Give Thanks for Everything

The scriptures referred to are Philippians 4:4-7.

When I was in school we were taught that human beings were unique among the animals in various ways: opposable thumbs, relative brain size, speech, toolmaking, etc. Subsequent findings have shown that other animals often has such things at least in embryonic form. Apes have opposable thumbs. Dolphins have bigger brains relative to their size. Now it looks like the chief difference in not in the nature of these things but in degree in which we have them and have developed them. And differences in degree can be so great that they are functionally differences in kind. This building and Canterbury Cathedral are both churches but the accumulated differences are such that only abstractly can they be considered to equally belong in the same class. And while apes and birds and otters use sticks and rocks as tools, no other species has invented anything akin to the jigsaw or Swiss Army knife. Most species communicate but none will build whole worlds and sagas such as the Lord of the Rings.

We know that many animals can solve problems, count and have a basic sense of morality. They obviously have some sense of future events that they can anticipate and they remember the past. But to what degree can they imagine what might have been? Can they conceive of a past that never happened or a present that never came to be? They seem to live primarily in the actual present. They don't seem to brood over some alternate timeline that never materialized. Humans definitely do.

And often this is a detriment. We torture ourselves over some prize we didn't win or some opportunity that we didn't take advantage of or the love who got away. We make ourselves miserable over things that didn't happen, and yet their potential beneficial effects might be largely imaginary. “My life would have been so much better had I been recognized for my genius or hard-work in this instance.” Or “My life would have been a lot easier had I made this choice.” Or “I would have been so much happier had I married Kim instead of Terry.” Possibly, but not necessarily. People who win the lottery find that along with the money it brings grief and strife into one's life. Folks have found fame to be a very mixed blessing indeed. And the lost love was certainly not perfect and may have had serious flaws you did not see in your infatuation. The sad thing is that we often rob ourselves of enjoying what we have by mourning things that never were.

On Thanksgiving it is traditional to remind ourselves of the blessings we do have: family, friends, a home, health, the ability to buy food and the basics. I really don't need to go into those things because they are obvious. What I want to do is teach you a little bit of spiritual jujitsu, a way to turn the strength of those imaginary thefts of one's happiness against them. And it's something that I learned  from working at the jail.

I am limited in what I can offer when I visit inmates. I cannot pass messages in or out of the jail. I cannot pay their rent or bail or offer legal advice. I cannot give them reading glasses or get them the diet they prefer unless it is a requirement of their religion. I can get them basic items like Bibles, Qurans, rosaries, calendars and such books on spiritual things that have been donated. And I can give them my ear. No one else in there has time to sit and listen to them. I do.

And I have heard many tales of miserable lives. Most of the inmates are poor. Most have been raised in chaotic homes by incredibly dysfunctional adults. Most have experienced abuse—physical, sexual and verbal. Many have experienced neglect. Most self-medicate with alcohol, tobacco or other drugs. While I do not condone the acts they did that led to their arrest, I fail to see how most of them could be expected to have grown up into well-adjusted, law-abiding citizens due to the sheer number of adverse childhood experiences they have accumulated. I truly believe that the sins of the fathers and mothers are visited on their children for generations, not because of a wrathful God, but due to the fact that such trauma has a lasting effect on the developing child's brain and behavior. How could it not?

And while it can be depressing, I discovered very early on that, when I left the jail for the drive home, a luxury not afforded them, I was struck by this thought: “My life is not that bad. I should be less whiny and more grateful.” Rather than tormenting myself with an imaginary future better than the one I actually have, I saw how awful my life could have been due to circumstances entirely out of my control: my parents, my upbringing, my socioeconomic class, my race. I had obstacles in my life but they were not as insurmountable as those of a person born without those advantages. And that moment of clarity made me realize that even with my liabilities I had blessings I should not take for granted.

My dad was a bartender who drank too much and got into car accidents and was bad with money and all that definitely destroyed his marriage to my mom. But he was not abusive. He did not drink at home. He worked hard, often at more than one job at a time. He loved my brother and I and encouraged our talents and interests, even when they weren't his.

My mom was a nurse but was not warm or sentimental. She often did not take your feelings into account when doing what she thought was the right or best thing for all concerned. But she was fiercely intelligent, read constantly and omnivorously, and would not let you get away with excuses or faulty reasoning in any argument you had with her. She introduced me to the Bible and to C.S. Lewis and to regular churchgoing. And she loved my brother and I and encouraged our talents and interests, even when they weren't hers.

We had a house which my mother bought at a time when women generally couldn't. My father pretended they were still married so that she could get that loan. For that matter they remarried after a few years apart for the sake of my brother and I. As my mom said, “We didn't agree on everything but we always agreed on you kids.” That commitment probably has had some effect on the fact that both my brother and I have been married for decades to the only wives we've ever had.

