time.

May the Little Free Pantry be a blessing.