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Salvation Story: Saved From Death

Even before Jesus was born, the ruler of the Roman Empire, Caesar, was called “Savior of the World.”  In the Greek and Roman understanding of salvation, salvation was about being saved from the perils of life by the gods or by a powerful benefactor, such as Caesar.  The Romans were not alone in thinking about salvation.  The Jews of the time had their own understandings of salvation.   In the First Testament there are numerous ideas about salvation each sharing in common the intervention of YHWH in some way or another.  One of my favorite meanings of the Hebrew word for salvation is “to make roomier” or to create more space.  [Heaven will never be crowded.]

When Paul writes what we call his first letter to the church in Thessalonika, he is, no doubt, mindful of the salvation-talk around him.  Most scholars believe that this letter is one of Paul’s earliest writings; perhaps reflecting Paul’s first way of talking about the salvation that Christ brings.  Paul is responding to a question that the Thessalonians have asked.  If we who are alive will be raised with Christ, what about those who are dead?  Here’s Paul’s response…

We each have our own understanding of salvation and that is why I like Paul’s later words, and I would say more mature words, to the church in Philippi, “work out your OWN salvation with fear and trembling.”

We hear in today’s scripture that Paul is working out what is for him his earliest understanding of salvation; God in Jesus Christ will save us from death.  Salvation from death was a big issue for some early Christians.  Death was all around them.  People hanging on crosses along roads as warnings to obey the Empire.  People dying from hunger and disease.  A horrifically high infant mortality rate.  Is it any wonder that Paul’s message appealed to many?  “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.  Therefore encourage one another with these words.”  How encouraging do you really find these words? 

AND…Time passed.  Those who were left died.  Even Paul died.  So the understanding of being saved from death had to change.

“We are a resurrection people!”  We proclaim this as Christians.  It is at the heart of our religion.  And yet, as people of the resurrection, we tend to ignore the state of being that precedes resurrection: death.  We are quick to cry out, “New life!” while quickly passing over, “old death.”  The grim reaper, cloaked and hooded in black, carrying a scythe.  It’s been said, “In life, only two things are certain: taxes and death.”  In death, nothing is certain not even life; a Lazarus has yet to appear on Oprah telling about his exploits in the afterlife. 

Nothing is more terrifying for some people than death.  Death, more than any other condition or experience in life, pushes us into the very heart of things.  One moment there is life.  The next moment there is…nothing.  What do we make of this as human beings?  Is the end of our life the equivalent of an ant being stepped on; one moment crawling along, the next squished?  “Surely not!” we cry out.  Our very consciousness and awareness of “The End” must count for something.

The poet James Laughlin has a wonderful poem titled “The Junk Collector” that engages this very thought.   “What bothers me most about / the idea of having to die / (sooner or later) is that / the collection of junk I / have made in my head will / presumably be dispersed / not that there isn’t more / and better junk in other / heads & always will be but / I have become so fond of / my own head’s collection.”  Where will the collection of junk in our heads “go” when we die?  Most polls show that around 80% of Americans believe in an afterlife.  Somehow, some way, our junk remains with us even when we die.  Think about it: garage sales and flea markets in the afterlife.  Heaven for some.  Hell for others.

Today most Christians believe that salvation from death means that after we die we will live forever in God’s eternal realm.  Of course we must remember what my uncle said about such a state of heaven.  He declared, “If I have to listen to the heavenly host singing constantly, than I’d rather not go to heaven!”  Or, I have heard many folks say, “The alternative to Heaven just sounds more fun!”

I did a funeral for an elderly woman in Noblesville who everyone considered a saint in the church and in the community.  The first time I met her was when I offered to give her a ride to one of her many meetings.  She first scolded me for knocking on her front door when I should have come through the open garage door and walked right in.  I settled her in the front seat of my minivan and began our drive.  A pastor is always challenged in a call like this.  How best to begin a first conversation with a parishioner whom you do not know?  She saved me from another mishap by saying, “Eric, you’re probably the pastor that’s going to do my funeral.”  Okay.  “I have one request: do NOT say, ‘I have gone to a better place.’”  This profound and loving Christian did not believe in an afterlife.  She believed that in each and every moment of life we are SAVED FROM death in order to live into the line in the Lord’s Prayer that “God’s will may be done on earth” while we are alive.  And, oh, how she was alive!

Perhaps another turn to the poets is in order.

Antonio Machado – All things die and all things live forever; / but our task is to die, / to die making roads, / roads over the sea.

