February 21, 2010

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“The Devil Made Me Do It”

Text:    Luke 4:13 – “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from (Jesus) until an opportune time.”

Scripture Lessons:       Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

Luke 4:1-13

Proposition:  Evil is a real force in the world.  However, we are not victims, blaming bad things on some idea that “The Devil Made Me Do It.”  We are children of God who work against evil by prayer, giving, and action.

Prayer for Illumination:  Gracious God, we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from your mouth.  Make us hungry for this heavenly food, that it may nourish us today in the ways of eternal life; through Jesus Christ, the bread of heaven.  Amen.

It was about twenty years ago now that public television journalist Bill Moyers aired an interview he did with the poet, Robert Bly.  Besides being a poet, Bly is a wonderful storyteller, a scholarly translator, and a worldwide lecturer.  After Moyers’ interview, many people began to sit up and take notice of what Bly and others around the country have been involved with for some years, what some, although not Bly himself, have called a men’s movement.

In the interview, Bly talked about some of the particular crises that men in our society are facing, and those crises all seem to center around how men are taught – or not taught, as the case may be – to deal with feelings.  Bly talked about the main “mode of feeling” that people have:  that basic, visceral place that is deep within us, from which come the motivation and drive that direct much in our lives.  He hypothesizes that women’s main mode of feeling has been anger, due to the decades and centuries that women have been degraded, devalued, disempowered.  Thus the women’s movement, especially in its beginning, was an angry movement, as women reacted to the oppression that they had both experienced and felt.  Men, however, have a different mode of feeling, according to Bly and others.  He believes that the basic mode of feeling for men is not anger, but grief:  grief at having so many expectations and demands placed upon them, grief at having been separated from their fathers ever since the start of the industrial revolution, grief at not having a community of older men follow through with the ancient rites of passage and initiation through which older men always have led younger men down through the ages.

This grief, Bly feels, is what causes men to be so out of touch with their own feelings, with their own abilities to cultivate the nurturing, caring, protecting side of the male character, thus leaving the strong, powerful, conquering side to go unchecked and unbalanced.  In his book Iron John, Bly says that men in particular – but women also – need to learn to follow a path that is different than the one we usually expect to follow.  The traditional motto of the Olympic Games – “Swifter, Higher, Stronger” – are ones with which most of us would both agree and cheer.  But rather than always striving to climb higher, to reach for the stars, to get as far and as much as we can, Bly believes that we first need to follow a path of descent, in which we go down deep within ourselves, and face the parts within us from which we usually flee.  We need to descend deep within ourselves, and face the weaknesses, the fears, and the grief that we find there.  Appropriately for us gathered here on this first Sunday in Lent, Robert Bly has called this need the Road of Descent, Grief, and Ashes.

This emphasis of Bly’s is not unique to him, nor is it a modern emotional or psychological discovery.  We see it in our New Testament lesson this morning, which was about Jesus’ time of testing and temptation in the wilderness.  Jesus was standing at the very beginning point of his ministry, and the thing that all of the Gospel writers agreed he did first was to follow a road of ashes, to follow a road that descended not just deep into the wilderness, but deep into his own soul.  And there Jesus came face to face with Satan, the Old Testament “adversary.”  Thus Jesus came face to face with his deepest, most difficult, most basic temptations:  the temptation to power, to possessions, to the avoidance of the pain and humiliation that Jesus knew stood at the end of his journey, where the cross already loomed menacingly.  Jesus followed a path of descent, knowing that it was only in following that path that he would be truly free to serve God in the ways in which he would be called for the next three years.  Jesus realized that it was only as he confronted those things which most tempted him, and as he overcame those things, that he would be able to rise anew and have the strength and wisdom and courage to live out his calling.

It is when we make the path of descent – which is most truly a Lenten path – and as we resolve to live ever more faithfully in following Christ’s ways, that we run into those things we must face which often tend to hold us back or weigh us down.  And it is when we are there that we, like Jesus, are confronted with temptations.

In our day and society, we most often think of temptations as being things that are related to immorality.   Immoral behavior of whatever kind certainly can be tempting, but that is only one small kind of temptation.  We are tempted to place other so-called “gods” before our Creator and Savior.  Oh, some might say that we don’t worship other gods; that left the scene when we stopped carving idols to the god of the mountain or the god of the wind or the god of the sea.  But a “god” is anything to which we give allegiance, anything to which we give priority.  If you want to consider to what we give allegiance and priority, this is the perfect season of the year in our country to do that.  Why?  Because we’re doing our taxes… so we have the perfect opportunity to look at our spending over the past year.  And if we look at our spending, not just to find sometimes elusive deductions, but to find what our priorities were… well, that can be a sobering illumination of whether or not there are other “gods” that we worship.  Yes?

Temptations are any things or anybody that draw us away from God and from God’s ways in our lives.  And the source of temptations?  The Gospels say that Jesus was tempted or tested by Satan or by the devil.  And just who is that?  Here’s what I believe the Bible has to say about that.  Scripture is insistent on affirming that there is only one God who is real.  And so if we think that the devil is some sort of anti-god who is God’s equal only bad, then we’re wrong.  God has no equal… neither good, nor bad, nor neutral!  So if we think that we’re just pawns being manipulated by a “good God” and a “bad god” – by the Creator of all that is and by some evil anti-god – then we’re missing the biblical understanding of who or what Satan or the devil is.  The name, Satan, first appears in the Old Testament, most often in the book of Job.  The name is one that we simply transliterated from the Hebrew… in other words, we took the Hebrew word and just pronounced it as if it were English.  The Hebrew word is ha-satan, which literally means “the adversary.”  Interestingly, in both the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New, the words Satan and devil most always appear with the definite article, “the.”  The word “devil” means “one who accuses.”  In both languages, the words come from a legal analogy.  It is as if the Satan is a prosecuting attorney who is trying to convict someone of wrongdoing, and so accuses them of acting inappropriately, unfaithfully, or whatever.  It is the Satan that tempts us, by accusing us of our weaknesses, by focusing on our failures, by pushing the “buttons” where we are most vulnerable.  Satan is not some anti-god who is in a cosmic struggle to control our souls.  I believe that even in those places in the New Testament where it seems to paint Satan in such a way, that is a misunderstanding, either in our interpretation or in the authors’ understanding, of the nature of evil.  And we can discern that in the same way that we have discerned it’s okay to have a ham and cheese sandwich (which the Bible clearly forbids), that it’s okay to pay interest on a loan (which both the Bible and many of our creeds and confessions condemn), and that it’s okay for women to be ordained as deacons, elders, and ministers (to which some parts of the Bible are vehemently opposed).

Temptation is real, and we must face those things which tempt us to be less than who we are as God’s children, or to be unfaithful to the allegiances and priorities that we know we want to hold strong in our lives, or to settle for safe and easy ways when asking harder questions or searching to find new ways in which the Spirit might be leading us.  But let us not be tempted into the notion that we are mere pawns over which there is a cosmic battle between some evil being that is the negative electron to God’s positive proton!  For if we succumb to that way of thinking, then we could simply say, “The Devil Made Me Do It,” thereby relinquishing our responsibility and accountability for our choices and actions, and being overwhelmed with feelings of hopelessness, despair, and powerlessness.  The story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness reminds us not only that temptations are real, but more importantly that God strengthens us in our trials and raises us, with Christ, to renewed focus, reinvigorated resolve, and a restored vision to be faithful to God’s call, to follow in Christ’s ways, to discern the Spirit’s leading.

This season of Lent invites us to walk, for a little while, the path of descent – to fully face our fears, our temptations, our own vulnerabilities.  And the season of Lent invites us to remember that God calls us at some point to end that descending journey, to turn around, and to rise again to new life, new resolve, and new acts of compassion, prayer, giving, and faithfulness.  The path we’re called to follow is a Lenten path… it’s a baptismal path of dying and rising… it’s the path of Jesus, who, after facing his adversary at his most vulnerable moment, emerged from his descent to spread the Good News of God’s love with power, integrity, authenticity, focus, and dedication.

Dare we be this open, this willing, this brave to follow Christ on such a path?  It’s the Lenten question for us.  It’s the Lenten call to us.

AMEN!

February 17, 2010

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“Praying and Fasting”

Text:    Isaiah 58:6 – “Is not this the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of injustice…?”

Scripture Lessons:       Isaiah 58:1-12

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Proposition:  There are traditional spiritual disciplines during Lent, including “Prayer and Fasting.”  However, the purpose of such disciplines is not just to make us more “spiritual,” but to empower us to be God’s lights to the world.

Prayer for Illumination:  Merciful God, your Word is the wisdom we seek.  Create in us hearts that are clean and put your Holy Spirit within us, so that we may receive your grace today and on the day of salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Years ago, I served a mid-sized congregation that was situated in rural, northern Illinois.  It was a church that had been founded in the 1840’s by immigrants to the area from Scotland.  The people there were proud of their Scots heritage and of doing things in just the right and proper ways!

One year we had decided to offer an Ash Wednesday service to begin our Lenten observances.  Everything had been prepared for the service.  The choir had a special anthem that was ready.  The purple paraments had been hung.  People were beginning to gather for the service.  I had been upstairs in the sanctuary to look things over, and then went back downstairs to go to my office to robe.  As I walked across the Fellowship Hall to get to my study, one of the old Scots elders had come in and was walking the other way to get to the sanctuary.  I stopped and said “hi” to Tom, asking how he and Mabel, his wife, were both doing.  Tom said they were fine, but then looked serious and said, “I have a question.”  “What’s that, Tom,” I asked.  “Well,” he said, “when did all this ‘Lent’ stuff come about anyhow?”  He sounded gruff and cranky… but I already had learned that that’s how many Scots sometimes sound, until you get to know them and they relax a bit.  I thought for a second, smiled gently at him, and said, “Well, Tom, Lent’s been around for, oh, about 1500 years.  It’s just taken us a little while to catch on to it.”  He paused, then smiled and said, “That’s fine.  I just wondered.”  He then proceeded to go upstairs to the sanctuary.  I chuckled to myself as I walked to my office.  It’s as if Tom just needed to be reassured that what we were doing wasn’t something that was new!  Once reassured, he was fine with it.