It could have gone differently. My father could have been not merely a problem drinker but an alcoholic. His fights with my mom could have been physical rather than merely verbal sparring matches. My mom could have escaped into her books rather than shared them and discussed them and introduced us to the wider world books offer. She could have let her intellect go to waste rather than returning to college and completing her degree in Library Science by night classes. Our parents could have pushed my brother and I into completing their unfulfilled dreams rather than letting us explore and develop our own. My childhood was not perfect but it was not that bad and I should be more thankful for it.

I wish that I did not have the pains and other problems that have resulted from my accident. I wish my current energy problems had a clear cause and reliably effective treatments. But I am alive. And I have a slew of scientific tests showing I do not have a whole host of much more serious problems. I can enjoy the company of my wife and my family and my churches. I can do the work I enjoy. My health could be better but it could be a lot worse. As it is I am above ground and moving around and grateful for that.

And I hope that you can relate. Your life could have been different but that does not mean it would necessarily have been better. It could have been worse. It could have been horrible. Instead of moping over a fictitious future that might have been fabulous, be grateful that you didn't get an alternative to your present life that was positively Dickensian in its abject misery. We can all look back at times when we know we dodged a bullet: a decision not made that would have been disastrous or an unexpected obstacle that in retrospect saved us from pain or death.

Actor/producer Seth MacFarlane overslept and thus missed his plane on 9/11. Yes, one of those planes! Were I him I would be grateful every day for what didn't happen to me.

Carol DaRonch was approached by a man with a badge at the mall where she was shopping. He told her someone had tried to break into her car. But when she got into his car, she realized something was wrong. The passenger door handle was missing. Despite that, she managed to get out of the car when it stopped near an elementary school and escaped. It wasn't until the man was arrested much later that Carol realized that she was almost a victim of Ted Bundy. She can be thankful for the horrific fate that didn't befall her.

When a young man named Marion lost his football scholarship due to a bodysurfing accident his athletic career was over. So he turned to working as an extra in films and eventually got bigger roles. The first film in which he had the lead role was a flop. Nine years later he was again given a leading role and this was a hit. The man now known as John Wayne became a movie legend. His accident turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

And if we can be thankful for things that we know didn't happen, we can also be thankful for the things we don't know didn't happen in our case but could very well have. Every year we don't have a hurricane hit us is a reason to be grateful. I should be grateful every time I drive home and don't get in a wreck. We should be grateful every morning we wake up.

But isn't that silly? To what purpose should we be thankful for bad things that didn't happen to us? To make us grateful for what we take for granted, the normal things. Upon learning that a woman's ex-husband came to her house with a gun, only to be thwarted by their daughter's boyfriend, a friend of hers hugged her husband and expressed gratitude that he was a person who would never do such a thing. It may sound funny, but, hey, when the president of a Lutheran congregation can turn out to be the BTK Killer, maybe we should give thanks that our spouse isn't a homicidal maniac. We should be grateful that our grown children are decent people, regardless of whether they are CEOs or Nobel-prize winning scientists. We should be grateful for our boring jobs, that nevertheless have enabled us to own a home, though not a mansion, and clothe our kids, even if they don't wear designer labels, and feed them, despite the fact that we can't afford to employ an Iron Chef.

Because our culture definitely makes us resent our lives because of things we don't have. It shows us luxurious homes, cool cars, and impossibly handsome people dating impossibly beautiful people while making unbelievable amounts of money. Facebook shows us videos of kids much cleverer than ours solving real world problems. Heck, the other day I saw a man without legs effortlessly doing chin ups and walking on his hands, all the while strapped into his wheelchair. I have all my limbs and I can't do those things. I admire him and wish him every encouragement, but I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit that at the back of my mind I wished I had his energy. Doing that would put me in bed for a week. I was envious of a legless man! That's how insidious envy is. It makes us treat what we never had as a loss. It makes what is adequate for our needs seem insufficient because of our greed.

On this day, let us give thanks for the perfectly good, normal things we have. We may not have had flawless parents but they may have been good enough. We may not be as healthy as we like but we have managed to survive every day so far. We may not be an Einstein but we know what's essential and what is of ultimate value. We know the love and grace of God through the teachings and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This church may not be as impressive as St. Peter's Basilica in Rome but it is just as holy and vital because it is filled with people who are filled with God's Spirit and with his comfort and encouragement.

If we must compare ourselves to others, let it not be those who have more but those who have less. And not to gloat but to empathize with them and to help them. Realizing what they lack and what we have, let us share it. I see guys at the jail, who have money on their accounts thanks to their family, giving a cup of noodles they bought from the commissary to guys who don't have any money or family. Inmates come to me for a second rosary or Bible because they gave theirs to an inmate who was going to prison. They come up to me not to monopolize my time but to ask me to go talk to a friend who for some infraction is now in lockdown for 23 hours of every day. They don't have much but what little they have, they share.

When the teacher gives you a pile of handouts, she doesn't want you to hoard them. You take one and pass the rest along. If there aren't enough, you pass yours along too and raise you hand for another. If necessary you share with someone else.