Yehuda Amichai – If now, in the middle of my life, I think / Of death, I do so out of confidence / That in the middle of death I will suddenly think / Of life, with the same calming nostalgia / And with the distant gaze of people / Who know their prophecies come true.

One of the reasons those early Jews, who would later call themselves Christians, thought that Jesus Christ would save them from death comes from their own story in scripture.  Jesus was seen as the Passover lamb.  PASSOVER!  The formative event of the people of Israel was used as a way to tell the story of Jesus.  Remember what Passover meant to them?   What happens when the angel of death passes over your door and death is once again kept at bay?  You LIVE!  You live for another day!

“The Ethiopian Eunuch”

In honor and in memory of George Floyd

Where to start? Start with a breath. God in. Peace out. Start with prayer. God, may the words of my mouth be spoken from my heart, filled with the knowledge and wisdom of my mind, carried by your Spirit with love and truth resounding. Amen.

Where to start? There is no denying on this Pentecost Sunday that the spirit of God is moving, rushing, burning, crying out, standing firm…weeping. To use the imagery of today’s scripture reading, people everywhere have come to the field of their lives only to find that there are no gleanings for them. They turn to the fringes and there is nothing there either.

Where to start? How about turn to the people? Where are you at? Let’s try some audience participation…see if we can span the fifteen second delay between my broadcast and your comments. Type the first words that come to your mind into the comments section in answer to the question: Where are you at? What are you feeling?

What am I feeling? Where am I at? The song “My Shot” from the musical Hamilton keeps ringing in my ears. The character John Laurens cries out,

“Rise up!
When you’re living on your knees,
You rise up.
Tell your brother that he’s gotta rise up.
Tell your sister that she’s gotta rise up.”

[In his notes from the libretto of Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda writes that “When you’re living on your knees / You rise up” was originally “Don’t this sh*t make my people wanna rise up!” which was a nod to a Busta Rhyme’s refrain.]

And then Miranda as Hamilton gets going:

“Scratch that,
This is not a moment, it’s the movement
Where all the hungriest brothers with something to prove went.
Foes oppose us, we take an honest stand,
We roll like Moses, claimin’ our promised land.
And? If we win our independence?
‘Zat a guarantee of freedom for our descendants?
Or will the blood we shed begin an endless
Cycle of vengeance and death with no defendants?
…
I’m past patiently waitin’. I’m passionately smashin’ every expectation,
Every action’s an act of creation!

Praise God for the prophets and the poets who breathe the very breath of the Spirit of God with each syllable they write and speak and sing!

Human beings are God-breathed. Pentecost is about being God-breathed. I imagine God forming adam, that first mud thing made from the dust of the ground. I imagine God turning this mud-thing around, gazing at it, wondering perhaps about what this mud-thing could be. And then God breathed into the nostrils of this mud-thing and the adam became a living, breathing human being. The very first time God’s breath enters into us. And then God places this living, breathing human being into a garden. A wonderful, color-full, rich, vibrant garden of delight, happiness and joy.

Now cover the garden with asphalt. Place a living, breathing human being onto the hard surface. Crushed, body crushed, face crushed into and on the hard rock with a knee on his neck. “I can’t breathe.” Our brother in Christ, George Floyd’s last words, “I can’t breathe.” A God-breathed, living human being whose last words were, “I can’t breathe.” No more blowing out of candles on a birthday cake for George Floyd.

Who was the very first Gentile convert to Christianity? I ask this because we have been wandering through the book of Acts to take glimpses of how the early church survived and then thrived in those times where followers of the Way of Christ all lived in their separate dwellings. I ask this also because we have been studying the book of Acts in our Bible study group and this coming Wednesday we get to read chapter 8 and hear about the Holy Spirit guiding Philip.

Philip goes to Samaria. Preaches. People follow. Simon the Magus believes and is particularly interested in receiving the Holy Spirit so that he has the power to dispense the Holy Spirit. Along comes Peter who sees Simon’s true intent and calls him out. “Your heart is not right before God.” In other words, you, Simon, are just in the game to exercise power and control. The way of power and control is not the way of God. The Holy Spirit cannot be controlled.

An angel tells Philip, “Head south. Go on the wilderness road.” So Philip gets up and goes. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official for the queen of the Ethiopians on the wilderness road. The Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join with the one there.” The unnamed, Ethiopian eunuch is reading a passage of scripture from the prophet Isaiah. So Philip runs up to the man and asks him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” Now before I read these next few words of Isaiah’s that the eunuch was reading and puzzling over, I need to preface the words with some background.