Actually, what I told Tom wasn’t correct.  Lent hasn’t been around for 1500 years.  It’s been around for more like 1900 years!  Lent is one of the oldest observations in the Christian calendar.  Like all Christian holy days and holidays, it has changed over the years, but its purpose has always been the same:  self-examination and penitence, demonstrated by self-denial, in preparation for Easter. One of the Early Church fathers, Irenaus (c.130-200), wrote about this season in the earliest days of the Church, but back then it lasted only two or three days, not the 40 observed today.  In 325, the Council of Nicaea expanded it to our current observance of Lent as a 40-day season.  This is the oldest of the seasons of the Church year.  Tom would have been pleased to know that!

Lent is a time of somberness… of humility… of self-examination and introspection.  It is a time of penitence… a time of focus.  The traditional spiritual tools with which we are gifted during this time are “Prayer and Fasting,” as well as generosity.

We set aside time for prayer in our church services during Lent.  In addition to Sunday mornings, we offer Morning Prayer most weekdays at 9:00 in the Chapel.  We also offer a mid-week service of Evening Prayer and Communion, beginning at 7:00 in the Chapel.  But more than these communal times of praying, we are invited to be intentional in praying on our own.  That, of course, takes time.  For most of us, finding even 10 minutes a day to do yet one more thing is a challenge.  So time for prayer won’t just come… you have to carve it out of your day.  And even that effort to make the time to pray is a spiritual discipline that can help our Lenten focus.

I kidded last Sunday morning during the announcements that, contrary to many of our sisters and brothers in our Christian traditions, we Presbyterians aren’t big on “fasting.”  What did we do right before this service?  Shared a meal together!  What will we do right after our worship service this Sunday?  Share a meal together!  Other than for reasons related to losing weight (which some of us could do more than others!), fasting is not a part of our ecclesiastical DNA.  Some folks take fasting during Lent very seriously.  For most of us, however, “fasting” has been reduced to the question of what we’re going to “give up” for Lent.  My favorite things to give up are brussel sprouts and grits!  It is a tough spiritual discipline, but I’ve managed to be 100% successful at it every Lent of my life!

Our Scripture lessons tonight talk to us about “Prayer and Fasting,” but they put a different spin on it than we’ve come to expect, I think.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talked about giving and “Prayer and Fasting,” but he wanted to make sure that we understand that we participate in those spiritual disciplines for the purpose of drawing us closer to God… opening ourselves more fully to God’s presence in our lives… listening more closely to God’s ways for our lives and for our world.  So he told us not to put on a show of our spirituality.  Rather, we are to quietly and purposefully give generously, pray sincerely, and fast humbly.

In our Old Testament lesson, the prophet Isaiah takes the idea of fasting and expands it… dramatically, and even uncomfortably perhaps, expands it.  The people are complaining because things are not going for them the way they want.  Life is hard.  Times are difficult.  They feel that they are engaged in “Prayer and Fasting” a lot, and they question why God apparently isn’t seeing and hearing and answering them.  So Isaiah tells the people what it is that God really expects from them during times of the exercise of spiritual disciplines.  And Isaiah says it plainly:

“Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself?  Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?  Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

“Is not this the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?  Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.  Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

“If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.  The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” (vv. 5-11)

Wow!  This makes giving up chocolate for Lent look easy, doesn’t it?

What God wants of us… what God calls us to do… what God expects of us during this season of Lent, I believe, is to engage in “Prayer and Fasting” with a purpose.  The purpose is not just to draw closer to our God, but to realize that when we draw close to God, we more clearly see the cross of Jesus… and when we see the cross of Jesus, we are reminded of our responsibilities to give ourselves for others, as Christ gave himself for us.  “Prayer and Fasting” should not only make a difference in us; it should empower us to make a demonstrable difference in the world.

In his book, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, Frederick Buechner says this about “repentance:”

“To repent is to come to your senses.  It is not so much something you do as something that happens.  True repentance spends less time looking at the past and saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ than to the future and saying, ‘Wow!’”

As we enter into this season of penitence… as we begin our journey into the “Prayer and Fasting” of Lent… let us allow our renewed and intentional focus on the cross remind us not just of ways in which we need to “come to our senses,” but to remind us that the cross did nothing short of changing the world… and that’s what “Prayer and Fasting” should remind us to do as well.  They can remind us to look to the future and say “Wow!  Imagine the possibilities!”

AMEN!

December 27, 2009

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“It Doesn’t Make Any Difference”

Text:    John 1:14a – “And the Word became flesh and lived among us…”

Scripture Lessons:       Colossians 3:12-17

John 1:1-5, 9-14

Proposition:  Much of the folklore and even the traditions around Christmas… well, really, “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference.”  However, the essence of this night – that God has come to us in the flesh in Jesus Christ – makes all the difference!

Prayer for Illumination:  Great God, as you came at night when all was still, so enter our lives this night.  Illumine our paths with the light of Christ’s presence, that we may clearly see the way before us, the truth to speak, and the life to live for him, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Note:  We cancelled Christmas Eve services because of a blizzard.  This sermon was adapted slightly from the sermon for that Christmas Eve.

Isn’t it funny how things that, at some point in your life, seem so very important, turn out to not make any difference in the long run?  I remember when one of our boys was young and we were working on the potty-training thing.  He seemed to get it, but then didn’t.  I went to a meeting one night at church, and one of the farm women in the church said hi and then asked how things were going.  With not a little frustration, I said, “Well, I’m just so frustrated!  My son’s potty training is just not working very well!”  She just smiled and quietly said to me, “How many 16-year-olds do you know that aren’t potty trained?”  She was right, of course.  I was frustrated because my son wasn’t doing things on my schedule.  In the long run, it didn’t make any difference at all.

So much of life, it seems, is like that.  Don’t you find that to be true?  You are concerned about someone in your school or someone in your workplace who keeps giving you a hard time about something or other… but you find that either they change, or else they move, or else someone confronts them about their behavior and they stop it.  There are times when some decision or other seems so pressing, so monumental, so consequential… but, with the benefit of hindsight, you realize that it wasn’t that big a deal, that it really didn’t make any difference in the long run.  I don’t remember when I first said this to someone, but I find that I often say this at wedding rehearsals, when everyone is running around, worrying about flowers or dresses or tuxes or shoes or who’s sitting where or whatever.  “You know,” I say, “By tomorrow at this time, this couple will be married… and none of this stuff that everyone is so worried about now will make any difference at all.  They’ll be married, no matter how anything else turns out.”

This past Wednesday and all Thursday morning, I worried.  “What do we do about Christmas Eve services,” I pondered.  And I was stressed over it!  It felt like such a major decision!  “It’s better to be safe,” I’d think… and then I’d realize what a special service this is, not just for me, but for so very many of us… and then I’d worry about someone coming to church and getting in an accident or getting stuck or falling down and breaking a hip… and then I’d think that people would simply use their better judgment  about whether they should come out… and then I’d look at the list of closings and “see what all the other kids were doing!”  Finally, I made the decision to just have folks stay home and be warm and safe… and then I still stressed about whether that was the right decision… and what people would think about that.  But you know what?  It probably doesn’t make much difference to most people even today, two days after the fact.  It won’t be an issue six months from now.  Nobody will even remember it 20 years from now!  In the long run… “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference.”

This is the season in the Church year of Christmas.  It lasts, of course, for 12 days, and begins, not ends, on December 25!  Oh, to be sure, our society and our stores think that the Christmas season begins somewhere around October 15, it seems!  But there seems to me to be something joyful about the fact that, when almost everyone else is beginning to move past Christmas, we Christians still get to celebrate it for 12 days!  I like that.

There are tons of traditions about Christmas, aren’t there?  There are family traditions about how the holiday is celebrated.  Some families open presents on Christmas Eve; others open them Christmas morning.  Some families have strong traditions about where Christmas is celebrated, and about who cooks what on Christmas day.  For some, it just wouldn’t be Christmas unless you had scrambled eggs with cheese, and fresh biscuits, and orange juice, and Earl Gray Tea on Christmas morning.  What?  You mean you all don’t have that as part of your Christmas tradition?  Pity. J  After my Dad and step-mom got married, I realized how different some families’ traditions are.  That first Christmas morning after they were married in November, I excitedly rushed downstairs from my bedroom after I awoke and heard others up.  I was in my pajamas and bathrobe.  I came into the family room and wished everyone a Merry Christmas.  My step brother looked at me and said, “You’re supposed to come downstairs dressed in nice clothes, not in pajamas!”  “Well, bah humbug,” I wanted to say… but it just made me realize how different can be people’s expectations about celebrating this day and season.  But you know what?  “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference” where you celebrate, what customs you observe, what traditions you follow… not really.  Christmas is properly observed simply when Christ is remembered… and when love is shared.

What about the date of Christmas… doesn’t that make a difference?  Christmas hasn’t always been celebrated on December 25, and, in fact, is not universally recognized on that date even today.  The Eastern Churches – the Orthodox Churches of Russia, Greece, and the Middle East – celebrate Christmas on January 6, tying it in with the observance of Epiphany that we share with them.  But in the very early Church, Christmas was not celebrated at all!  There is no evidence that the first Christians remembered or celebrated the date, and, in keeping with Jewish law and ritual, observances of anyone’s birthday would have been discouraged.  It wasn’t until around the year 220 that the first mention of Christmas is made… and that was for a celebration on May 20!  In the year 350, Pope Julius I settled on December 25 as the date… but that was undoubtedly due more to secular traditions in Roman culture and among northern European peoples than it was to anything biblical or historical.  In the midst of the English revolution centuries later, Puritans completely banned any observance of Christmas, it had become so mired in secular traditions and customs!  So when was Jesus really born?  Actually, we have no idea… we’re not even certain of the year, let alone the actual date… and, really, “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference.”  It’s simply important that we remember and celebrate and give thanks for Christ’s birth into our world, whenever it took place.

And then, over the centuries, and continuing to today, there is debate over the cherished doctrine of Christ’s virgin birth.  The Church has affirmed since the earliest creeds from the late 4^th century and beyond that Jesus “was born of the Virgin Mary.”  But let’s go out on a limb for a minute and look at this.  One of my biblical studies professors at Sterling College in Kansas was a minister in the Reformed Presbyterian Church, a small, very conservative, Reformed tradition in our country.  I visited Sterling a couple of years after I had graduated from there, and saw Dr. Snyder.  In the course of our conversation, he told me that he was going to be transferring his ministerial credentials to our denomination.  I was surprised, and asked him why.  He paused for a minute, and then he told me that one of his best friends, and his closest colleague in the Reformed Presbyterian Church, was preparing to bring up charges of heresy against him.  I don’t know if my jaw literally hit the floor or not, but it might as well have.  Dale Snyder was a solid, conservative scholar of the Bible, and a faithful minister in Christ’s service.  A charge of heresy against him would be as strange as an observant Jew ordering a ham and cheese sandwich in a restaurant… it just wouldn’t be right!  When I asked him what happened, Dale told me that he had written a scholarly paper a year or so earlier in which he entertained the possibility that Jesus’ divinity was not dependent upon his being born of a virgin.  He personally believed in the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, but he did not believe it was a necessity of faith.  For that, his friend was going to bring him up on charges of heresy… because, Dale told me, his friend had told him that if he questioned the Virgin Birth, there would be no end to what his faith might question.  Dale was going to fight the charges, but then he realized that, since the Reformed Presbyterian Church was so small, and since his parents and other family members were still very active in that denomination, he didn’t want to cause troubles that he knew would come if he put up a defense.  So he transferred to our Church.  I’m glad he did, but I was sorry for the reason.