God is love and love involves sharing. We are created in God's image and so sharing is natural. Unless we get fearful that we won't have enough. But instead of being greedy, we should simply raise our hand and ask for more. As Paul said, “Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6, NET) And Paul explains why we can expect to have our needs met. He wrote, “God did not keep back his own Son, but gave him for us. If God did this, won't he freely give us everything else?” (Romans 8:32, CEV) Greed and stinginess and hoarding and fear show we don't really trust God's love.

When someone shares with you, you try to reciprocate as a way of showing your thanks. My wife always packs a snack for my granddaughter because she is ravenous when I pick her up after school. And she always shares it with me. We get this as kids; why do we forget this as adults?

Of course God does not need back what he gives us. So we can show our thanks by sharing his gifts with others. They are created in his image and we are created in his image. And by sharing we complete the image of the God who is love.

We can thank God for the things we actually have. And we can thank God for the problems we don't have. And we can share his generous gifts with those who lack what we have, confident that he will replenish us, perhaps through others who share with us. As Paul said, “Always rejoice, constantly pray, in everything give thanks. For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NET)

And finally, I give you one more thing to be thankful for: the sermon is over and we are that much closer to eating. Thanks be to God! 

Reconciling Opposites

The scriptures referred to are Colossians 1:11-20 and Luke 23:33-43.

In today's lectionary readings we have two very different pictures of Jesus. In Colossians he is the cosmic Christ, the image of the invisible God, who holds all things together. In Luke he is one of 3 criminals, all condemned by the legal authorities, being executed. How did this man, nailed to a simple wooden structure, as helpless as a butterfly pinned to a card by a collector, inspire anyone to see him as the Lord of all life? It is one of the major paradoxes of our faith.

And it starts with one universal psychological turnoff: we don't like our heroes to die. This becomes even more problematic, oddly enough, for those skeptics who think Christ was made up. Because we literally immortalize fictional heroes. Sherlock Holmes was thought to die wrestling with Professor Moriarty as they both topple into the maelstrom below the Reichenbach Falls. But Watson erroneously deduced the detective's death. In the book You Only Live Twice, when James Bond blows up Blofeld's suicide garden and castle, the superspy escapes in a balloon and falls into the sea. As with Holmes, the world only thinks he's dead. All Bond loses is his memory...temporarily. But Jesus actually dies.

And he doesn't die heroically, in battle. Beowulf dies slaying a dragon. All the Norse gods die fighting at Ragnorak. Harry Potter's uncle, Sirius Black, dies battling Voldemort's Deatheaters. In fact, most of the characters who die in the Harry Potter series go down fighting. The only one who willingly lets himself be killed is Harry. He goes unarmed to Voldemort, knowing he will die, because that is the only way to make Voldemort mortal and save his friends. J.K. Rowling did this deliberately because, to the consternation of fundamentalists everywhere, she intended Harry to be a Christ figure, as Aslan is in the Narnia Chronicles.

Jesus, the real life model for Harry and Aslan, actually forbade his disciples to fight for his life and let the authorities arrest and execute him to save the world. He died on a cross, a shameful, painful, public method of execution usually reserved for slaves and traitors. This was no fate for a hero, and especially not for a god. As Paul said, “...but we preach about a crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (1 Corinthians 1:23) What good is a disgraced and dead Messiah?

And that was precisely what was on the mind of the disciples Friday, Saturday and a good deal of the Sunday of what we call Holy Week. Jesus was supposed to be God's anointed king. But now he was rotting in a tomb. They were wrong about him. The whole 3 years of his ministry were a waste. Now what should they do? Besides lay low from the authorities, that is?

That's why the resurrection was so unexpected. Sure, Jesus raised people from the dead. But who was going to raise him? As Martha said of her brother Lazarus, “I know that he will come back to life again in the resurrection at the last day.” (John 11:24) The doctrine of a general resurrection before a final judgment goes back to Daniel. (Daniel 12:2) But the idea that a single person would be raised to life before that was unheard of. When Jesus rose, it was unprecedented.

Today, of course, superheroes tend to die and come back to life over and over again. But that is because you can't make more money if Batman, or Superman, or Spiderman stay dead. In the case of Harry and Aslan, they only come back because their stories are based on that of Jesus. Contrary to what James Fraser wrote in The Golden Bough, there were no dying and rising gods before Jesus. Pagans gods were not necessarily immortal and if a god died, like Osiris, Quetzalcoatl, the Hawaiian deities, Baldr and the rest of the Norse pantheon, they stayed dead. Their bodies may fertilize the earth and cause spring plants to grow, or bits of them may be used to create humans, but they don't come back as themselves. Jesus is unique. He comes back as himself, down to the wounds from his crucifixion.

It is the extraordinary resurrection of Jesus that made the disciples rethink what they thought they knew about him. They knew he was a prophet. They knew he could do things no other human could. They thought he was the Messiah, God's anointed agent in bringing about his divine kingdom. Though Peter calls him the Son of God, he could be using it in the traditional sense as a royal title for the King of Israel. But after his resurrection, they realize the title is literally true. Jesus, though obviously a human being who eats, gets tired, and can be killed, is more than merely a man. His resurrection changes their perceptions so much that these monotheistic Jews now see him to be God incarnate.