In ancient Greek writing, and in the time of the Romans as well, there was, in the words of the biblical scholar, Ben Witherington, “considerable interest in Ethiopia and Ethiopians precisely because of their ethnic and racially distinctive features.” Homer wrote that the Ethiopians were the most distant of people. Witherington drawing on the work of other scholars writes, “Blackness and the Ethiopian were…in many respects synonymous….The Ethiopians’ blackness became proverbial….Ethiopians were the yardstick by which antiquity measured colored peoples.” Here, though, is the key that scholars of this time period have observed. “What is important to note is that, unlike the case in the West in the last [many] centuries, there is no evidence in antiquity of widespread prejudice against a particular people simply because of their color, or the combination of their color and distinctive ethnic features.”

Luke uses the Ethiopian eunuch as the representation of the gospel finally going to the very edges of the world. This man, this black man, living in the far flung fringe of the world, an alien AND a living, breathing human being becomes the…very…first…Gentile convert…to…Christianity. Philip hears the words of Isaiah that the black Ethiopian eunuch is reading. Philip helps him understand what he is reading and proclaims the good news about Jesus. The black Ethiopian eunuch is so excited when they come to some water he says, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Nothing. And the black Ethiopian eunuch rejoices.

The first Gentile convert to the Christian faith. You would think there would be some honor attributed to the race of human beings who became the first of the Gentiles to have faith in the Way of Christ Jesus. One would think.

I close with the passage of scripture from Isaiah that the black Ethiopian eunuch was reading some two thousand years ago:

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from earth.

Amen.

“They Will Carry You Out”

“They Will Carry You Out”
Scripture - Acts 5:1-11
Rev. Eric Brotheridge

I shall not be moved. Unless, of course, I knowingly, intentionally, deviously, unharmoniously, deceptively, selfishly, withhold a bit from the communal coffers. And, the God who sees all, will rip the very breath out of my body which will collapse to the ground, dead. And then I will be moved. Picked up. Wrapped up, carried out and buried by the nearest available young men. My partner in crime comes in three hours later. Rinse. Repeat. Two dead. And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things. Who’s next to the altar? Hallelujah!

This past week I attended…online…the Festival of Homiletics. The Festival of Homiletics is the premier festival to learn about the art and craft of preaching. Attending lectures which made for some really good sermons and seeing sermons which made for some pretty dull lectures. But, for the most part, outstanding preaching. And I heard over the past five afternoons, “Honor the text.” Honor the text. In other words, give the scripture reading its due. Anchor the text in its historical and cultural setting.

Luke wrote today’s reading in the latter third of the first century. He writes about the time period right after Jesus was crucified and resurrected, maybe year 35 of the common era or after the birth of Christ. The reader has been told time and time again in the first few chapters of Acts that the church was of one mind and all together. Just prior to Ananias and Sapphira’s skullduggery we learn of a foreigner, Barnabas, who sold a field that belonged to him and laid all the proceeds at the apostles’ feet.

Honor the text. Research additional sources for other interpretations to get a sense if your own interpretation is in the ballpark. Check. Ananias and Sapphira knowingly withhold some money from the proceeds THEY lay at the apostles’ feet. Somehow Peter knows whats going on. He calls them out. First Ananias. Then Sapphira. God takes care of the rest. Ananias and Sapphira breathe out their entire life force and expire. How’s that for a euphemism? But, wait, I’m showing my hand.

Honor the text. Maybe Ananias and Sapphira didn’t really steal and thus lie to the Holy Spirit. Kept back. Translated from the Greek enosphisato. Hmm. Scholars pretty much agree it basically means skullduggery or embezzlement. No doubt. They lied. Death penalty. Instant. No chance for explanation. Do not pass go. Your jail cell is waiting for you to take your eternal rest.

Honor the text. I’ll take the advice of the church father Augustine who said if the plain sense of the scripture reading doesn’t make sense then maybe something else is going on.

Where do I start? Maybe the story is symbolic. Luke uses the same word enosphisato that is used in the Greek translation of the book of Joshua. That author tells the tale of how the tribes of Israel had just entered the promised land after the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. A character named Achan, against God’s command to not pillage, saw in the plunder “a beautiful robe from Babylonia (he checked the label), two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels.” Joshua calls him out. Achan is stoned by the people and buried under the very stones that killed him.

Honor the text. So Luke is mirroring the early church with the early entrance of the Israelites into the Promised Land. And just as the entrance into the Promised Land is tainted by deception so is the beginning of the beloved community tainted by deception. And God will not have it. Okay. That satisfies. NOT. Because Ananias and Sapphira are still without breath, dead, by the will of God.