What about this doctrine?  Well, if we look at the biblical evidence, which is where we Reformed Christians always begin, it’s really pretty scarce.  There are a total of three – yes, that’s right, only three – references in the New Testament to Mary being a virgin:  two verses in Luke 1, and one in Matthew 1.  And the reference in Matthew’s gospel is a quote from the 7^th chapter of the Old Testament book of Isaiah, but the quotation is inaccurate.  Matthew was quoting from the Septuagint – the first translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, which was done in Greek.  He translated the Greek correctly, but the Hebrew word used is not the word for “virgin.”  It is a word that can be translated “young woman,” or “girl.”  So that’s the biblical evidence… three verses.  Jesus never mentions the Virgin Birth.  The early Christians never mentioned it.  Paul, James, Peter, and John never once mention it in their letters which make up the rest of our New Testament.  The Church in the first two or three centuries didn’t mention it.

What do we make of this?  I don’t believe that we therefore have to assume that the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Jesus isn’t accurate, as some assert.  But what I do believe we can assume is that this doctrine wasn’t important to the first believers in Jesus.  In reality, “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference.”  It just wasn’t an issue for them.  When they reflected on the impact of the Incarnation – that is, of God coming to us in the flesh in the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who was both fully human and fully divine – the question of how the Incarnation took place really didn’t matter.  What mattered… and what still makes all the difference in the world… is that the Incarnation happened.  The thing that makes Christianity unique is not the Resurrection of Jesus, as important as that is for us.  There are other religious traditions that speak of resurrections of key figures.  Rather, it is the Incarnation that makes us unique.  To assert that God loved us so very much that the Creator would enter into the form of the creature, sharing the “stuff” of creation with us, is what is so astounding… and that is what makes all the difference!

St. John, in the beginning of his Gospel narrative, expressed most succinctly what is most important for us about Christmas:  “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”  To consider the incredible implications of this can, and should, have a life-changing, priority-altering impact on us.  Jesus, whom we worship and claim to serve, is God who has come to us in the flesh.  Jesus is still God who is with us… summed up in that wonderful Hebrew word, “Immanuel.”  When we pour the waters of baptism, it is a sign that we are claimed in the flesh, and that we promise to follow Jesus, Immanuel.  When we gather around the Table, it is a sign that we are once again united with and nurtured by Jesus, who is still with us, Immanuel.  That is what matters most.  The rest?  Well, really, “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference.”  But the Incarnation – God coming to us in Jesus, in the flesh, to share our nature and redeem us and the creation – well, that makes all the difference!

In the name of Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, our Redeemer, Immanuel… AMEN!

February 14, 2010

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“Nothing Up My Sleeve.  Presto!”

Text:    2 Corinthians 3:18a – “And all of us,… seeing the glory of God as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed…”

Scripture Lessons:       Exodus 34:29-35

2 Corinthians 3:12 – 4:2

Proposition:  In nature, metamorphosis is an amazing thing.  Some creature is one thing, and then it almost magically becomes something else, as if some magician waved a wand, saying, “Nothing Up My Sleeve.  Presto!”  We, too, are being changed and transformed by Christ.  It is not by magic, though; it is by grace.

Prayer for Illumination:  God of shining splendor, your voice makes the earth tremble in wonder.  Overshadow us with your Spirit so that we may hear your Word and live as faithful disciples and covenant people; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

My son, Michael, loves doing magic tricks!  He’s perhaps slowed down a bit, given his academic schedule the past couple of years… but he still “wows” people when he pulls out a deck of cards or his proverbial bag of tricks.  I remember showing our sons card tricks when they were little, but those tricks were of such high quality that Michael and David were able to figure them out by the time they were, oh, maybe seven years old!  My tricks were not very “sophisticated.”  However, Michael’s tricks truly are amazing.

He first got serious about learning card and magic tricks when he moved into a large house that he was going to share during his last two years of college.  He moved in at the beginning of the summer, but his housemates were not going to be arriving until the middle of August.  So, with only a summer job, and with a huge house that had no TV and no cable connection, he had lots of time on his hands in the evenings and on weekends.  Thus, he had lots of time to get very good at any trick that involved sleight of hand.  Every time he’d come over to the house for the next year or two, almost the first thing he would do is take out his deck of cards – which he then always carried with him – and show us his latest trick.  For some of the tricks, I had at least a little bit of an inkling of how he probably did it, although I could never see it.  For other tricks, I had absolutely no idea of how he accomplished them.  But there were a few tricks – one, in particular, that I remember – that were so fantastic that it was a bit scary.  In fact, after he did one magic trick, I said, “Okay, I know what you always say when I ask you how you do a trick:  ‘Everyone loves magic; nobody likes a cheap trick.’  However, what you did just creeped me out, and you have to tell me how you did it or I’m going to be worrying about the state of your eternal soul all night long!”  Of course, I wasn’t worried that he had delved into the “dark arts” of magic, but he did some things so well that it really was a sobering thing to ponder how in the world he did something right before my eyes.  He never said those ancient words, but they would have applied:  “Nothing Up My Sleeve.  Presto!”

There are certain words or phrases that we associate with people who do magic tricks, aren’t there.  One of the best known ones is “abracadabra.”  This was first used in the 2^nd century by a physician in a poem he wrote to the Roman Emperor of the time.  The emperor was suffering from some disease or affliction, and this physician suggested that the word be printed on something and worn as an amulet, as a means of protecting the ruler from the evil effects of the ailment.  We’re not sure exactly where this word comes from, although it is very similar to an Arabic word, abrahadabra, which roughly translates as “I will create as I speak.”

“Hocus pocus” is another such phrase associated with magic.  Interestingly, this phrase comes from people who wanted to ridicule Roman Catholic priests at the celebration of the Mass.  These critics were people who did not believe in the theological doctrine of transubstantiation – the belief that, during the consecration prayers at the celebration of the Eucharist, the elements are transformed from their common nature, and they become the body and blood of Christ.  These people wanted to make the point that they believed the priests were dabbling in nothing more than magic.  These critics thought the belief that the bread and wine of Communion could somehow actually become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ was just ridiculous.  To belittle the priests, these people would say that “they’re just mumbling nothing but hocus pocus,” a bastardization of the Latin the priests said in the Mass as they lifted up the bread:  hoc est corpus, meaning “this is My Body.”

“Presto” is an Italian word that means “soon,” “early,” or “quickly.”  It is used in music to indicate a fast tempo.  When a magician uses it, they mean that they want the trick to happen right now, at a specific instant.

We may not think of our faith or of God in terms of magic, do we?  To be sure, our logical minds recoil at the thought.  But… but… aren’t there times when we would like to believe that we could somehow control God, somehow conjure up God’s actions for our good or the good of those we love, somehow know the magic words to say in order to get God to do something that we want God to do, and do it right now?  Sure there are.  In fact, I think that the old tradition of looking to a minister to pray whenever a group of folks are together taps into that desire for magic.  After all, ministers are surely much closer to God than “the rest of us.”  Right?  Absolutely not!  Of course we ministers are not somehow taught special, magical words or phrases to use in prayers that will get God’s attention or solicit God’s beneficent action!  There are no such things!  Yet, there’s that certain feeling, isn’t there?  I had to leave worship early last Sunday to participate in the welcome luncheon at Carter Lake Presbyterian Church for the Rev. Deborah Boucher-Payne.  Our Christian Education Director, Kris Adler, led the Prayers of the People during that service.  Don’t you think that God heard her prayers every bit as well as God hears ones to which I give voice?  Doesn’t God hear all of us and each of us when we pray?  Prayer is not magic that conjures up God’s actions.  Prayer is communication with God.

Our Old Testament lesson this morning was a strange account of Moses communicating with God.  Wasn’t that an fascinating story?  Moses has been up on Mt. Sinai a second time in order to get the stone tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments.  After the first time that Moses received such tablets, he came back down from the mountain only to find that the people, led by his own brother, Aaron, had made idols and were worshiping them.  Moses was so angry that he threw the stone tablets on the ground, breaking them.  After Moses dealt with the people, he went back up the mountain to communicate with God yet again and receive new tablets.  Assumedly the same ten commandments were written on this second pair.  Isn’t that something to think about, though?  Hmmm.  Anyhow, Moses encounters God once again, receives the new written commandments, and comes back to the people.  Only this time there is something different about Moses.  Moses has been transformed.  The lesson says that “the skin of his face was shining,” and that made the people afraid.  An understandable reaction, don’t you think?  The authors of the book of Exodus wanted us to know that Moses really encountered God, and he left that encounter a changed person!  And everyone could see that Moses was a changed, transformed person.  So there’s this whole business of Moses putting on a veil, then taking it off, then putting it back on, then taking it off again.  I don’t know that it’s important to think that Moses had some veil that he wore.  What is important is the Scripture’s affirmation that Moses was changed by his encounter with God.

St. Paul, in our passage this morning from 2 Corinthians, talks about the Exodus account of Moses’ transfiguration from being in the presence of God.  Now, Paul I think forgets some of what he wrote in his letter to the Church in Rome about the Jews, because his words here are pretty harsh about the Jewish people and their relationship with God.  Paul expresses different thoughts in chapters nine through eleven in the book of Romans.  However, his point about us is clear.  We, too, encounter God… not through some abstract, distant source of faith, but in and through our relationship with Jesus Christ.  When we trust in Christ, when we find our lives renewed through Christ, when we are empowered to express our concerns for justice and compassion, for love and for peace because of what Christ teaches us and models for our lives… when we exercise our faith in Christ in any and all of those ways, then we encounter and are encountered by the God of all creation!  And, Paul attests, we are changed as a result of such encounters!  Here is what he wrote:  “And all of us,… seeing the glory of God as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed…”  We are different because of our belief and trust in Jesus Christ.