But why did he die? And why in that way? The God of the Old Testament is a warrior. Moses and Joshua and David were warriors. Jesus was not. Was there more to God than the fierce Lord of Hosts the Jews saw him as? Was there more to God than the angry righteous judge who condemns the wicked? Was God more than simply the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Was he really the God of all peoples?

Our passage in Luke is instructive. First Jesus asks God to forgive those in the process of killing him. But what they are doing is supremely sinful. Why does he not ask God to smite them? A couple of well placed lightening bolts would bring the whole thing to a halt. Could it be that God is more merciful than we thought? Can he even forgive what we would see as unforgivable?

And while Jesus was probably praying as well for the religious leaders who were mocking him and who pushed for Pilate to execute him, the people actually driving the nails through his limbs were Roman soldiers. They didn't conquer the known world by being nice guys. When Jesus was a boy, and the capital city of Galilee, Sepphoris, rebelled against Rome upon the death of Herod the Great, the Roman governor had the city burned and all the men, thousands of them, crucified. When Jesus was an apprentice to Joseph, they probably sought work there during its rebuilding by Herod Antipas. Nazareth was only 4 miles away. And so Jesus may very well have passed by the thousands of uprights left from those crosses everyday. Jesus knew that what the Romans were doing to him wasn't an aberration. They weren't innocent and they weren't Jews. But Jesus asked God to forgive them.

Again one of the criminals rebukes the other for taunting Jesus. He admits that they deserve death. Something in Jesus tells him that he is innocent. Then he asks Jesus simply to remember him. And Jesus tells him something he tells no one else: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” But the criminal is dying. He can do nothing to atone for his crimes, which probably included murder. The Greek word used to describe the two—robbers or brigands—is the same word used to describe Barabbas, who led an insurrection in Jerusalem and killed people. (Mark 15:7, 27; John 18:40) Had he not been released instead of Jesus, Barabbas would have been crucified that day, alongside what were undoubtedly his fellow revolutionaries. So this man is most likely a murderer. And he can do nothing at this point to show he has changed. He merely recognizes that Jesus probably is the Messiah and will rule God's kingdom. How? I doubt the rebel knew exactly. But he put his trust in Jesus. And Jesus accepted it as reason enough for the man to join him in paradise.

So if Jesus is God, God is merciful and forgiving. He cares about those who aren't his people. He accepts faith in him as sufficient to save the worst of sinners, even without any good works. This is a side of God rarely seen in the Hebrew Bible. But these overlooked aspects of God are on full display in Jesus at a time when most people undergoing such torture would be focused on their own pain and shame. This is superhuman goodness. It is divine grace.

And it was Jesus' post-resurrection appearance to Paul that changed his way of thinking about this man he had thought was justly crucified for blasphemy. And Paul also had blood on his hands. He was responsible for the deaths of Christians. Not only was Paul complicit in the stoning of Stephen, but as he says before Herod Agrippa, “On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.” (Acts 6:10) So he was just one step removed from doing what the rebel on the cross did. And what he did to Christians was counted as doing it to Christ. Jesus says to Paul on the road to Damascus, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4) Not “why are you persecuting my followers” but “why are you persecuting me?”

But again Jesus is forgiving and gracious. And Paul doesn't forget what Jesus did. In recounting Jesus' resurrection appearances he adds himself last and says, “For I am the least of the apostles and do not deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (1 Corinthians 15:9) He also says, “Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given to me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.” (Ephesians 3:8-9) This echoes what Jesus said about the woman who washed his feet: that the person who is forgiven many sins loves God more than the one forgiven a few sins. (Luke 7:36-48)

But it is one thing for untutored fishermen to make the leap from Jesus being the Messiah to his being God; it is quite another for an educated Pharisee and disciple of the great rabbi Gamaliel to see Jesus as God among us. For Paul it seems to have been the result of 3 factors. First, of course, was the resurrected Jesus appearing to Paul. Secondly, it was what happened to him immediately after that. Blinded, he prayed for three days. He saw a vision of the man Jesus would send to restore his sight. In 2 Corinthians he speaks of having visions, plural, including one in which he is caught up into the third heaven or paradise. (2 Corinthians 12:2-3) Was it one of these visions that revealed to him Jesus' divine nature?

Thirdly, Paul was aware of how God's wisdom is personified in the Book of Proverbs. And indeed he calls Jesus the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30; Colossians 2:3) Proverbs says that wisdom existed before the creation of anything else and that Wisdom was alongside God during the process of creation. (Proverbs 8:22-31) We find that echoed here in Colossians.

And you may notice similarities between what Paul writes in Colossians and the preface to John's gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made...” (John 1:1-3) The Word or, in Greek logos, was a popular concept at the time, found in both Jewish theology and Greek philosophy. Jewish philosopher Philo used it to mean the organizing principle of and reason for creation, which, as you can see, ties in nicely with the picture of Wisdom in the Bible.