Honor the text. Many other commentators notice the parallels between the first couple of Acts and the first couple of Genesis. This is interesting. Both couples get into trouble. Interestingly, where Genesis shows us a he said/she said pointing of fingers before God, Luke has the interrogation occur individually. But that’s where the similarity between the couples’ stories ends. And, unlike Adam and Eve, Ananias and Sapphira are dead. The first couple is treated far better in Genesis by God. Sure the snake is cursed to slither and Eve’s pain is increased in childbirth…but remember, the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife and clothed them before sending them east of Eden.

Some might be saying that I am making a mountain out of a molehill. Move on. The point is that the unity of the early church was threatened. The virus, excuse me, Ananias and Sapphira were dealt with. Life goes on.

NO! The unity of the early church may be the point because that is what the early church would like us to focus on but the fact remains: Ananias and Sapphira are still dead. And, let me be honest, anyone who thinks Ananias and Sapphira got what was coming to them does not read the same gospels that I read. And this is why I get so upset with the glossing over of this story and the “it happens” of these two person’s deaths.

Again, I am not denying their lying. But guess what? I would suggest that their sin is but the mildest of horrors that unfolds in this scripture.

Horror number one. They are given no opportunity for an explanation or for repentance. How’s this for a trail? “Ananias,”  Peter asked, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!” Sapphira gets slightly better. Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.” Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.”

“You did not lie to us but to God!” “Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Is it any wonder Ananias and Sapphira died immediately? Not from the horror of their skullduggery but from the horror of how they were treated? How they were treated by the early church? Sure, they thought they could pull a fast one – haven’t we all at one or two times in our own lives? – but they realized real quick that the early church pulled an even faster one on them.

And the horror continues…Who removes the bodies? The young men. The next generation of leaders. What are they learning from Peter, the current leader of the church, and from the other apostles? Peter, so hard to get rid of that part of you that denies and denies and denies. People seem to die when you deny the very humanity of who someone is, Peter.

And the horror continues…And great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things. A leader who denies and ignores the humanity right in front of him, cultivating another generation of followers who dispose of the dead bodies and a people in fear and awe of the whole mess. For two thousand years this has been the model of church for so many people. An acceptance of death and creating fear is no way to be church.

It is time for some good news. I know there are some of my listeners who grew up in the fear of the Lord and have had the courage to die to that way of faith. It is not easy. I know there are others hungry to hear the good news of unconditional love. Perhaps holding a little bit back, for whatever reason, knowing that if all of you did show up at a particular church you would be shown the door faster than the exhalation of your last breath. Just like the church two thousand years ago. Just like much of the church for two thousand more years. We are in an interesting time. An intersecting time. Where old ways fade away. And room for the possibility of new interpretations, new metaphors and new ways of seeing and believing ways to be created. A new way. A Way that serves life.

They will carry you out. Wrapped in a burial linen? Or, imagine, young men, young women, young people carrying you out on their shoulders into new life.

“Commencement Tidbits & Fruits”

Graduation Sunday gives me the opportunity to combine all those sermons that I want to preach - each with a different message - into ONE sermon by condensing each into a commencement one-liner..

So here it goes...Call it "Commencement Tidbits & Fruits"

My advice to graduates:

Read the Sermon on the Mount. You will find there the keys to creating, bearing and producing good fruit.

In that sermon Jesus does NOT give a 10-point address playing off the 10 commandments. No. Instead, Jesus gives us the Big Three:  Love your neighbor/enemy.  Do not fear. Do not judge.

I hope by now that you have learned that the education of your mind continues with a willingness to continually change your mind.

There is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Paradoxically, wisdom begins when you know you know nothing.“Question everything” is great advice.  Just don't forget to question yourself and continue to improve the quality of your self-questioning.  Remember Socrates.  "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Be CREATIVE!  Be like God.  The Bible OPENS with God creating for 6 days!  It's a not-so-subtle-hint that maybe god-like life can be found in being creative. 

Remember: Anesthetic - while good for surgery - is the opposite of aesthetic. Avoid dullness.

Creativity comes in everything. The sciences, accounting, sports, relationships, work and play.

Learn one art form.  Create beauty. 

Jesus never talked about beauty much.  I wonder why?  Maybe because God did all the talking that was necessary about creating and beauty, saying six times, "It is good."

Learn a foreign language.There is an Irish saying - A land without a language is a land without a soul.  Be articulate.  Learn to love language in all its varieties.  I never got an A in English or an A in German. I dislike writing though I love to read. 

Learn to love words and the Word imbued in all words that makes words glow.

Speaking of land.  Pay attention to those who draw the boundaries.  Typically boundaries are meant to confine, limit, and control. Choose the torn Temple curtain over the Temple structure every time.