How does that difference show itself?  It might be demonstrated by generous giving of our resources, even in economically challenging times.  It might be demonstrated by compassion shown to those in need – like by gifts given to the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance program for Haiti… or by gifts given for the victims of domestic violence, as we did in our last Monthly Mission… or by gifts given for the people served by Siena/Francis House.  It might be demonstrated by our concerns for justice – like people who stood up at UNO this past Wednesday against the homophobic hatred spewed by members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas… or people who speak up when someone tells a joke that is demeaning to someone or some group… or people who challenge someone who says that something is “so gay” or “so retarded,” belittling people who are gay or lesbian, or people who are intellectually or emotionally challenged.  We are different because of our encounter with God through Jesus Christ, and we are called to let our lives express those differences with love, with integrity, with genuineness, with compassion.

We are a changed people because of Christ’s presence within us and among us.  We are different as individuals.  We are different as a community of faith because of our determination to follow in Christ’s ways.  But that difference is not caused by magic.  It is not caused because someone looked at us, waved a magic wand, and said, “Nothing Up My Sleeve.  Presto!”  The difference within us is caused by God.  It is caused by grace.  It is caused by love that redeems and transforms us into the likeness of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thanks be to God!  AMEN!

February 7, 2010

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“When the Fish Aren’t Biting”

Text:    Luke 5:5 – “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.  Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

Scripture Lessons:       Isaiah 6:1-13

Luke 5:1-11

Proposition:  Doing the Lord’s work in this day and this world of ours is not an easy thing.  So, what do we do “When the Fish Aren’t Biting?”

Prayer for Illumination:  Living God, help us so to hear your holy Word that we may truly understand; that, understanding, we may believe, and, believing, we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience, seeking your honor and glory in all that we do; through Christ our Lord.   Amen.

Do you like to go fishing?  An old seminary friend of mine was, and still is, a passionate fisherman.  He wanted to get a sign for his office door at the first church he served, and have it read, in large print, “The Pastor’s gone fishin’!”  He had opportunities to go fishing there a lot… which might in part explain why things didn’t work out too well for him in that congregation.  However, over the years, he’s learned balance.  Scott has been the chaplain at a drug and rehabilitation center in Missouri for years, and also has been the Stated Supply Pastor at the Federated Church in Bunceton, Missouri for almost 20 years.  He still goes fishing, I’m sure, but he’s just learned to do it in moderation.

I’ve never been one to love fishing above most everything else.  I’ve enjoyed fishing over the years, though, especially when my folks had a place in the northwoods of Wisconsin.  Their house was on a chain of lakes, and the lakes had trout in them, along with small-mouthed and big-mouthed bass, northern pike, muskie, along with assorted other pan fish.  While in high school and college especially, I would often fish when we were up north.  I once caught a nice two-pound walleye.  I caught a 21” northern once… saw it come up from beneath the boat and hit the lure as I was reeling it in from a cast.  What a sight that was!  I also fished for muskie on a fairly regular basis.  Muskie are the largest member of the pike family of freshwater, American fish.  In Wisconsin, you couldn’t keep a muskie unless it was a minimum of 30”.  I often saw muskie swimming in the clear lakes of the northwoods.  I saw my Dad catch one; he had it mounted, and it now hangs on the wall of the home of my nephew, Scott, in Phoenix, Arizona… a place where they don’t have a lot of muskie, by the way!  But I never caught one… until, one day…

It was a cool, misty day up north.  We were going to leave later that afternoon to go back home.  We had a fire in the fireplace, and people were either packing up things or playing gin rummy or sitting and reading in front of the fire.  I decided that I’d throw on a jacket, and I grabbed my fishing rod and walked down to the lake.  I thought I’d just cast off of the dock for a while and see what happened.  I’d been down there about 15 minutes, and suddenly, unexpectedly, wham!  My line started straining as a huge pull to yank it hard.  It had to be a muskie!  I was so excited.  I started carefully, almost gingerly, reeling in the fish.  I was hollering for someone to come down to help me… but, of course, the doors were closed and the windows were shut because it was cool and rainy.  I was the nutty guy who decided to go fish in that kind of weather, and I was clearly all on my own at this point.  I finally got the fish up so close that I could see it battling against the lure and the line.  Yep, it was a muskie all right!  I knew that what I needed to do was use the fishing net I’d brought down to the dock, and put the fish in the net in order to land it.  The fish was in the right position to be netted, and I slowly knelt down to pick up the net.  My hand touched nothing but the dock.  In a panic I looked down, and, seeing nothing, looked around.  There, way on the other end of the dock, was the net.  So, I dragged the muskie through the water down alongside the dock until I got to where the net was.  It was time to land my first muskie!

My heart was racing.  My breathing was fast.  My excitement was boiling over!  All of those physiological reactions of my body apparently overpowered my brain, because, instead of kneeling down, putting the net in the water, and leading the muskie head first into the net, I, for reasons still beyond my understanding, somehow thought it would be a good idea to lift the fish out of the water first, and then bring the net up from underneath it!  I lifted the fish out of the water, and saw that it was caught just by a lip on one of the lure’s hooks.  I quickly but carefully positioned the net under the fish, and began lowering it into the net.  The tail of the fish touched the end of the net, the fish looked at me (I swear it did!), seemed to chuckle in a fishy sort of way (I swear it did that, too!), flicked its tail once, easily knocking the net out of my hand, and spit the hook out of its mouth (once again, I swear it did).  It looked over its shoulder at me as it was falling into the water, and then laughed as it hit the water and swam away.  I’m sure it did all of those things!

It was then I began to realize, in my bitter disappointment at losing the first muskie I’d ever hooked, my several mistakes.  First, keep your net close at hand.  Second, the strongest part of the fish is its tail, which is why you put it head first into the net so it can’t flip itself out.  Finally, when a muskie hits a lure, you are supposed to pull hard on the line in order to set the hook firmly in the fish’s mouth; I hadn’t wanted to do that for fear that I’d lose the fish.  Hmmm, imagine!  However, when all was said and done, I felt like a real fisherman… because I, too, had joined the ranks of the people down through the millennia who could tell a story about “the one that got away!”

I have realized over the years that I’m not really a fisherman.  This past fall when we were in New York for Michael and Lauren’s wedding, Michael’s bachelor party was at a small lake on private land.  We fished, and then cooked out and told stories.  The only thing we caught were little bluegill, and it was fun to catch them… but, to be honest, they weren’t that good to eat, and the real fun for me was not the fishing, but rather being with all of the other men who were there and who were swapping stories.  Maybe it’s just that I’m not a patient enough person to sit in a boat or stand on a dock in all kinds of weather to fish.  And any real fisherperson will tell you that you have to sit in a boat or stand on a dock most often for a long time, because that’s what you do “When the Fish Aren’t Biting.”

Our Gospel lesson this morning is St. Luke’s remembrance of the calling by Jesus of his first followers.  It was early in Jesus’ ministry.  He already had had mixed response to the Good News he was proclaiming.  In his hometown, he’d been run out of the synagogue for his brash claims of being the fulfillment of the ancient messianic prophecies of Isaiah.  He had brought relief to a man who had been possessed, and brought healing to Simon’s mother-in-law.  Jesus then went out into the wilderness, but crowds were already beginning to follow him.  They apparently were hungry for what it was he had to say and teach and do.  Jesus preached to the crowd that had gathered around him that day, and the people responded so favorably that they wanted Jesus to stay with them for a long time.  However, he left, saying he had other people to go to who also needed to hear the Good News of God’s saving, redeeming, justice-demanding love.

He went to a lakeside, and once again people were crowding in around him, longing to be fed and nurtured by his words and actions.  In order to be better heard, he got into a boat, and asked the boat’s owner, Simon, to row out just a bit so folks could hear him better.  After he finished his preaching and teaching, Jesus sat down, and asked Peter to go out into deeper water and lower their nets to catch some fish.  Peter, who apparently had been out working all night, said to Jesus, probably with not a little exasperation, “Master, we have worked all night long, but have caught nothing.  Yet,” he continued, “if you say so, I will let down the nets.”  He’d already seen his wife’s mother healed.  He had already watched the way in which Jesus could touch people’s hearts and minds with his words and actions.  And so, at the very least, he probably thought, “What have I got to lose?”  So Peter rowed out into deeper water, let down his nets, and, to his surprise and delight and amazement, “they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.”  Peter signaled his business partners, James and John, to come over with their boat to help, but the catch was so great that both boats almost sank trying to bring the fish back to shore!  Luke wanted to make sure that we understood the abundance that resulted from following Jesus’ ways and words.  When he had seen what was happening, Peter, in humbled awe, fell at Jesus’ feet and acknowledged him as Lord.  Jesus then invited Peter and the others to follow, and, Luke tells us, “they left everything and followed him.”

Now, as with any analogy, one can take the analogy of Jesus calling us to be fishers of people to an extreme.  I remember once hearing someone talk about developing a style of evangelism that was more like Jesus’ style.  “After all,” this minister said, “Jesus was a fisher of people, not a hunter!  He didn’t track people down, shoot them, skin them, tie them on the top of a pickup, and drive them back to town, gutted for all to see!”  While that is true, if you take the analogy of fishing too far, it doesn’t appear to me to have any more integrity than that of hunting.  It has more finesse, to be sure, but I don’t like the image of laying some sort of spiritual or emotional “bait” out for unsuspecting people to see and nibble at until we can yank the line, set the hook, and reel them in!  So we can’t take this, or any, analogy very far before it quickly breaks down.

However, I think there is still a lesson to learn from this story this morning.  There are times in our lives, and in the life of the Church, when we keep working at things, and working, and working, and nothing seems to have any positive, lasting impact and effect.  Especially in our society, people still think that if we just could figure out the right gimmick to employ, people would flood back to church, filling both our membership rolls and our coffers!  But it feels as if we’re in the same spot those first proto-disciples of Jesus were in in our Gospel lesson this morning.  We keep working, but we’re not sure what to do “When the Fish Aren’t Biting.”  So we feel stuck at best, disheartened at worst.  But what the disciples were willing to do in their situation was to follow Jesus’ words and try something new, something different.  Had they fished from the other side of their boats already?  It’s likely they had.  But Jesus was telling them that what they were doing clearly wasn’t working, and it was time to try something else.