Again what is unique is the idea that God's Wisdom, the logos behind creation and the reason for everything, is a person, Jesus of Nazareth. That he was the Christ, God's anointed prophet, priest and king, was something people who encountered him were willing to accept. But that he was God made flesh was harder to swallow.

And yet the church came to that conclusion fairly early. In 1 Thessalonians, the oldest book in the New Testament, God and the Lord Jesus are treated as equals. Grace and peace come from them both. It is the church of both God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who saves people and gives life (1 Thessalonians 1:1, 10, 5:9-10). C.S. Lewis died 56 years ago this week. He was good and wise yet I don't think I could convince anyone he was God incarnate. But the letters to the Thessalonians, written just 20 years after the resurrection, show that those who met and knew Jesus accepted it and were preaching it.

And they had no problem accepting that the reason and principle behind creation was the same person who died on the cross. The God who gives life underwent death. The God who gave the Law forgave lawbreakers. The God who is Love remained loving to those who acted out of hate. They did their worst to him. He turned it into the greatest boon given to humanity.

Jesus Christ is the reason behind all things. He is the reason why natural laws control the universe from the largest galaxy to the smallest sub-atomic particles. He is the reason why monkeys and babies have a inborn sense of justice. He is the reason we have mirror neurons that make emotions contagious and foster empathy for others. He is the reason a mother will face off with a larger animal or a predator to save her offspring, even if it kills her. He is the reason why even scientists recognize love as the secret of life and happiness.

He who made the stars made you. There are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe and 86 billion neurons in your brain. And unlike the other animals, humans have the capability of understanding most of the universe around us. But the hardest thing to understand is the love of God. He didn't have to become one of us. He didn't have to die for us. And he shouldn't forgive those who crucified him nor those who deserved to be crucified. But he did.

And he should have stayed dead. That's what all real life heroes do eventually. No one lives forever. Here again the God who is love defies our expectations. Jesus rose again as himself but better, without our limitations. And if we put our trust in him, he will raise us to a new and better life as well.

Sometimes the universe seems vast and cold. But Jesus reveals that at its heart is the fire of God's boundless love. Some scientists estimate the universe has only 5 billion years left. But Jesus reveals that there is no such end for those who choose life in him. Our imaginary heroes, like Doctor Who and the Avengers, save the world. But they leave it the same world: rife with war and racism and rape and murder and oppression. Jesus reveals a new creation is coming, where God lives among us and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain and where he will wipe away every tear from our eyes. It's hard to imagine the one who made the universe doing that, but when we remember that he is also the one who became one of us and who healed the sick and who fed the hungry and who knows what pain and death are from experience, it is easy to see him doing that. And knowing all that Jesus did for us, we know we can trust him to get us through whatever trials we encounter.

Sabbath

I didn't preach this week because we hosted Pastor Khader El-Yateem, the Director of Evangelical Mission and Assistant to the Bishop for the South Region of the Florida-Bahamas Synod, ELCA. He gave a very powerful message. So that you, my faithful readers (especially the Italian contingent), don't have to wait a week, I am offering a never-before published sermon for this Sunday, the 24th after Pentecost in Year C of the lectionary. This was originally preached on November 14, 2004. I haven't updated it, so there are a few dated references but it holds up 15 years later. And I still use the centering prayer included, which was written by David Adam.

The scripture referred to is found in 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13.

I don't know about you but I am weary of all the negative Bible passages in the lectionary lately. While we're at it, I am weary of all the fighting in the Middle East, all of the political rhetoric we've been bombarded with for months, all the hurricanes that threatened us, and all of the grief we've endured recently. Life is hard but lately it's been unbearable. And so while trying to find something to preach on in today's less than cheerful scripture verses, I was captured by the last line of our Pauline epistle: "Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right."

How? How do we keep from becoming weary of doing good? How do we face the evil, the pain, the stress that assaults us daily and not burn out?

Believers are not immune to burn out. Moses got weary of the constant complaining of the Israelites he was leading to the promised land. His father-in-law suggested he delegate some of his leadership responsibilities. So Moses appointed 70 elders to deal with various low-level tribal disputes and problems, leaving Moses free to concentrate on more important tasks. But what do you do when you don't have 70 people to assign things to?

The 10 Commandments enshrine some of the most basic ethical principles of the Judeo-Christian faith. Some are obvious: do not worship other gods; do not steal; do not commit adultery; do not commit murder; honor your parents. But there is one that is unique: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy." Why is a special day put on the same level as refraining from murder? And why does this commandment merit 3 verses of explanation and commentary, more than any of the others?

Rest is the essence of the Sabbath. "On it," the passage in Exodus says, "you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant nor maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates," Everyone is to rest, including slaves and foreigners. Even beasts of burden are given a break. The reason given is that God rested on the seventh day of creation. Humanity is created in God's image and so we are to rest in imitation of him.