Pay attention to those who name!  Naming is control.

Be like Jesus who went to the other side of the river where people with funny names lived.

The poet Padraig O'Tauma, says, "Look for the virtuous plural over the monolithic singular."  In other words, it is easy to run with your own crowd.  Be like Forrest Gump.  Run on your own and if a crowd follows, wonderful.  And when you are done running, stop, and say, "I'm tired."  And do something else.

Engage those on the periphery of your social circle.  I think what helped me more than anything in high school is I made an effort to fit in with the jocks, the brains, the socialites, the music geeks, the ordinaries, the druggies.  It helped that youth of each of these cliques was in my fantastic church youth group.  I do have one regret: I never hung with the guys and gals in shop class.  I am just now changing my own oil.

So, in honor of those shop guys and girls...Change your own oil.  Scripture never tells of Jesus using QuikLube for anything.  Seriously.  Jesus did his own praying.  Jesus broke his own bread.  Jesus gave his own life.

It's your life.  Not anybody else's.  The great poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde wrote, "Be yourself.  Everyone else is already taken."

Life is not fair.  It's unjust.  Pandemics come out of nowhere.  Daughters die.  Nations fall.  Be like Jesus who said don't bother reading any signs into or out of these kinds of events.  Don't fret about conspiracies.  Better yet, create your own conspiracy: Be like Jesus.

Oh...and Jesus never, never, NEVER said, It happened for a reason; whatever "It" may be.  Jesus DID say, the Reign of God is in your midst.  My daughter committed suicide despite being in Africa, a beautiful and soaring place that she loved...doing the science that she loved after graduating with a degree in neuroscience from IU.  She still took her own life.  Here's what I know, what I know with all my heart, my soul, my strength and my mind: the Reign of God is present.  I am in the midst of the reign of God.

Problems, the BIG problems are very rarely created by particular people.  Paul never mentions "them" or the "other" or "Caesar" or "That Group" by name.  He doesn't call out CEO's or fake scientists.  Never.  He labels those forces as "Powers & Principalities."  Learn about the Powers & Principalities.

Interestingly, when you see the Powers & Principalities you will encounter Satan.  Jesus graduated from his school and spent 40 days in the wilderness.  Guess who came to pay him a visit.  Here's Satan!  "Okay, Jesus, you have a very fine lineage.  A call unlike anything the world has ever seen.  More advantages than most with your education.  Go on.  Feed yourself.  Turn these stones into bread.  Throw yourself off the top of the Temple.  People will be impressed.  Pay homage to the Powers & Principalities.  And the world is yours."  Seductive, isn't it?

Instead of giving credence to the saying, "The world is your oyster," make yourself a pearl for the world.

As you continue to recognize and see and name the Powers & Principalities AND how YOU, like all of us, participate in them, you will find yourself wanting to do your utmost for the least of these whom the Powers & Principalities run roughshod over time and time and time again.

Pronoun usage.  Limit the use of “they” and “them.”  Be humble when you use “me”, “myself”, and “I”.  Be extra cautious when saying, “we” and “us”.  Jesus takes an abstract argument between two of his followers about "Which one is the greatest?" with both followers declaring, “Me, me, ME,” and makes the argument real with a human being, a child.

You benefit from hundreds and hundreds of years of exploitation.  Our ancestors wiped out the North American natives who were here when we came.  We used natives of another continent to do the difficult work.  We used natives of ANOTHER continent to build our way west.  We are currently using natives of another continent to work while we stay at home.  Do a little bit to un-exploit.

NEVER let your self-worth depend upon tearing another person or another group down for you are worthy in and of yourself.I hope you did well in anatomy.  Know your brain.  The evolutionary process started with your nervous system which is designed to move reflexively.  Fight or flight.  Too often humans react out of the next part of our brain that developed as we evolved, the reptilian brain.  Not too long ago I was reminded by my oldest daughter of a story of another daughter who saw her dad get angry at another person.  She asked him, "Daddy, who were you being?"  Let your anger teach you to not be angry because, guess what, the need for anger pretty much left when the asteroid came and wiped out the dinosaurs.

The next part of the brain to develop was that social-mammalian brain.  All of those connections between neurons to figure out how to be and act in the midst of a bunch of other social animals.  The power of the alpha male still thrives in our human world.  Jesus was aware of this.  Caesar is not the head of the family.  God is.  The person with the most-est and best-est will not be first-est in the Reign of God.  You want to be first and hang with that alpha male? Good luck.  But if you want to be first in the Reign of God, be with the last of these.