Jesus comes to us in our day, reminds us of God’s claim and call on our lives – just as was on the life of the prophet Isaiah, just as was on the lives of those first followers of Jesus, just as was placed on our own lives in the symbol of our baptism.  Jesus reminds us that there is still work that needs to be done, love that needs to be shared, Good News that needs to be proclaimed, justice that needs to be called for, peace that needs to be sought after.  And, I believe, Jesus tells us that, if what we’re currently doing isn’t working, if we keep trying things “When the Fish Aren’t Biting,” then we need to try some new things.

The sabbatical work I’ll be doing during the month of August and a couple of weeks on either side of that will be an exploration of what some possible “new things” might be for us to try.  The work of our new Long-Range Planning Committee, which meets tomorrow night for the first time, will include looking at what new things we might need to begin doing “When the Fish Aren’t Biting.”

That encounter with Jesus on the lake forever changed the lives of those first disciples.  They not only tried a new thing while fishing in their boats, but, once they got to shore, they completely left behind what they had been doing, and they began to live life in a whole new way.  What new ways and new things might Christ be calling us to do… as a congregation, but also in the ways in which we structure our personal, family, and work priorities?  If I’d been aware of some new ways of fishing those years ago, I would have landed that muskie.  But I learned from what didn’t work.  I wonder what new things we’ll be learning in the next months and years as a community of faith, as a people of God in our society, as the lights to the world that we are called to be?  I don’t know… but I’m excited to find out!  AMEN!

January 24, 2010

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“The Joy of Worship”

Text:    Luke 4:18a – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me…”

Scripture Lessons:       Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Luke 4:14-21

Proposition:  We Presbyterians truly strive to do everything “decently and in order.”  But we dare not lose a sense of “The Joy of Worship,” which refreshes us while together and renews us for service in the world.

Prayer for Illumination:  Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the scriptures are read and your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today.  Amen.

Think about the last time you lost something.  I love it when people, as they are talking about looking for something they lost, say, with almost a sense of satisfaction, “And you know what, it was in the last place I looked for it.”  I want to say, “Of course it was in the last place you looked for it!  Why would you keep looking in other places after you found it!”  But I know I’ve said the same thing… so I just keep quiet.

The other day I was riding in my car.  I had put my wallet on the passenger seat for some reason.  It was night.  I had gotten out and gone into a couple of stores.  I then was driving home, and remembered that I had set my wallet on the car seat.  I reached over to get it… and couldn’t find it!  Panic immediately set in!  Did it fall out of the car when I was getting in and out?  Had I put it back in my pants pocket and had it fallen out of there?  I’d have to get a new driver’s license, but I was going out of town to a Synod event this week.  I’d have to contact credit card companies right away.  I was panicked!  You know the feeling, yes?  I finally pulled into a parking lot and turned on the interior lights.  I looked on the car seat again, but nothing.  I then looked down on the floor, and there, in the corner, against the floor mat, was my wallet.  Relief!

It’s hard when we lose things, isn’t it?  Most of the time it really has no far-reaching impact, because it’s little things we lose.  However, sometimes we lose things that are more important, more valuable.  In the process of our move here a little over ten years ago, we lost one box.  Not bad, given all the things that happen in a move, right?  But that one box contained some pictures… and it contained all of the negatives of pictures that we had taken for years and years:  family pictures, vacation pictures, all of our pictures!  And, of course, they were gone, then, forever.  Now, this didn’t affect the quality of our lives, or our health, or our safety, so we were okay.  But sometimes we lose things that affect our lives or our health or our safety, too, don’t we?  We know about loss and its impact.

The people of Israel during the time of our Old Testament lesson this morning were lost.  It’s not that they had lost their way.  It’s not that they had lost some possession.  But they had lost something dear to them.  They had lost faith.  They had lost their identity during some 100-200 years in exile in a foreign land.  They had lost their bearing.  They had lost joy.

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are complementary books.  In fact, in the Hebrew Bible, they are one book.  We’ve divided it into two.  Ezra was the High Priest; Nehemiah was the governor.  The people of Israel had been taken into captivity after their land was run over by the invading armies of Babylonia, which is contemporary Iraq.  The Babylonians had scattered the people throughout their realm as a very effective means of subduing a conquered people.  But now, several decades or a century or more afterwards, the Babylonians had themselves been defeated by an invading army, and the victors of that battle allowed all of the people in captivity to return to their homelands.  The Israelites made their way back home, and began the long, arduous task of trying to rebuild… to rebuild their homes and their businesses, to rebuild their infrastructure, to rebuild their Temple, to rebuild the very fabric of their lives as a people.  It was excruciatingly difficult work… and disheartening.  In the process of their rebuilding efforts, those two national leaders brought the people together, because they knew that something inside the people needed to be addressed.

Nehemiah the governor and Ezra the priest gathered everyone together, and said to them, “You are emotionally spent!  You’ve been working so hard at so many things.  But the good news is that we have rediscovered the written Word of God to us, and we all have been deeply moved and irrevocably changed.  We’ve been together here all this day in worship and reading, listening and praying, weeping and remembering.  But it’s time now to go home.  Only don’t go home with a heavy heart, thinking of what we have missed all these past decades.  Go home with joy in your heart, laughter in your life, love in your relationships.  Go home a different person than when you came to this place.  Go home renewed and strong, and know that it is the joy of the Lord Almighty that will sustain you and give you strength to do what you need to be doing now.”

When the people heard the Word read to them from their ancient scriptures, they recognized how broken their lives and their relationships had become.  They realized how much they had failed to fulfill their true potential and how short they had fallen from God’s expectations and from their own expectations as well.  But Nehemiah and Ezra reassured them.  Their purpose could be rediscovered as they gathered in community to listen for what God was saying to them.  Their lives could be straightened around again as they worshiped their God.  Their lives could be refreshed and renewed, and they could dare to believe that they could live with hope and with joy in their lives!  God’s grace, God’s love, and God’s call would do that within them.

I came across a great story recently that I had heard years ago but had since forgotten…

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on either end of a pole which he carried across his neck.  One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.  For full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his master’s house.  The poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.  The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.”  As they walked, the bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?  That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it.  I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them.  For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table.  Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”

We are reflections of God’s beauty in the world, and we are to be signs of grace and love and joy to the world in the passions we bring to life.  That’s what Jesus said he was as he sat in his hometown place of worship one Sabbath day and read these words from the prophet Isaiah:

“‘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.’ (Luke tells us that Jesus then) rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”

“Today,” Jesus said, the people could see something of God’s compassion for the world and God’s passion for serving those most in need in the world.  Today Jesus still stands in our midst – in the midst of this worshiping congregation – and offers us joy to strengthen our lives and grace to serve God in this world of ours.  Today is when we are called to be lights to a world too used to shadowy places, to stand for justice and peace in world too often broken, to speak peace to those in world whose lives are too filled with anything but a sense of peace.

Sara Miles, Director of Ministry at St. Gregory of Nissa Episcopal Church, San Francisco, shared these thoughts about this passage:

“Jesus emerges from his forty days in the wilderness, armed with the power of the Spirit. He walks into his hometown synagogue, among his own people. He opens the scroll, reads the words of the prophet Isaiah, and Jesus’ very first word out of the desert is: Today.

“This is not religion as we know it. Not nostalgia for the past, nor a fantasy of the future. It’s not centered in memory or anticipation – next year I’ll do this… in the old days we did that… someday God will set things right.

“Jesus just proclaims, ‘today.’”  (at www.journeywithjesus.net)

All of this begins to take shape when we join with others and gather within the community of faith to worship:  to listen for God’s word to our lives, to offer our prayers and praise to the Creator, to see Jesus for who he is and for how he lived his life as a model for us to emulate, to open our hearts and minds to the invigorating, purpose-driven, and joy-giving presence of the Holy Spirit.

We come to worship each week from the broken mess that sometimes is our life in a fallen creation.  We believe the kingdom of God has come in Christ but we know full well that there is much that remains broken, incomplete, wounding.  Still we hold onto that kingdom vision and the peace it gives to us.  Because the Lord God anointed Jesus to announce the year of the Lord’s favor, we have hope and we have peace, already now.  And we have joy, too… a sense of joy which grounds us… a sense of joy which fills us… a sense of joy which refreshes us… a sense of joy that helps us get up each morning and resolve today to live the kind of life and engage ourselves in the kinds of things that Jesus did.  Joy is not the same as happiness.  Happiness is conditional – it depends on what happens to us and around us.  Joy is a decision… a decision to stay in the center of God’s love and be filled by the sense of wholeness that gives us.  Joy is a gift… a gift from the God who loves us and who calls us into worship together and out into the world in which we are called to serve others.

There are all different styles of worship today.  Some of those styles are expressed in the majesty of old traditions.  Some of those styles are rooted in the mystery of silence and Sacraments.  Some of those styles are filled with noise and praise.  But in all of those styles, we can experience a sense of “The Joy of Worship”… because God is here, hope is renewed, lives are refreshed, and we are gifted once again with joy.

Thanks be to God!  AMEN!

January 17, 2010

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign”

Text:    John 2:11 – “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory…”

Scripture Lessons:       Psalm 36:5-10

John 2:1-11

Proposition:  In our society, we live by signs, telling us where to stand, where to drive, how fast to go, where to shop, what to buy, and on and on:  “Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign.”  Jesus performed “signs” as well.  What do they tell us?

Prayer for Illumination:  God, source of all light, by your Word you give light to the soul.  Pour out upon us the spirit of wisdom and understanding that, being taught by you in Holy Scripture, our hearts and minds may be opened to know the things that pertain to life and holiness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.   Amen.

We are society surrounded by signs of all types, aren’t we?  There are speed limit signs, a necessary, even if seemingly often ignored, thing.  There are signs on buildings.  There are street signs so you can find your way to buildings you want.  There are advertising signs.  There are no parking signs.  There are billboard signs.  There are traffic signs.

There are funny signs, catchy signs, confusing signs.  Here are some I found when I looked up “funny signs” on the web…

• Pets:  New and Used
• Waitress Needed:  Must be 18 years old with 20 years experience.  Apply in person, Carnation Restaurant.
• 0% off select items today.  (The first number had blown off the sign)
• Warning:  Children left unattended will be sold to the circus.
• Unattended children will be given espresso and a free puppy.
• Please be safe.  Do not stand, sit, climb, or lean on zoo fences.  If you fall, animals could eat you and that might make them sick.  Thank you.
• Garbage only.  No trash.
• Soccer not allowed.  Soccer may only be played in archery range.
• On one of those electric road construction signs:  “You’ll never get to work on time!  Hahaha!”
• Win a FREE ride in a police car just by shoplifting from this store.
• And, one of my favorites:  From the Newcastle (New South Wales, Australia) Tramway Authority:  “Touching wires causes instant death.  $200 fine.”