In Deuteronomy another reason is implied. We are reminded that God liberated Israel from slavery in Egypt. So the Sabbath is a sign that God's people are free. Slaves don't get days off--at least not until God made it law. Similarly, in the New Testament, Jesus says, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." The restorative effects of the Sabbath are not accidental. God knows we need time off. 

But today's 24/7 society has eliminated time off. It's not that we lack leisure time; in fact, we've trumped the 10 Commandments. We have combined the Jewish and Christian Sabbaths into the weekend. 2 whole days off! And are we more rested? No. We don't have to work every day but we don't have time to rest either. Indeed, our weekends can be even more stressful than workdays because we never get to sit still. We run errands; we work around the house; we chauffeur the kids to numerous team sports, scouting activities, birthday parties, and the like. And when we get home, the TV fills our evenings with sex, violence, celebrity scandals, insistent music, upsetting news, shows with bizarre ideas of "reality," sniggering sitcoms, and just plain noise. 

I think we have addicted our children to this constant bombardment of stimuli. We have made it portable. They soon learn not to leave home without their I-pod or Walkman and their Gameboy. And we let them because it keeps them quiet so we can concentrate on the other things crowding into our consciousness.

Once a year, we have a family vacation. Do we veg out then? No. We cram our 2 weeks with new forms of stress, like extended travel, crowded itineraries, jet lag, and junk food eaten while driving. We go to artificial worlds and pay to alternately walk our legs off and stand in line for hours in order to have machines fling us about for a few minutes. 

What does the word "cruise" mean to you? It used to mean smooth effortless movement. Have you noticed how today's cruise commercials consist entirely of breathless montages of people rock climbing, scuba diving, exercising, golfing, shopping, dancing in conga lines, and exploring Alaska? My favorite is the one in which we see the wife and kids aggressively enjoying themselves in the activities I've listed while periodically cutting to shots of Dad. He's sleeping in a deck chair, dozing by the pool, snoozing on the beach. He's probably the only one who will not need a vacation to recover from his vacation.

Scripture reminds us that even God took a break to appreciate what he'd done creatively. The Sabbath is to be a quiet time, a time to escape the routines and pressures of the world and contemplate God and his goodness. There is this image in Genesis that I love. We are told that God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. That is what we were created for: to walk with God in the cool of the day, parent and child, savoring creation and each other's company. As Rabbi Burton Visotsky says, "The Sabbath is where you recapture Eden."

So how do we go about recapturing the Sabbath? First, we need to set aside time. We need to make an appointment to be with God. We need to make that time sacred--no interruptions, no distractions. Just you and God.

The main thing about the place you choose is that it needs to be private. Jesus talks of going into a chamber or storage room and closing the door. When Jesus was traveling, he would go off by himself to some place that was natural and isolated, often early in the morning.

The atmosphere should be quiet. There should be no radio in the background, no voices, nothing intriguing. Remember that when Elijah was in the wilderness, he did not hear God in the wind, or the earthquake, or in the fire, but in the silence.

Of course, it might be easier to find an quiet exterior than a quiet interior. So we need to learn to quiet our prattling inner voice. Here is a prayer that I have found to calm down my restless brain:

"You, Lord, are in this place.
Your presence fills it.
Your presence is peace.

"You, Lord, are in my heart.
Your presence fills it.
Your presence is peace.

"You, Lord, are in my mind.
Your presence fills it.
Your presence is peace.

"You, Lord, are in my life.
Your presence fills it.
Your presence is peace.

Help me, O Lord, to know 
that I dwell in you
and you dwell in me
this day and forever more. Amen."

This is also a great prayer to utter in times of chaos.

Nature abhors a vacuum and it is very hard to make your mind blank and not have errant thoughts creep in. So it helps to have something on which to focus. Bring your prayer book with you and just concentrate on a prayer or a psalm. Recite it over and over. Or zero in on a phrase or a word. You can use the Bible the same way. Read a short passage, or a single verse; turn it over on your mind; turn it into a prayer. Take the lectionary insert from your bulletin, fold it up and carry it in your pocket or purse. Then pull it out when you are having your quiet time and contemplate one of the readings.

This is not meant as a replacement for coming together to worship. There are certain aspects of communion with God that can only be experienced by coming together with others to sing and to pray and to eat and drink the body and blood of Christ. Only within the corporate body of Christ can we find the compassion, the encouragement, the bearing of burdens and sharing of joys possible in communion with those of like Spirit. Remember that Jesus' favorite metaphor for the kingdom of God was a party. We need the balance of time together in God and time alone with God.

The Sabbath is something you can take with you anywhere you go. Nor does it have to be a once-a-week thing. When you are at work, find a place you can go on your break or your lunch hour. When you travel, see if there's a chapel or garden where you're staying. Is there a balcony to your hotel room or an observation point? Or perhaps you can find a place on the shore, or a path through the woods.

Some people get up early to have their quiet time before the house stirs. Those of us who are not morning persons may want to have it at evening, perhaps just before bed, giving our souls some rest just before our bodies do. Do not do it in bed or you may awake at 2 am with your prayer book on your chest and your glasses still on your face.

