Test question

10/7

Welcome Evgeny

Today is a very special day in the life of Beverley Church. For the first time in many years, they are welcoming a new member. Evgeny came first as a handyman but was attracted to the fellowship and has decided to become a member. And this is an occasion for celebration!

But first, my reflection for the day....

It's good to be back, and as always, there's a lot going on. Today is Worldwide Communion Sunday which means when we break bread together later today that we will doing so at the same time with brothers and sisters all around the globe. That's a powerful thought...to be part of a worldwide family of followers of Christ with a loaf that symbolizes one true loaf and  a cup that is our common shared cup. 

We also have another holiday weekend. Columbus Day Weekend to be exact. We've travelled a long way from when I was a kid and we were taught in school" in fourteen hundred and ninety two Columbus sailed the ocean blue....":
* He never actually set foot on this continent.
* Turns out he was not a very nice guy, to say the least
* This was not in fact India and the people who lived here were not Indians but they've been stuck with that ever since 
* Though this week I saw the "Israel Unite in Christ" people out on Lexington and 116th and following up on one of their fliers discovered that on subsequent voyages that  Columbus actually did think  he had discovered the "12 lost tribes of Israel"

Israel Unite in Christ

* And Columbus' discovery would eventually lead to a genocide of native peoples in this hemisphere..
* Last year when I was in Argentina, there was an alternative celebration held in a recently discovered historic black neighborhood featuring indigenous people and their music and dance 

Anti-Columbus Day celebration, Parana, Argentina

Not "discovered"

* But in Central America when I was there, the day was celebrated as "el encuentro...el dia de la raza.." The vast majority of Central American peasants are mestizo...mixed native and European a direct result of Columbus' visit...
SO it is complicated.....and Italians are none too happy about all of this..

And we've lived though a very rough and divisive week...like which week isn't?  Where it seems like the Republicans wanted Kavanagh approved just out of spite and we wind up with a President mocking a woman who had been abused. A shameful action in what has been a shameless administration. It is depressing....

So what's happening with Jesus this week? Looks like he's being examined by hostile conservatives determined to make him look bad. With test questions...

Starting with a question about divorce. And his answer is hard....
 "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

It is for this reason the Catholic church has never allowed divorce. And for most of our history our own Presbyterian church wouldn't accept a divorced pastor. Nor our country a divorced President. It was really seen as wrong...But what was Jesus really saying? If you look closely, the way the divorce has worked was that a man could get a certificate of divorce for his wife. She would have no recourse or defense. A man...and not a woman. And if a woman wanted out and the man disagreed, he could hold her in bondage forever. 

And in Jesus' society, divorced women were the most vulnerable, as vulnerable as widows.  Jesus' hard line here is not standing up for an institution, marriage, it's standing up for vulnerable women.  You don't have to ask where he would be. He'd be side by side with Christine Blasey Ford...and every woman who's ever been abused. That's what this verse means and what Jesus means.

Therefore it makes perfect sense that the next topic to come up for Jesus in this passage is children..because his disciples are discouraging their presence. In his society, children were only slightly less vulnerable than women. But beyond their vulnerability, there's something else about them....the way they receive the kingdom...and when I try to understand this, I think of my grandson, y'all know what I'm talking about....the way he looks at the world....that sense of awe and wonder like a very special gift is   being opened just for him.  That's how Jesus wants us to receive the kingdom...not like a careful rule book, not as a disciplinary measure...but as a truly awesome beautiful reality. 

How do you think Jesus feels bout this? Last week the NewYork Times reported:
In shelters from Kansas to New York, hundreds of migrant children have been roused in the middle of the night in recent weeks and loaded onto buses with backpacks and snacks for a cross-country journey to their new home: a barren tent city on a sprawling patch of desert in West Texas.

Until now, most undocumented children being held by federal immigration authorities had been housed in private foster homes or shelters, sleeping two or three to a room. They received formal schooling and regular visits with legal representatives assigned to their immigration cases.

Friends ...this is our country...this is our government...Jesus is in those tents with those children....

Take a look at the Jesus we meet today under hostile questions meant to test him. He takes us away from debates about  doctrine or rules to compassion for the vulnerable...and if he is with them, he is surely here with us...

Let us allow him to show us where and how we need to be. And live in the confidence that  he will be with us as we respond...

Following the sermon, we officially welcome Evgeny as a member of the church.  It turns out that even though he had grown up in the Soviet Union, his grandmother had secretly had him baptized. We go through the reaffirmation of baptism liturgy and welcome him as a member, including the laying on of hands. Following communion, Evgeny goes downstairs to finish preparations for the celebratory feast he has prepared. And for a final benediction, I she these words from Lutheran Pastor Anna Blaedel:

blessed are you who are raging. 
blessed are you who are mourning. 
blessed are you who feel numb. 
blessed are you who feel sick. and tired. and sick and tired.
blessed are you who refuse to turn away.
blessed are you who need to turn away. 
blessed are you who keep breathing deep. 
blessed are you who are tending to your own needs. blessed are you who are tending to the needs of another.
blessed are you who have been calling. 
blessed are you who have been organizing.
blessed are you who have been testifying. 
blessed are you who have been hearing. 
blessed are you who have been resisting.
blessed are you who feel broken open beyond repair. blessed are you who are raw beyond words.
blessed are you who are working hotlines and crisis care centers and bearing witness to the forces of violence and trauma unleashed and unloosed. 
blessed are you who are marching. 
blessed are you who are weeping.
blessed are you who preach and know that divinity resides in despised, abused, violated flesh. 
blessed are you who know deep in your bones that you are good. and beautiful. and beloved. and sacred. and worthy. and believed. and held. and capable of healing.
beyond your wildest imagination. 
blessed are you who remind others they are good. and beautiful. and beloved. and sacred. and worthy. and believed. and held. and capable of healing beyond their wildest imagination.
blessed are we when we dare to dream of a world without sexual violence, without white supremacy, without misogyny, without police brutality, without anti-trans and anti-queer violence.
blessed are we when we stay tender. 
blessed are we when we stay fierce. 
blessed are we when we dare to imagine repair, and transformation. 
blessed are we when we labor together to make it so.

Then we go downstairs to celebrate with a classic Russian feast including just a touch of коньяк. It has been a very beautiful day.

Celebrating

Welcome Evgeny

2Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" 3He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" 4They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." 5But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

10Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

13People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." 16And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.