We had not lived in Omaha for very long when David and I needed to stop by a piano store on Dodge Street to look at something.  I had picked him up from school, and we came back to church so that I could finish some things I was doing.  Then we left for the store.  I drove east on Leavenworth, turned left on 50^th, crossed Dodge Street, did a circle around the block preparing to get to the store’s parking lot.  I noticed that a police car was behind me, but that didn’t strike me as unusual… until, that is, the cruiser’s lights were turned on.  I got that feeling that I suppose everyone gets who ever has been pulled over by the police.  I was baffled as to the reason, since I’d been going the speed limit, stopping at lights and signs, and otherwise being a careful driver.  I pulled over and stopped, and the officer walked up to the car.  I rolled down my window and greeted him… very politely, of course.  He said, “You know you made an illegal left turn back there.”  I guessed that the poor man was confused; I knew that you couldn’t turn left from Dodge, and I figured he thought that’s what I had done.  I told him I hadn’t been on Dodge Street.  He said, “No, you made an illegal left turn off of Leavenworth.”  “You can’t turn left from Leavenworth,” I asked.  He shook his head, and talked about traffic flow on this busy street.  I confess now, brothers and sisters, that, in card playing parlance, I played the “I’m-new-in-town-and-the-pastor-at-Central-Presbyterian-Church” card.  It was the only card I had left in my hand, and, God help me, I played it!  It didn’t work.  I got my ticket, we went to the store, and, when coming back to church, I made sure to go through the intersection of 50^th and Leavenworth.  I looked, and, sure enough, there was a no-left-turn sign clearly visible.  In fact, there were two no left turn signs clearly visible!  Signs are important; you just have to look to see them!

You perhaps have seen the billboard signs from time to time around town.  In fact, I’ve seen them traveling in different cities.  These are those black signs with white letters, with a short saying on it, and signed simply, “God.”  Those signs were developed by the Smith Advertising Agency in Fort Lauderdale, Florida advertising agency, sponsored by an anonymous client.  There are seventeen different ones.  My favorites are these:

• You know that part about “love thy neighbor?”  I meant that.  – God
• Let’s meet at my house Sunday before the game.  – God
• What part of “Thou Shalt Not…” didn’t you understand?  – God
• My way is the highway.  – God
• Have you read my #1 Best Seller?  There will be a test.  – God
• Don’t make me come down there.  – God
• Tell the kids I love them.  – God

Signs.  They’re all around us.

Our Gospel lesson this morning of the wedding in Cana is one of my favorite stories.  It is one of those unique stories that John alone includes in his gospel account.  This story fascinates me, intrigues me, and, in a positive way, challenges me.

We should begin by noting that John does not use the word “miracle” to describe what Jesus did here.  Rather, John chose to use the word “sign” throughout his Gospel, whenever he referred to something spectacular that Jesus accomplished.  Why?  I believe that John was afraid that, if he used the word “miracle,” it would be too easy for his readers to focus upon what was done.  John, however, wanted the focus to be on who was doing these amazing and powerful acts.  So he chose to use the word, “sign,” since a sign points beyond itself to something else, to some other meaning.  In this case, John wants his readers to know that Jesus did this act at Cana so that people would begin to get the message that he was someone special, the Christ, the Messiah.

The sign itself that Jesus performed, of course, was that of turning water into fine wine.  This wonder would cause problems for some of our more puritanical friends in the faith.  In fact, years ago I heard a television preacher comment that “Jesus turned that water at Cana into the very best unfermented grape juice that the world has ever known!”  It was, indeed, amazing to listen to a fundamentalist preacher, who would pride himself on taking the Bible literally, so bend this text to make it say what he thought it should!  Jesus turned the water into wine.  In this way he helped the hosts of the wedding reception, since they apparently had run out of wine.  You need to understand that wedding receptions, in those days, were large, gala events that went on for days.  In those days, as in ours, there were many social pressures to do things the right way so that guests did not get offended or feel somehow “slighted.”  Running out of wine was one of the big, social blunders of such an event – perhaps akin to how people would react if we were to seat the mother of the bride in the 3^rd row of guests at the wedding service instead of in the front!  So, Jesus helped out his host, and did so in a big way – changing vast quantities of water into wine.

It is significant to me that this first, recorded mighty act of Jesus did not take place at some somber, pompous religious ceremony.  It took place at a wedding and a reception, to which Jesus and his mother and disciples were invited.  This seems to show how much Jesus cared for his neighbors and friends, how much Jesus thought of the significance of weddings, and how much Jesus wanted to show us that life and all of our social relationships are meant to be filled with joy and laughter and wonder and excitement, with promise and hope about what the future holds in store!  This first sign of Jesus’ divinity, his first public act of ministry (according to St. John), took place at a party… at a party that was filled with all of the happiness and cheer, but also with all of the tension and fear, that often seem to be mixed together in large, family and social events such as weddings.  In the midst of this kind of occasion, Jesus comes, Jesus helps, Jesus provides bounty.  And he provided a sign to focus our attention on him and who he was and the kinds of ways he helped.

There are people who use signs in negative, twisted ways, assigning blame to people or to God for tragedies that happen.  The events of this past Tuesday’s devastating earthquake in Haiti provided only the latest example of one such twisted use of Scripture and theology.  You undoubtedly heard that televangelist Pat Robertson said that the earthquake was caused by the fact that “all the people of Haiti made a pact with the devil 200 years ago that they would serve him if he helped them rid their nation from the control of France, and the French finally left, and those people have been cursed ever since.”  What a cruel and heartless thing to say about tragedy!  What a warped view of God’s providential care for all the people of the world.  And what horrible theology he espoused!  Tragedies are not signs that somebody is to blame or that evil is afoot!  Tragedies sometimes do have causes, but Scripture affirms, in the strongest terms, that God stands with us in the midst of hard times, that God surrounds us with love and offers us peace and strength to get through the hard times, that Jesus came to be a sign of God’s love and presence precisely in such difficulties and brokenness in life!

In 1970, a musical group known as the Five Man Electrical Band, released a song entitled, “Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign.”  This was a late-60’s and early-70’s song typical of the age’s longing for freedom from repression, even if the so-called “repression” seems pretty silly to us now.  They talked about signs that were “blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind.”  Well, there are signs all around us, that’s for sure.  But the most important signs are the ones that point us to Jesus Christ – to who he is, to the kinds of things he did and still does, to the qualities of compassion and love and justice and grace and peace that speak to our hearts and transform our lives when we stay focused on Jesus, the ultimate Sign for us of God’s presence with us and among us.

Thanks be to God!  AMEN!

January 10, 2010

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“Precious”

Text:    Isaiah 43:1a – “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”

Scripture Lessons:       Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Isaiah 43:1-7

Proposition:  We are all incredibly dear and “Precious” to our God.  Baptism reminds us that we belong to God and are enveloped in God’s grace and love always.

Prayer for Illumination:  Saving God, source of our calling, your Word is full of power and glory.  Pour out your Holy Spirit upon us so that we may receive your grace and live as your beloved children; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

It is fascinating to me to observe the ways in which the meanings of words change or flow over time.  There are layers of meanings behind some words, and the same basic meaning might stay pretty much the same as the usage of those words changes.  There are other words, though, that have come to mean something entirely different as their use has adapted through the years, sometimes even meaning the exact opposite of what it once did.

Consider Jesus’ words to his disciples about children.  The Gospels of Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke all contain the same response of Jesus to the apostles when, in the midst of a serious conversation, a bunch of little kids wanted to come up and talk with Jesus.  You probably know what Jesus said:  “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”  (Matt. 19:14; see also Mark 10:14 and Luke 18:16).  However, if you are old enough, or a student enough of the Bible, you might remember how the old King James Version of the Bible translated it:  “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”  If you read that verse from that version to people today who weren’t familiar with the old language, what kind of cruel, heartless, uncaring person would they conclude Jesus must be?  We don’t use the word “suffer” in that way at all anymore, do we?

Look at all of the different ways in which we use the word “special” today.  Educators have some different terms in many cases, but there are some children who commonly are referred to as children with “special needs,” and who therefore have programs that are uniquely designed to help them learn and succeed in the classroom.  There is a “television special,” that supposedly brings some exceptional program to the viewing audience.  The ways in which graphic artists and people who use complex computer programs and people who are filmmakers make their on-screen magic happen employ what are called “special effects.”  Elite military personnel who are uniquely trained for specific purposes are in what are called “special forces.”  Albert Einstein began a new revolution in physics in 1905 with his theory of “special relativity,” a fundamental approach to the relationship of space, time, and the speed of light.  And then of course there was that famous use of the word as intoned by Dana Carvey and his Saturday Night Live character, Enid Strict, known more familiarly as the Church Lady:  “Well, isn’t that special?”  Ah, in what different ways we use this simple, seven-letter word!

There are countless other examples of how the meaning of words has changed, some of which are these:

• “Awful” used to mean “full of awe,” but now means “bad.”
• “Bad” used to mean “not good,” but now means “cool.”
• “Cool” used to refer only to temperature, but for a long time has meant “hip.”
• “Hip” used to refer only to a joint in the body, but now means “cool.”
• It’s hard to sing the familiar stanza of that Christmas carol, “don we now our gay apparel,” without thinking of a Mardi Gras or Gay Pride parade.

The word “precious” is one of the ones that has been used in different ways… not so much with a wide variety of disparate meanings, but to refer to different things.  We speak of “precious gems” – gemstones such as diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, opals, and even pearls, even though they are clearly not a “stone” as the others are.  If you watched any of the movies or read any of the books in the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, you know that the split personality character Smeagol/Gollum always referred to the One Ring as “my Precious.”

The word “precious” as a noun means “beloved,” “dear,” “highly valuable.”  As an adjective it can mean “cherished” or “treasured,” as in “a precious heirloom,” or to think of “precious memories,” or to refer to “children are precious.”  As an adverb it has the sense of “extremely,” as in “there is precious little time left.”

One does not refer to another person as “precious” unless the two share an exceptionally close and loving relationship.  Without that kind of relationship, the word can be seen as ridiculing another person or treating someone in a condescending manner.  However, within the context of such a special relationship, the word is filled with meanings of endearment, specialness, and intimacy.  One is blessed, indeed, in life if one has two or three people who are precious to them in the fullest, deepest, most meaningful sense of that term.