Learn to appreciate and even embrace conflict.  Those arguing disciples.  At the end of a day after their journey Jesus sits down and asks them, "What were you arguing about on the way?"  He wants to know about the conflict because all great leaders know that conflict happens because people argue about what they care about.  Conflict illuminates care.

Loss is a part of life.  You have just lost your high school years.  You have just lost your collegiate days.  Learning to live with and in loss is soul-work.  Loss is at the center of each and every moment of life.  Just as possibility is at the center of each and every moment of life.  It's the way of Creation.  Day One done.  On to Day Two...

Speaking of daily...Say "Thank you" at least once a day.

Volunteer ONE hour a week.

Don't be a sport spectator.  Play a sport.

No words of wisdom are complete without some financial advice.  Give 10% of your money away.  Or more.  Save 10% of your money for tomorrow.  Save 10% for your retirement.  Save 10% for your descendants.  Pay your taxes and give to Caesar what is Caesar's.  And live off the rest.

Take trips.  Hopefully here soon we can all go on trips again. Go see the U.S. Holocaust Museum.  Shout into the Grand Canyon.  Stand on the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy.  (Did you know that the word quarantine started in Venice 700 years ago in response to the Black Plague?)  Visit ruins.  Visit lots and lots of ruins.  Learn about the civilizations that our civilization is physically built upon.  Learn that our civilization will be ruins for future civilizations to gawk at and to study.  Stand in the Sun Temple at Macchu Picchu on the Summer Solstice.  See a giraffe in the natural habitat of a giraffe.  Visit slums.  Dine with the rich.  Eat with the poor.

Read Bill Gates' Blog.  Pick one brilliant person who is alive today.  Put yourself at her or his feet and continue to learn.

What's the point of this sermon of tidbits and fruits?  What's the point of the Sermon on the Mount?  What's the point of being a tree that bears good fruit? 

The answer, the point of bearing good fruit, can be found in what Jesus does first after he comes down from the Mount. When Jesus had come down from the mountain, there was a leper who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me whole.” 

Here's the Good News: Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do choose. Be made whole!” 

Not a Needy Person Among Them

I have always been a fan of delicious, post-apocalyptic stories and movies.  My earliest memory of this fascination is watching the movie The Omega Man where Charlton Heston is the last person alive after injecting himself with an experimental vaccine during a world-ending plague.  Sound familiar?  I cried at the end when Dr. Neville, Heston, was pierced by a spear thrown by the ugly, infected zombie leader.  But that act of sharing his life, literally sharing his life, allowed a ragged few to escape into a new future.

We all know the basic premise of the post-apocalyptic genre:  Bad, infected people spend the entire story taking any life that remains so they can enjoy living a few more moments.  Good, "normal", people end up giving or sharing their life for the sake of redemption and assuring the safety of the remaining few.  Sometimes its the good who are walled off in compounds trying to protect themselves from the forces of chaos that run around - or drive around like in the movie The Road Warrior starring Mel Gibson.  Sometimes the BAD people are the ones holed up in randomly constructed fortresses that a good Midwestern storm would disintegrate in a few minutes and the good people are simply trying to get by on a farm in the woods.

And then there is Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road which winds itself between all sorts of genre-bending scenes as a father seeks to save a son.  Since reading the book back in 2006 and watching the movie that stars Vigo Mortenson, I never view a grocery cart now as simply a grocery cart.

I mention post-apocalyptic stuff because there are people today that view this pandemic as indicative of the end of the world.  The sky is falling, cries Chicken Little.  The end is near! cries a local billboard.  And, perhaps Kurt Vonnegut is on to something when he writes, "Let us be perfectly frank for a change.  For practically everybody, the end of the world can't come soon enough."

And this is true for the earliest Christian community.  For those early followers of Christ it wasn't a wish for the end of the world.  They truly believed that the end of the world was going to happen within their lifetime.  The earliest writing in scripture is Paul's letter to the the church in Thessaloniki where he soothes his readers, Don't worry.  We who are alive will rise with the return of Christ.  Is it any wonder that that first group of Christians shared all their stuff?  They truly felt that they didn't need it.  No pension plan required.

Times change.  I imagine it wasn't too much later when they realized they were in this thing called Life for the long haul.  Pension plan required.