Just don't leave it to chance. Make it a priority. Make it regular. It will become an oasis in the noise and chaos of your life, an island in the flood of events that threaten to sweep you away. You will find refreshment for your soul, peace for your mind, balm for your heart and renewal and energy so that you do not grow weary of doing what is right.   

Rebuilding

The scriptures referred to are Haggai 1:15b-2:9.

On Fresh Air this week, Dave Davies interviewed David Owen, who has written a book called Volume Control, Hearing in a Deafening World. And he points out that most people by the time they retire have some hearing loss. And you might just attribute that to aging. But in primitive tribes, elderly people hear just as well as infants. Our problems come largely from the fact that we live in a very noisy world. And it's not just the rock concerts that we attended when we were young that have damaged our ears; it's the lawn mowers and hair dryers and food processors that we use all the time without using ear protection. It's the noisy restaurants that, believe it or not, are deliberately that way because they don't want you to talk but to drink and eat and leave so they can seat someone else. And it means that as we get older our brain has a hard time focusing on listening to just one person in a crowd because of all the ambient noise.

The prophet Haggai was encountering something similar. The noise of the people's lives were drowning out God's voice.

First, some background. His book is one we can date precisely. It took place in the months of August through December in the year 520 BC. When the Persians defeated the Babylonians in 538 BC, Cyrus let 50,000 Jews return to their homeland. But it was a ruin. They had to rebuild everything: their homes, the walls of Jerusalem, the temple. It was taxing and discouraging. They despaired of the rebuilt temple ever matching the splendor of Solomon's temple, though only the very oldest of them could remember seeing it. There was opposition and apathy to overcome. And so work stopped. 18 years later, it was still in a sorry state. Basically, all they had was an altar. And things were not going well for the remnant of the Jewish nation. There was a drought affecting their 3 main crops: grain, wine and olive oil. It seemed like they were laboring for nothing.

And that was the point. The community had no focus, no center, no sense of purpose. They had built nice houses themselves with wood paneling, a luxury then. But God's house was still a mess. The place where they were supposed to come together to meet God was neglected. Their priorities were skewed. As we said, the clamor of their lives was drowning out the voice of God. Haggai called on them to complete God's temple. It would give the people a focal point. It would bring them together as they remembered what made them a nation: the God who gives life and set them free, first from Egypt and more recently from Babylon.

And God tells them that the new temple will one day surpass Solomon's. And he promises his glory will fill it. What's interesting is the governor, Zerubbabel, is a descendant of David and an ancestor of both Joseph and Mary (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27) and therefore of Jesus. And oddly enough, the high priest at the time of Haggai is Joshua, the Hebrew name which, transliterated into Greek, is Jesus. God is pointing to the way in which his presence or glory will enter the temple at the right time: through his son, who will replace the fancier temple Herod will build and which the Romans will destroy.

When I do these deep dives into Bible or church history, it's not just to give you cool facts such as you might get in a Smithsonian Channel special. It's because what God says to us in his Word still applies today. And while we do not need to physically rebuild a temple, it is obvious we need to rebuild the church. And just as Jesus, a person, replaced the temple, so the church is not buildings but people, in whom God's Spirit resides and works. And just as Haggai tries to keep his people from despairing because what they are to build will not resemble the splendor of the old temple, we cannot let the old form the church took keep us from working on what God is now directing us to build.

Most of us remember the time when church attendance was at its historic high, the 1950s. It was the post-war era. Our boys came home from the horrific fighting in Nazi-occupied Europe and the devastation wrought in Asia by Imperialist Japan. They had seen enough of man's inhumanity to man and they realized the evil they had seen arose from great spiritual emptiness. So they just wanted a normal life. They started families and along with a baby boom there was a boom in church building and attendance. More people had a church affiliation in the middle to late 20^th century than they did when the country was founded. Historians examining evidence of church attendance and membership estimate that in 1776 only 17% of US citizens had a religious affiliation. The pilgrims may loom large in our popular idea of the founding of this country but they weren't even a majority on the Mayflower. People with business interests were. Throughout the 1800s various circuit riders and evangelists and revivalists managed to get the rate of churchgoers up from 34% to about 45%. It wasn't until 1906 that just over 50% of Americans were members of a church. [I'm getting my facts from here.] So our current slide down to 50% of those in the US claiming church affiliation is still above what it was in the 19^th century. However some research shows that a lot of people lie about how often they actually attend church and they say the real rate of attendance is just over 17%, essentially what it was when our country was founded. [Here]

What made the US a majority Christian nation were the people like John Wesley and George Whitefield and Dwight Moody and their followers, who went around the country spreading the word and planting churches. They did not live in a “Build it and they will come” era, as the Boomers did. They realized that first you have to have Christians, then you build a church. The advantage they had was, ironically, they did not live in a post-Christian society. One minister in the 1800s wrote, “...there are American families in this part of the country who never saw a bible, nor heard of Jesus Christ...the whole country, from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico, is as the valley of the shadow of death.” I feel he must have been exaggerating, at least in regards to people never even hearing of Jesus, but at least he had no misinterpretations of the gospel to dispel when planting the seed. Most people in our society today feel they know enough to say they are rejecting Christianity, even when it is obvious they really don't. They are rejecting a caricature. And sadly, we have either been providing that caricature or complicit in its being spread or we have not been vocal enough in correcting the picture of following Jesus others have painted.