I propose to you that, in God’s sight, each of us – each and every one of us – is precious.  We know it from that old children’s hymn:

Jesus loves the little children,

All the children of the world.

Red and yellow, black and white,

They are precious in his sight.

Jesus loves the little children of the world.

I know… when we think of that song we think of it as expressing sentiments that are “cute” and “quaint.”  But God’s love for us is anything but cute and quaint.  God’s love does not patronize us.  God’s love does not romanticize us, as we tend to romanticize Christmas or times gone by.  God’s love for us is deep.  It is passionate.  It is transformative.  It is redemptive.  It is forever… forever!

There are people who often think that the Old Testament paints a picture of a vengeful, wrathful, angry God, while the New Testament pictures a God who is all-loving, all-forgiving, all kind and gentle.  Well, that’s not a new idea.  In fact, as early as a.d. 144, a Roman Christian by the name of Marcion, promulgated this notion.  And the Church that early in its life, existing not long after the death of all of those first followers of Jesus, recognized Marcion’s ideas as heresy, and they excommunicated him!  I often wonder if people who continue in this notion of a “God of the Old Testament” who is somehow substantively different than a “God of the New Testament” have ever really read the Bible!  Surely they couldn’t persist in such erroneous ideas if they had ever read our Old Testament lesson this morning!

Here is how the ancient prophet, Isaiah, believed God relates to us, how God feels about us, how God longs to envelope us in grace and love, compassion and strength:  “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”  In the midst of a world that gives birth to many reasons to be afraid, God says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”  In the midst of an economy that is still uncertain, making us concerned for our futures, God still says to us, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”  In the midst of concerns about global warming, which seem far removed from us after these past few weeks, but which is nonetheless scientifically demonstrable, giving us concerns for what kind of planet our children and grandchildren and other descendents will live in, God still says to us, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”  In the midst of feelings within us of insecurity, of somehow being unlovable, of disappointment at not living up to our full potential, of frustration about bad decisions we make and good decisions we don’t make, God still says to us, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”

St. Augustine, way back in the 4^th century, gave the Church a definition of what a sacrament is that still stands today.  He said that “a sacrament is an outward, visible sign of an inward, invisible grace.”  This morning, which, in the Church calendar, is the Sunday of the Baptism of the Lord, we are invited to remember the sacrament of our own baptisms.  We also are invited to participate in the sacrament of Communion.  Here, laid out before us, are the outward, visible signs of water… and bread… and the cup.  They signify for us the inward, invisible grace that we experience by being deeply, unabashedly, profoundly, passionately loved by our God.  Each of us is beloved.  Each of us is embraced by God’s presence.  Each of us is “Precious” in the eyes of God.

So be open once again to experience God’s redemptive love as it is experienced in the Sacrament of Communion.  Be open once again to remember that we are claimed by God and marked for service in the world as we see and hear the water poured into the baptismal font.  We belong to God and are enveloped in God’s grace and love always.  And God still says to us, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”

Thanks be to God!  AMEN!

January 3, 2010

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“After the Party’s Over”

Text:    Matthew 2:12 – “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.”

Scripture Lessons:       Isaiah 60:1-6

Matthew 2:1-12

Proposition:  What happens “After the Party’s Over”?  The guests leave, wrappings are recycled, gifts are put away, and decorations are taken down.  So what comes next?

Prayer for Illumination:  God of mercy, you promised never to break your covenant with us.  Amid all the changing words of our generation, speak your eternal Word that does not change.  Then may we respond to your gracious promises with faithful and obedient lives; through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

What’s your favorite kind of party?  And no, you may not answer “Republican” or “Democrat!”  What kind of party do you like to give or do you like to attend?

Some people love birthday parties!  They go all out… decorating just the right cake in just the right way.  They put a lot of thought and energy into finding the perfect gift for the birthday person.  They love putting together lists of guests and of party games to play.  They love to plan out the whole event, down to the last minute detail.

Some people love Halloween parties.  They love to dress up.  They love to use their imaginations.  They love to see how other people dress up.  For them, it’s not a matter of scary things as much as it is a matter of fantasy and play.  Perhaps they enjoy finding a costume that portrays them in a way that is completely unlike who they usually are.  Perhaps they enjoy finding a costume that is so elaborate that they hope other people will have a difficult time even knowing who they are.  Perhaps they just enjoy a costume that is fun.  Caroline and I went to a Halloween party years ago, and I decided that I wanted to go as a Scotsman, and Caroline made the kilt to go with the rest of what I was wearing that night.  It was fun… but I discovered that Scotsman are tougher than I am when it comes to wearing something like a kilt in the winter… and so are women who wear dresses or skirts in weather like this.  My hat’s off to all of you!

Some people love karaoke parties… you know, when people get up and sing in front of others, watching a machine that dances the words across a screen, while the appropriate background music is playing for the song that they are singing.  To be honest, I always thought that watching people lip-syncing to a song seemed like a pretty silly thing to do, especially when some of the things I’ve seen on TV always tend to show people who can’t really carry a tune!  However, I did go with a group of people years ago to a place where there was karaoke… and it was amazing and so fun!  Of course, it helps to do karaoke when you’re with people who are in musical theater!

In the last city in which we lived, all of our family were involved, in one way or another, in community theater.  I think it was Michael who first was in a play.  Then David joined him.  Caroline began helping design and paint scenery and help with costuming.  I picked up acting again, and also learned some technical aspects of theater, working backstage.  Cast parties… and especially the cast parties that were at our house, were always a treat.  Theater people are just fun folks, barring the occasional, proverbial drama queen, who always feels that every performance is Oscar worthy.

These past few days, we’ve had an extended party at our house.  We had a reception yesterday, of course, for our son and daughter-in-law, Michael and Lauren.  They were able to drive out early, arriving Tuesday night.  Lauren’s parents arrived Wednesday night.  Then a nephew and niece of mine came in Friday night from Arizona… our son, David, got home late Friday night… and three of Lauren’s cousins came yesterday.  It was an amazing, wonderful time, filled with laughter and stories and an abundance of love to share.  But as of this moment this morning, everyone is on their way home.  Our dogs can settle back down again.  We can settle back down again.  Our lives can get back to normal.  And we’re looking forward to it.  As good as these past few days have been, we’re looking forward to getting back to normal “After the Party’s Over.”

That’s what we do, isn’t it?  Whether or not a party goes well or doesn’t, it eventually ends, and we settle back into whatever passes for “normal” in our lives.  We go back to familiar routines… to setting the alarm clock… to having a normal amount of food – healthy food – in the house again… to resuming a schedule… to being able to keep the house picked up easily… to being able to have your bathroom back, without makeup bags, dopp kits with shaving paraphernalia in it (something my bathroom hasn’t seen in about 30 years!), and a plethora of curling irons, dryers, and hair brushes!  There is a part of us that, “After the Party’s Over,” longs for some semblance of normalcy to return to our lives.  Don’t you find that to be true?

In the Church season, this is the second Sunday after Christmas.  Christmas… the divine Party of all parties!  It is the remembrance and celebration of the birth of the Messiah.  It is the observance of the Incarnation… of the reality of God’s entering into human existence in the flesh… the Creator becoming the creature.  It is our reminder that we are not alone… are never alone in this life.  It is an occasion to remember how deeply and dearly we are loved by our God.

And what happens “After the Party’s Over” from Christmas?  We work to get back to normal again.  We put away the tree.  We carefully repack the Christmas decorations.  We bring out the boxes that held our Christmas ornaments and rewrap each one, putting it back in its place so that we can bring it out next year.  We take down all of the Christmas lights, working carefully to not get the electrical cords tangled… something which they somehow manage to do anyhow during the next 340 days or so when they are in a box in the dark!  (Another Christmas miracle, perhaps?)  We vacuum up the needles from the Christmas tree for what will be the last time this year.  Most all of us wind up our Christmas parties with rituals that get us back to a so-called “normal” life.

But what happened after that first Christmas party with the magi… those three wise sages from the East who came to observe and bear witness to the birth of the Messiah?  We know the story about them.  They were astrologers and astronomers in Persia, which, until 1935, was the name of the country we now know as Iran.  They believed that there were truths in the world that could be discerned if one carefully studied the skies.  We remember their observance of a strange star, which they followed… a star they believed would lead them to a new and mighty ruler being born somewhere to their west.  They came to Israel and had an audience with King Herod.  Apparently they were students not just of the heavens but also of human nature, because there was something about Herod that they instinctively mistrusted.  So when Herod had consulted with his theologians about the probably birthplace of the Messiah as was foretold in the scriptures… and after they left him to continue their quest… and after they found Mary and Joseph and the Christ Child… they left.

The magi came to observe and bear witness… but something happened.  They became participants in the Story.  The Gospel writer records their participation.  We remember and retell their participation.  Children act out their participation in Christmas play after Christmas play down through the centuries!  They have a small part in the divine Story, mentioned only in three verses in the second chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel.  However, they occupy an important role in our remembering and retelling of the Story of the Nativity.

And so what does our Gospel lesson this morning say about what they did “After the Party’s Over?”  This is how our text put it:  “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.”  Now, it seems clear that they did that to avoid having to talk with Herod again… and they most certainly were not going back to report to him the exact whereabouts of the Holy Family!  And, as we know from the Gospel accounts, they were, indeed, wise men not to do that.  Herod clearly had other plans in mind… devious plans… horrific plans which he ultimately exacted from the parents of all male babies who were born in a two-year period in and around Bethlehem.  God’s angelic messengers were busy during that time, not only telling shepherds about Jesus’ birth and singing their alleluias in praise at the wonder of Immanuel, but also in warning Joseph, in comforting Mary, in guiding the magi.  There were forces already at work to undermine God’s redeeming, loving act in Jesus Christ, and the angels were tasked with protecting the Baby and others until a much later time when other things would unfold as were needed at the time.

However, I believe there may have been some other reason the magi returned home “by another road.”  I believe that, in some way, the magi remind us of how we should respond “After the Party’s Over” from Christmas.  We, too, should become participants in the Story, adding our parts to how the Story of Christ winds its way through succeeding generations.  The magi invite us to consider the response that they had as well.  Instead of working so hard to so quickly return to our “normal” lives… perhaps, just perhaps, we are invited to move past Christmas “by another road.”  Perhaps, just perhaps, our lives aren’t supposed to get back to “normal.”  Perhaps, just perhaps, our lives really are supposed to be changed by the coming of Christ into our world.  Perhaps, just perhaps, we are invited – maybe even expected – to live our lives by a new definition of “normal”… our lives reflecting more compassion, more love, a deeper sense of awe and wonder at God’s mysteries, a renewed commitment to peace and to justice.  Perhaps, just perhaps, our lives ought to reflect a new kind of “normal,” one that we renew each remembrance of Christmas.