We, though, some 66 generations later CAN learn from the example of the church in today's scripture reading.  They structured their household economy based on their perception of how they should best use their resources given their beliefs.  It is no different for us today.  In the study Resurrection Now, Richard Rohr states, that our theology is best understood by how we spend our money and our time.  Not by what we profess but by what we spend our time with and what we spend our money on.  Look around.  What do you see?  How is what you see around you a reflection of what you believe?  Where do you spend your money?  Thanks to EFT, electronic funds transfer, I don't have to see what I spend my money on; except for my discretionary use of my debit card.  Sure, I see contributions of my time and money to serve others.  Outside a roof over my head and food for my belly much of my spending is on aesthetic goods; goods that are beautiful and stir my creativity as a human being.

Regardless of whether or not you consider this pandemic the end of the world, I hope that you can affirm with me that the structure of our household economies significantly contributed to the mess were in.  We cannot go back to spending our money in the same ways.  We cannot go back to giving our time and attention to our same pursuits.  A pandemic is like the weather.  The wind blows and the weaknesses of a structure are illuminated and made known.

We could do what I'll call a Re-burying of Our Heads in the Sand.  WE can hope and pray and yearn for the same-old-same-old with everything open as it should be as if there will be a world without end.  We can.  But then we wouldn't be heeding the call of Jesus Christ to "Keep awake!"  Maybe the early church was really on to something.  Truly believing and living your life and re-ordering your priorities as if the world IS going to end at any moment.  Foolish?  Perhaps.  But isn't a bit of foolishness...and certainly a change of the ways that brought us to our current mess...worth a risk for that reward here on earth.  There was not a needy person among them.

The New Normal…?

What is normal?  What is or was the "old" normal?  And if there is or was an "old" normal, what is the "new" normal?  And, how valid is the cry, "Can we just get back to normal?"  Which implies there is no "old" normal or "new" normal, just normal. 

Like in the following meme I saw earlier this week: "The old normal?  Change happens.  The new normal?  Change happens."  Therefore, the only normal is just normal and that is: Change happens.  I can buy that.  (Although, I'm not willing to spend too much money on it.)  I often declare, "God is a God of been-there-done-that."  God is a God of change.  The universe started with the IAM exploding and beginning the billions and billions (my best Carl Sagan imitation) years process of changing and growing into ever more complex ways of being and expression.  God is a God that changes.  From the covenant with Noah where God promises to never again lay waste to creation, to the covenant with Abraham, descendants as numerous as the stars, the covenant with Moses, the law, then a covenant with David, your descendant will sit on the throne of righteousness, and finally, with a new covenant that Christians find to be authoritative.

And ever since Peter's first sermon in Jerusalem, we preachers have been trying to find meaningful ways to share that new covenant - made around a table - share it with others and if accepted to encourage those people to fully live in to that covenant.  AND, believe it or not, not much as changed.  Peter addressed the crowds.  I am addressing the crowds.  Sure, the technology has changed a little bit.  The message remains the same.  So, then, maybe God doesn't change?  Maybe in the midst of change, even chaotic change, there IS something "normal" and change-less.

What IS that normal, change-less something?  Perhaps it is asking the question that Peter's first audience asked of him.  It is an interesting phrase that opens up today's scripture reading.  "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart."  Cut to the heart.  The listeners have just been implicated in the crucifixion of Jesus.  Peter finishes his sermon with the words, "God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ/Messiah and you crucified him."  Cut to the heart; a sense of being in great distress, wounded deeply, the core of one's own very being, pierced.  Cut to the heart.

And the first thing the listeners do is ask the question, "What should we do?"  Cut to the heart.  Soul-pierced.  Their very way of being turned upside down.  Their eyes opened.  A new knowledge of Good and Evil.  A recognition of their complicity in crucifying the innocent one of God. 

It is a cry that rejects their old normal that crucifies.  The old normal of saying that's just the way things are.  The old normal of saying, I can't do anything about it.  The old normal of shrugging one's shoulders, meh.  The old normal of averting one's gaze and looking the other way.  The old normal of crying out, Crucify him, because if he brings down the empire, well, my way of life and my very safety is threatened.  Better for him to die then for all of us to die.  The old normal that...turns my closing words from last week inside out...the old normal that does NOT speak the language of love for the other.  The old normal that causes Peter to exhort his listeners, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." 

And I hope that you, MY listeners, are reading yourselves into this ancient story that is taking place now and unfolding today in our midst.  If you are not cut to the heart by life around us today and how you have participated in what Paul calls the "powers and principalities of this world" that have created this mess...well...using the words of the story that Jesus tells about that most human Samaritan, I will cross over to other side of the road if you need help.  Or, using a metaphor from life today, if you choose to protest the way things are by not wearing a mask in public and you happen to get infected with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, nurses and doctors will still take care of you.

And THAT is as close to fire and brimstone as I will ever get...feel free to hold me accountable.

