The 4th Sunday in Lent: The path of Love

3/15

Amanda 

Our friend Executive Presbyter Bob Foltz-Morrison has joined us for worship this morning. And as the service begins, Amanda has joined us as well .  As we continue our series, Pathways: Into the wilderness and out again today’s special theme is The Path of Love. We begin with our Lenten chant: Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within my soul  with it's eastern European Jewish feel.

Our lessons begin with the strange snakes in the desert story of  Numbers 21: 4-9. And in honor of the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day sing Be Thou My Vision, Amanda coming forward to join Jeremy and I. We do Psalm 107: 1-3, 17-22 with the refrain His steadfast love endures forever. Our Gospel lesson,  John 2: 13-22, brings back those snakes again. Time for reflection.

Did you ever hear the story about two people in a restaurant? The first says The food here is terrible  and the second says, yes, and such small portions…that’s what our first lesson or as I call it the prequel is like today…it’s like  the Bible written by Yogi Berra…

The people say, For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food. They’re in the wilderness and they’re miserable and for the first time they grumble not only against Moses but also against God. 

And all of sudden there are nasty snakes biting them. And of course the author says it’s punishment…a classic post hoc ergo proctor hoc logical fallacy, IE, after this because of this…(one of the best course I ever took was my college logic course that helped me understand all the classic logic fallacies from Latin debate…once you’ve studied them, you know them when you hear them…)

It makes sense. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone in the hospital say,…I don’t know what I must have done to deserve this… We’d rather believe in punishment than randomness…that’s almost too scary.

And what happens? Why doesn’t God  just get rid of the snakes? Or just heal the people? Instead we have this lifting up on a staff…(like sympathetic magic…) and they have to look on the raised snake  to be healed…

(Like the hangover cure…a bite of the snake that bit you…)

I could go off on a whole snake here….the Greek staff of Aeschylus…the role of the snake in native American culture…physicians and EMS symbols…we retain this serpentine iconography in our own culture.

(And can we work St.Patrick in there somehow?)

Two points…eventually, over the years, this snake on a rod became the object of worship so Hezekiah had to get rid of it...that’s what we do…mistake the symbol for the essence, the door to truth for the ultimate truth…this is the source of a lot of religious problems, mistaking the symbol for the reality.

Second.. the story tells us how people were feeling about God…there’s nothing gentle here…remember…they’d witnessed nasty plagues, killing of the first born,a drowning Egyptian army..…sure, all for their freedom, but it couldn't help but make you nervous….

We’re talking about all this because it's a key symbol so much in the Gospel story..

It’s part of an ongoing conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus…Jesus somehow comparing himself to that snake on a cross…it’s a bit of a head scratcher…

What is it we’re supposed to see? Lifted up….in Jesus’ being lifted up, what do we see?

First…and really get this…the cross was a from of state terrorism…Roman citizens, , would be asked to drink  hemlock…that’s like the (supposedly) more humane lethal injection of its day…I remember  when the son of the pastor I was working with in Oklahoma as a state representative introduced lethal injection as a humane alternative to electrocution…a supposed step forward…the pastor was anguished…

No…the cross was for political prisoners…it was public, scandalous, humiliating…bodies left for all to see…like public hangings…or maybe lynchings…

A five year study published by the Equal Justice Initiative in 2015 found that nearly 4,000 black men, women and children were lynched in the Southern states alone between 1877 and 1950. It’s shocking to see photos of people with their picnic baskets and children…Keep that in mind when you see videos of ISIS beheadings…

What are we supposed to see….? When we see Jesus on the cross?

The body on the cross is not to be worshipped…it’s a door … to John 3:16…

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life….

The word  loved here is  agape…self-sacrificial love….Jesus willingness to undergo humiliation on our behalf…

We need to push beyond  beyond signs at football games and bumper stickers…back to the snakes in the wilderness…The cause of the pain is involved in the healing….

The willingness to endure pain for others is the pathway to healing…but see this…it’s not the suffering itself…it’s a doorway ,a pathway..it is  never about look what I did for you, OK?

How’s that work? In AA one person’s experience of healing can help another’s … my loss of a child helps me be with you in your loss…your experience of divorce can help me in mine…see how this works?

In his willingness to suffer for others, Jesus is lifted up…the people who endured bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettis, Jr. bridge 50 years did so on behalf of those who couldn’t step on the bridge..