For instance, Jesus said, “You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24) There is a very influential offshoot of Pentecostalism that teaches that God wants everyone to be rich. This “prosperity gospel” distorts a key element of Christianity: self-sacrificial service. Jesus said his disciples must deny themselves and take up their crosses. (Mark 8:34) As Paul put it, “For none of us lives for himself and none dies for himself. If we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.” (Romans 14:7-8) Following Jesus means turning from oneself and outward, towards God and towards others.

And this is not really a new feature of God's message. While Haggai focuses on serving God by restoring his temple, his contemporary Zechariah focuses serving God through serving others. He writes, “This is what the Lord Almighty says, 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow, or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.'” (Zechariah 7:9-10) Haggai's emphasis on serving God and Zechariah's emphasis on serving people compliment each other. And we see Jesus was in line with the Old Testament prophets when he summarized the law into 2 commandments: to love God and to love other people.

If our society, like that of Haggai and Zechariah, seems to be ailing, we see the causes in our ignoring God's priorities expressed in his command to exercise true justice, to show compassion and mercy to one another, to not oppress the disadvantaged, and to not think evil of one another. How can a society work if we are at each other's throats and accusing one another of wanting our nation to fail? Who wants our country or our world to fail? We may have different approaches but provided we want the same goal—liberty and justice for all—the rest is details to be worked out. We need to drop the rhetoric and start listening to each other. We need to take seriously the pain and suffering of every person and not just be concerned with what is good mostly for me and mine.

And that is what is behind the Golden Rule 2020 Initiative. Signed by the Presiding Bishops of both our denominations as well as by by representatives from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the American Baptist Churches USA, the Presbyterian Church USA, the National Association of Evangelicals, the United Church of Christ, the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, the Minnesota Council of Churches, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism and more, the statement of support reads:

We are Christians with different theological and political views who have come together to express concern about the polarization and incivility that is tearing our country apart. We are also deeply troubled by the prospect of an angry and hateful political campaign season in 2020 that will further divide us as a nation.

We believe that we can find guidance through this national dilemma in the teachings of Jesus. In particular, we believe that Jesus’ command to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” should be taken seriously by Christians who engage in political activity. We also believe that if enough people follow this “Golden Rule” principle, it will help generate the respect and civility we so desperately need in our country.

Churches have an important role to play in helping to heal America, and we hope and pray that local congregations will be active in efforts to increase understanding and bridge divisions in our country between now and the 2020 election. To this end, we encourage Christians of different political views to come together on Sunday, November 3, 2019—exactly one year before the 2020 election—to participate in Golden Rule 2020: A Call for Dignity and Respect in Politics. On that day, we invite congregations and individuals to do two things: 1) pray for the healing of the divisions in our country, and 2) promote the use of the Golden Rule in our own political discussions and election activities in 2020.

When Haggai delivered his message the leaders, Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest responded. And when the leaders focused on rebuilding, so did the people. The leaders set the tone. And Zechariah put special emphasis on Joshua, the high priest, cleaning up his act. If the religious leaders let down their end, it demoralizes the people of God. Every week we see religious leaders, often with large churches and followings, caught in financial and sexual scandals. They lose their authority to speak for God. But God offers Joshua a chance to change and then prophesies that he will have a key role in cleansing the land.

We face problems in our land similar to those faced by the people of the land of Judah. The biggest ones have to do with people. Jesus proposed some pretty radical ways of dealing with interpersonal problems: love your enemy; pray for those who persecute you; turn the other cheek; go the second mile; don't call each other names; don't retaliate; reconcile with someone before going to God's altar; don't pass judgment on others; and attend to what's obscuring your perspective of things before you try to remove the speck in someone else's eye. (Matthew 5-7) In other words, don't go with your natural inclination. Don't put yourself before others. Stand up for everyone's well being. And be willing to take a hit for the team: Team Jesus.

Like Haggai, Jesus calls us to change our priorities. He calls us to filter out the noise of everyday life, to tune out the cacophony of the world and focus on God's voice. God is telling us to rebuild his church. It is a mess; there are obstacles and even people opposing it, but that must not dissuade us. Things looked bleak from the cross but Jesus was able to rise above the ultimate obstacle, death, and wrest victory from the grip of the grave.

And God promises that his church will be more splendid than what used to be. We get a glimpse of this in the book of Revelation. “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” (Revelation 7:9) When we say church, we tend to think of our church. But the church is the body of all believers, throughout the world, worshiping in every tongue, with different vestments, different ritual acts, offering different ministries, but all united in one Spirit, with one set of priorities: to show their love for God through their worship services and their love for those made in God's image through self-sacrificial service.