I far prefer sharing the Good News.  After asking the question, What should we do?  After repenting of your sins in the participation with the powers and principalities of this world.  After receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift from God, come and see what the world looks like!  "Day by day, as they spent much time together, they broke bread from house to house and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the good will of all the people."  Does that not sound like heaven on earth?  Does that not sound like a way of being worth pursuing and living into?  A dream as old as human beings have been dreaming.  A new normal.

What Does This Mean?

“What does this mean?”
Online Sermon delivered April 26, 2020 
for First Christian Church, Kokomo, Indiana
Where do you put yourself in this story?  Are you amazed and perplexed and asking the question, What does this mean?  Or are you a sneer-er saying, They are filled with new wine.

Though I had a playful bit of fun using stick figures to tell this story of the early church, today's scripture asks important questions for which the text demands serious answers.  Here is the beginning of the church 2,000 years ago.  And the first question asked of the church is "What does this mean?"  The first commentary on the first church, "Oh, they are filled with new wine."

2,000 years later...guess what?  The Pentecost event happens each and every day in the life of the church.  It is particularly poignant and powerful for us today.  Life is radically different.  We are gathered together...though each in our own dwelling place.  That's okay.  The Holy Spirit can divide and find us no matter where we may be.  The question is, where are you in the story today?  Are you amazed and perplexed and asking the question, What does this mean?  Or are you a sneer-er saying, They are filled with new wine.  And probably, bad new wine at that.  Or, there is the third character in the story: are you filled with the Holy Spirit?

People all around us are scratching their heads with what they hear.  I certainly am a head-scratcher when it comes to all of the information about COVID-19 and how best to go about living life.  I am dismayed at individuals and institutions that push the envelope of safety in the midst of the unknown.  I sneer at them and say, They are most definitely filled with new wine.  I go on to say to those drinkers of selfishness and greed and carelessness, "By drinking that new wine you are endangering the lives of people that I hold dear, the least of these, those most at risk."  But don't get me preaching...

Our being closed for gathering at the corner of Malfalfa and Sycamore does not make First Christian Church any less church.  We are no less church for me now then our church was before the pandemic.  Our worship services have never been better attended than now.  (If that's how you judge church effectiveness.)  More importantly, we are not worshiping apart today out of any sense of fear.  Fear at the possibility of becoming infected by exercising our religious freedom.  I am still free and worshiping how I am called to worship in this time.  And that is the question.  "What does this mean?" becomes "How am I called to worship in this new and different time?"  Here is my response to What does this mean?  Love for my neighbor and taking care of the least of these by not increasing the possibility of exposure by being out and about unnecessarily...that love is far greater than any need to be in a building with others for worship at this time. 

Am I filled with new wine in the eyes of others?  Probably.  But I know this: I am on the side of love for my neighbor over anything else.  And I have faith that God is as well.  And those who speak my language in this moment are telling me that that love is best shared from a distance. 

The earliest church, the first church of those twelve apostles, was NOT a church because they were together, scared, alone, in one house.  The earliest church did not immediately set about worshiping God.  Nor to worship Jesus.  Jesus never said to worship him.  The earliest church, the first church, was A church because they made themselves heard by speaking the language of the other.  Let me invite you into a secret: speaking the language of the other does not require a building.  The house where the first church spoke, wasn't even the apostles' house. 

But, Eric, I don't know how to speak Cappadocian or Parthian.  I don't know how to speak the language of the Medes, the Elamites or the Mesopotamians.  I don't know the language of the Judeans or that of the people of Pontus or Asia, Phrygia or Pamphylia.  Egyptian and Libyan, indeed the language of Rome and the Creetans and the Arabs are completely unknown to me. 

Perhaps.  There is...though...one language that IS universal to all others that we as the first church of today can continue to speak.  You will be able to understand it.  You have heard it before.  You have spoken it before and can continue to speak it again. 

This language crosses to the other side of the Jericho Road to help a stranger in need.  This language steps in front of stones being thrown at a woman condemned.  This language heals the blind.  This language feeds thousands.  This language unbinds the manacles and chains that keep a man naked and insane in the local cemetery.  This language resurrects a daughter.  And a son.  And a brother.  And a friend.  This language crosses to the other side of the river where "they" live.  This language overturns the tables in places of worship that do not look out for the least of these.  This language holds the widow and celebrates her contribution to the realm of God.  This language collapses coliseums and erodes the power of empires.  When all appears lost, this language appears outside a tomb in a garden, saying, "Hi."

This language is the language of Love.

- Rev. Eric J. Brotheridge