So what now?  What happens today and this week, “After the Party’s Over?”  I believe that we are invited to ease back into our routines “by another road”… with a profound sense of love:  for ourselves, for each other, for the creation, and for our God.

Merry 10^th day of Christmas!  AMEN!

December 27, 2009

Omaha, NE

Rev. Steven W. Plank

“It Doesn’t Make Any Difference”

Text:    John 1:14a – “And the Word became flesh and lived among us…”

Scripture Lessons:       Colossians 3:12-17

John 1:1-5, 9-14

Proposition:  Much of the folklore and even the traditions around Christmas… well, really, “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference.”  However, the essence of Christmas – that God has come to us in the flesh in Jesus Christ – makes all the difference!

Prayer for Illumination:  Great God, as you came at night when all was still, so enter our lives this night.  Illumine our paths with the light of Christ’s presence, that we may clearly see the way before us, the truth to speak, and the life to live for him, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Note:  We cancelled Christmas Eve services because of a blizzard.  This sermon was adapted slightly from the sermon for that Christmas Eve.

Isn’t it funny how things that, at some point in your life, seem so very important, turn out to not make any difference in the long run?  I remember when one of our boys was young and we were working on the potty-training thing.  He seemed to get it, but then didn’t.  I went to a meeting one night at church, and one of the farm women in the church said hi and then asked how things were going.  With not a little frustration, I said, “Well, I’m just so frustrated!  My son’s potty training is just not working very well!”  She just smiled and quietly said to me, “How many 16-year-olds do you know that aren’t potty trained?”  She was right, of course.  I was frustrated because my son wasn’t doing things on my schedule.  In the long run, it didn’t make any difference at all.

So much of life, it seems, is like that.  Don’t you find that to be true?  You are concerned about someone in your school or someone in your workplace who keeps giving you a hard time about something or other… but you find that either they change, or else they move, or else someone confronts them about their behavior and they stop it.  There are times when some decision or other seems so pressing, so monumental, so consequential… but, with the benefit of hindsight, you realize that it wasn’t that big a deal, that it really didn’t make any difference in the long run.  I don’t remember when I first said this to someone, but I find that I often say this at wedding rehearsals, when everyone is running around, worrying about flowers or dresses or tuxes or shoes or who’s sitting where or whatever.  “You know,” I say, “By tomorrow at this time, this couple will be married… and none of this stuff that everyone is so worried about now will make any difference at all.  They’ll be married, no matter how anything else turns out.”

This past Wednesday and all Thursday morning, I worried.  “What do we do about Christmas Eve services,” I pondered.  And I was stressed over it!  It felt like such a major decision!  “It’s better to be safe,” I’d think… and then I’d realize what a special service this is, not just for me, but for so very many of us… and then I’d worry about someone coming to church and getting in an accident or getting stuck or falling down and breaking a hip… and then I’d think that people would simply use their better judgment  about whether they should come out… and then I’d look at the list of closings and “see what all the other kids were doing!”  Finally, I made the decision to just have folks stay home and be warm and safe… and then I still stressed about whether that was the right decision… and what people would think about that.  But you know what?  It probably doesn’t make much difference to most people even today, two days after the fact.  It won’t be an issue six months from now.  Nobody will even remember it 20 years from now!  In the long run… “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference.”

This is the season in the Church year of Christmas.  It lasts, of course, for 12 days, and begins, not ends, on December 25!  Oh, to be sure, our society and our stores think that the Christmas season begins somewhere around October 15, it seems!  But there seems to me to be something joyful about the fact that, when almost everyone else is beginning to move past Christmas, we Christians still get to celebrate it for 12 days!  I like that.

There are tons of traditions about Christmas, aren’t there?  There are family traditions about how the holiday is celebrated.  Some families open presents on Christmas Eve; others open them Christmas morning.  Some families have strong traditions about where Christmas is celebrated, and about who cooks what on Christmas day.  For some, it just wouldn’t be Christmas unless you had scrambled eggs with cheese, and fresh biscuits, and orange juice, and Earl Gray Tea on Christmas morning.  What?  You mean you all don’t have that as part of your Christmas tradition?  Pity. J  After my Dad and step-mom got married, I realized how different some families’ traditions are.  That first Christmas morning after they were married in November, I excitedly rushed downstairs from my bedroom after I awoke and heard others up.  I was in my pajamas and bathrobe.  I came into the family room and wished everyone a Merry Christmas.  My step brother looked at me and said, “You’re supposed to come downstairs dressed in nice clothes, not in pajamas!”  “Well, bah humbug,” I wanted to say… but it just made me realize how different can be people’s expectations about celebrating this day and season.  But you know what?  “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference” where you celebrate, what customs you observe, what traditions you follow… not really.  Christmas is properly observed simply when Christ is remembered… and when love is shared.

What about the date of Christmas… doesn’t that make a difference?  Christmas hasn’t always been celebrated on December 25, and, in fact, is not universally recognized on that date even today.  The Eastern Churches – the Orthodox Churches of Russia, Greece, and the Middle East – celebrate Christmas on January 6, tying it in with the observance of Epiphany that we share with them.  But in the very early Church, Christmas was not celebrated at all!  There is no evidence that the first Christians remembered or celebrated the date, and, in keeping with Jewish law and ritual, observances of anyone’s birthday would have been discouraged.  It wasn’t until around the year 220 that the first mention of Christmas is made… and that was for a celebration on May 20!  In the year 350, Pope Julius I settled on December 25 as the date… but that was undoubtedly due more to secular traditions in Roman culture and among northern European peoples than it was to anything biblical or historical.  In the midst of the English revolution centuries later, Puritans completely banned any observance of Christmas, it had become so mired in secular traditions and customs!  So when was Jesus really born?  Actually, we have no idea… we’re not even certain of the year, let alone the actual date… and, really, “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference.”  It’s simply important that we remember and celebrate and give thanks for Christ’s birth into our world, whenever it took place.

And then, over the centuries, and continuing to today, there is debate over the cherished doctrine of Christ’s virgin birth.  The Church has affirmed since the earliest creeds from the late 4^th century and beyond that Jesus “was born of the Virgin Mary.”  But let’s go out on a limb for a minute and look at this.  One of my biblical studies professors at Sterling College in Kansas was a minister in the Reformed Presbyterian Church, a small, very conservative, Reformed tradition in our country.  I visited Sterling a couple of years after I had graduated from there, and saw Dr. Snyder.  In the course of our conversation, he told me that he was going to be transferring his ministerial credentials to our denomination.  I was surprised, and asked him why.  He paused for a minute, and then he told me that one of his best friends, and his closest colleague in the Reformed Presbyterian Church, was preparing to bring up charges of heresy against him.  I don’t know if my jaw literally hit the floor or not, but it might as well have.  Dale Snyder was a solid, conservative scholar of the Bible, and a faithful minister in Christ’s service.  A charge of heresy against him would be as strange as an observant Jew ordering a ham and cheese sandwich in a restaurant… it just wouldn’t be right!  When I asked him what happened, Dale told me that he had written a scholarly paper a year or so earlier in which he entertained the possibility that Jesus’ divinity was not dependent upon his being born of a virgin.  He personally believed in the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, but he did not believe it was a necessity of faith.  For that, his friend was going to bring him up on charges of heresy… because, Dale told me, his friend had told him that if he questioned the Virgin Birth, there would be no end to what his faith might question.  Dale was going to fight the charges, but then he realized that, since the Reformed Presbyterian Church was so small, and since his parents and other family members were still very active in that denomination, he didn’t want to cause troubles that he knew would come if he put up a defense.  So he transferred to our Church.  I’m glad he did, but I was sorry for the reason.

What about this doctrine?  Well, if we look at the biblical evidence, which is where we Reformed Christians always begin, it’s really pretty scarce.  There are a total of three – yes, that’s right, only three – references in the New Testament to Mary being a virgin:  two verses in Luke 1, and one in Matthew 1.  And the reference in Matthew’s gospel is a quote from the 7^th chapter of the Old Testament book of Isaiah, but the quotation is inaccurate.  Matthew was quoting from the Septuagint – the first translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, which was done in Greek.  He translated the Greek correctly, but the Hebrew word used is not the word for “virgin.”  It is a word that can be translated “young woman,” or “girl.”  So that’s the biblical evidence… three verses.  Jesus never mentions the Virgin Birth.  The early Christians never mentioned it.  Paul, James, Peter, and John never once mention it in their letters which make up the rest of our New Testament.  The Church in the first two or three centuries didn’t mention it.

What do we make of this?  I don’t believe that we therefore have to assume that the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Jesus isn’t accurate, as some assert.  But what I do believe we can assume is that this doctrine wasn’t important to the first believers in Jesus.  In reality, “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference.”  It just wasn’t an issue for them.  When they reflected on the impact of the Incarnation – that is, of God coming to us in the flesh in the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who was both fully human and fully divine – the question of how the Incarnation took place really didn’t matter.  What mattered… and what still makes all the difference in the world… is that the Incarnation happened.  The thing that makes Christianity unique is not the Resurrection of Jesus, as important as that is for us.  There are other religious traditions that speak of resurrections of key figures.  Rather, it is the Incarnation that makes us unique.  To assert that God loved us so very much that the Creator would enter into the form of the creature, sharing the “stuff” of creation with us, is what is so astounding… and that is what makes all the difference!

St. John, in the beginning of his Gospel narrative, expressed most succinctly what is most important for us about Christmas:  “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”  To consider the incredible implications of this can, and should, have a life-changing, priority-altering impact on us.  Jesus, whom we worship and claim to serve, is God who has come to us in the flesh.  Jesus is still God who is with us… summed up in that wonderful Hebrew word, “Immanuel.”  When we pour the waters of baptism, it is a sign that we are claimed in the flesh, and that we promise to follow Jesus, Immanuel.  When we gather around the Table, it is a sign that we are once again united with and nurtured by Jesus, who is still with us, Immanuel.  That is what matters most.  The rest?  Well, really, “It Doesn’t Make Any Difference.”  But the Incarnation – God coming to us in Jesus, in the flesh, to share our nature and redeem us and the creation – well, that makes all the difference!

In the name of Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, our Redeemer, Immanuel… AMEN!