Last week I visited with my new friend David Goodman. …brother of Andrew Goodman..we lifted up Andrew and James Cheney and Mickey Schwerner…their families were right here last June… He went back to Selma last week. Today….the Foundation dedicated to his brother’s memory has student ambassadors at 25 colleges. In the fall they do organizing around voting, encouraging college students to vote. The after elections, they select a local issue to organize around for the rest of the year. …voting…and organizing…see how this works? Taking the tragedy of the past to create an hope for the future….

It’s God so loved the world…not an exclusionary proposition but a inclusive act of love…

God so loved the world…

Once again, as a lead in to our prayers we sing I Want Jesus to Walk With Me. And for our offertory, Jeremy sings the classic He Looked Beyond My Fault to the tune of Oh Danny Boy. St. Patrick’s Day again with Amanda and i on harmony.

We conclude with He came down…

He came down that we may have love, Hallelujah!

…..light          

….peace

…..joy

And our service is over. Amanda sings us two of her songs, one her ghost song from Arkansas and the other and old Quaker song, Peace from a silent spring .She stays for our Session meeting to get caught up on what we’re up to. And then we head to the Gate for brunch. There’a a lot to catch up on. She’s always good to call us …and me…back to the original vision that began with sweeping the steps…

                                                          Amanda singing Silent Spring

The fourth Sunday in Lent: Love that will not let go

3/10

The doors are open. Everything is ready. Took the red eye back from Phoenix arriving at dawn. Cara there to welcome me home. Stephen too.

There are two visitors. A young man, Ray. And an older woman with a bouquet  of flowers who leaves halfway through. Not what she expected. It’s often not what you expect, but if you stick around, something worth your while will happen. 

Today is a familiar story. the one we call the parable of the prodigal son. (Luke 15;1-3, 11b-32 Is there a better title? Someone has said it has been covered from every angle except the  abandoned swine..Who are  the characters? The father, the older son, the prodigal...What are their emotions? Did their youngest son really wish his father  dead? I don’t really think so. Was the older brother about envy?

When she hears how the son had sunk to the lowest job, tending the treif, the unclean animals pigs, hungry enough to want to  to eat their food, she asks, so the youngest son hit bottom?

This is the third in Jesus’  series of lost parables....the sheep, the coin....and now a son. Barbara Lundblad wants us to ask, Where was mom? Aliou Niang, of Union, thinking of his own village in West Africa asks, and what of the community? How were they affected by this series of events?

We agree that the we’re OK in the story  until the party...Why? It’s too much. Welcoming back is one thing. But a party? with the whole village attending? No amends, just a party?

Can we scribes and pharisees be  the older son? In the context of the parable the way Luke tells us, yes. But only if they are us, too. We who are responsible. We who work hard. We who take care of things, keep them going. And since the younger son already took his share, everything the father has is the elder son’s. The father is using what belong to the elder to fete the younger. But even so, we older ones still belong to the father. 

The son had become a nobody: with no home, no place, no future, no food... Another question, raised by Aliou, How did older son know how money had been spent? Is that what he would have done? And I wonder, what are things like a year from now? is the younger son still there? What if he takes off again.

Who are we in this parable?  As in every parable, we are all the characters. We have to experience all of them. 

Just notice , the Father  sees the son from far off, he is is watching and waiting...

I recall the memorial service for one of our original African American members, Ethel. She was one of the circle of live-in domestics who came to worship at West-Park, tired of having to travel to Harlem on Sunday mornings. They integrated West-Park. She ended her days in a public housing project a few blocks up the street. 

During the reflections part of the service. A middle aged man, well dressed in an off white coat, stood up, and tears in his eyes said, I am here because she never gave up on me. She never stopped loving me. I wasn’t even her child, just a kid in the projects. I stole her money. Stole her TV. Stole her toaster. But she never gave up on me. I finally had no choice but to become who I was supposed to be. She never gave up. Her love wouldn’t let me go...

And that is what this is about. Love that will not let go. That doesn’t give up. That is always there. Watching. Waiting....

We sing Amazing grace. But given what we’ve learned about people first, about using the situations of people who are part of our communities as metaphors for spiritual failings, we change the words...

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

that saved a soul (no wretches here) like me

I once was lost and now am found

Thy love has set me free. 

And in our Spanish version, tu luz me rescato....

Ray stays awhile, wanting to talk about our service.  And the reflection.

The session gathers. Much to talk about as always. And Anna has given us much to think about. Vulnerable people. Those who may not respect vulnerability. Who might take advantage. 

I am tired. Cara is sweeping away as I leave.