Yom Kippur 5782 (2021): Reflections.....

 9/20

with Rabbi Steve at the Bitter End

The Jewish High Holy Days are coming to an end. After a totally "virtual" celebration last year, this year congregations struggled to figure out exactly what they could do. All kinds of creative  hybrid concoctions emerged. My friend Rabbi Steve and his Sim Shalom congregation (a pioneer in online worship) held a pre-fast dinner then Kol Nidre service at  one of our favorite local clubs, Silvana. (Owned by an Israeli and African couple.)

Kol Nidre at Silvana

On Yom Kippur, we returned again to the Bitter End, the iconic venue that has somehow survived the pandemic. Both services were live on ZOOM.  In person  attendance was significantly down.  A lot of anxiety remains in the city. Here's what I had to say in Yom Kippur morning:

It’s good to be with you here today. I realize that it’s been two years since I set foot in the Bitter End.  At a Yom Kippur service. It’s always an honor and privilege to get to share in this service  with you and to get to share some of my  thoughts. 

I was thinking that I have been participating in Jewish High Holy Day services for 44 years now. First with colleagues, then friends, ultimately family and now here with you my Sim Shalom chaverim.

I’ve really come to appreciate the arc of these days. Celebrating a new year at just the right time. I mean this is when  school starts again. The time when vacation is over and when people come back to work. New season for TV and Broadway and football. And given how we do with New Year’s resolutions, it’s always good to have a chance not go back and start again. Most especially in a year like this one. 

And then the days of awe. A chance to review your life and make corrections. The spiritual liturgical narrative is even more serious than that….it’s when names are being written into the Book of Life. I love the drama of the repetitive warnings that the doors are inexorably swinging shut …. Here on Yom Kippur morning, the morning after Kol Nidre, midway through the fast, this service is kind of like the two minute warning. And as far as getting yourself into the Book of Life, if you’re not there yet, you’ve just got about enough  time for a spiritual Hail Mary…well, maybe I could use a better metaphor.

The real content of that spiritual work has to do with repentance and forgiveness. I’ve appreciated learning that in Judaism, you can’t ask God  to forgive you for something you did to someone who is still around. You have to go to them. It’s almost like if you really want to make Yom Kippur meaningful, you need to try to take a first step towards healing at least one relationship before you come here. And if you haven’t done that  yet, well the fast isn’t over yet.

In Christianity, our defining ritual, perhaps our most important sacrament, is Holy Communion.  I’m not about to try and explain that now. The point is, we used to have a part of our liturgy that told everyone that anyone who had anything against a brother or sister  should  leave the table and go take care of it before communing. (Not that anyone ever really left..) But it’s the idea….

What’s at stake here is repentance, t’shuvah, turning around, going a new way.  In my tradition, we use a Greek word, metanoia, changing your heart, your spiritual being. If you think about it, metanoia is like the opposite of paranoia. Because the greatest impediments to changing, to repenting, taking that  first step towards reconciliation, is fear.

In Christian scriptures, we have a saying, Perfect love casts out fear. (I John 4:18) But I’ve learned that the opposite his equally true, fear can cast out even perfect love. You got to get rid of paranoia to get to metanoia,. 

I taught my boys that when you go somewhere and see someone you don’t want to see, it’s like they have an evil spell over you. The only way to break that spell is to walk across the room and offer your hand.  Whether they accept it or not doesn’t matter…once you take the first step, the spell is broken. 

In this divided country, now more than ever, we have to find the courage to take the first step, to simply learn to talk to one another again.

What I’ve learned from participating in the annual High Holy Day cycle has made me a better person, made me a better Christian.

Okay.  Book of Life. What a time to be alive…we’re still in the midst of a killer pandemic…and yes, vaccines help big time…but we still die…there are wild fires, firenados on the west coast, hurricane after hurricane on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts…we just finished our endless war in Afghanistan right before the 20th anniversary of  9/11…I watched the Spike Lee film last night on HBO and relived that time when we had no idea what would happen next.....and how many mass shootings this year? More than one  a day…so common they’ve practically stopped reporting them.

It’s like we’re living the unetenahtokef…..,  who by fire, who by water who by virus and who by a crazy man with an ak47….and as Leonard rewrote it,  

Who in mortal chains, who in power

And who shall I say is calling? 

We have more than enough to remind us of our mortality…..

I want to leave you with this….the one thing Covid…and losing friends… did was make me think of my mortality .

You never know, you know? So I decided to not leave anything unsaid. I made a list of everyone I felt I had hurt or wronged and not acknowledged it. And when we could  see each other again, I started making  appointments.  I discovered something amazing…in most cases things hung more heavily on me than the the other person.  The usual response was you’re still worried about that? I learned that there is a deeper well of grace and forgiveness in the world than we realize, and the most difficult person to forgive ourselves…

Maybe that’s the deepest mending of Yom Kippur…you can forgive yourself and live on…that’s what it means to be written into the Book of Life…

May your fast go swift. Leave nothing unsaid. Take the first step.And may this year be filled with sweetness and light….

Living in coronavirusworld 178: A parable. And a debate

 

9/28

Two turtles. Morningside.

Up early to finish my Yom Kippur sermon for my friend Rabbi Steve. In a normal year, we’d be at the  Bitter End, that iconic music club in the West Village. But this is not a normal year. So we gather instead on ZOOM.

Later, I walk through Morningside Park.  Spend some time with two turtles sunning on a rock. 

Tonight in Bible Study, we’re on to Matthew 21: 21-32. A story found in the three synoptic gospels and the Gospel of Thomas. The story of a landlord and tenants. The landlord keeps sending servants to collect the rent. They keep getting killed. Finally he sends his own son and the tenants figure they’ll get rid of him and take his inheritance. Jesus says that the landlord will “…bring those wicked wretches to a a wretched end” and rent the field to other tenants. Then he quotes Psalm 118 about “…the stone that was rejected by the builders..” becoming the “…cornerstone..” 

On the surface of it, this is  a problematic passage. It’s traditionally  been  used as “lesson” that the “Jews” refused to follow Jesus, lost their blessing and had the land taken from them as Christians were elected to take their place. A classic example of supercessionist, or replacement theology. With the predictable collateral antisemitism. It is nonetheless clear that the first servants are the early prophets, the next set later prophets and perhaps John the Baptist, and finally Jesus, the son. And the new tenants are, of course, the Christians.  We have to dig deeper.

Matthew, in describing the landowner, takes language from Isaiah 5: 1-7. Matthew’s writing context is either right before or after the fall of the Temple and the final victory of the Romans over the Jewish forces of national liberation. So he goes back to an Isaiah text that has to do with the victory by the Babylonian empire. In classic Old Testament form, the message of the prophet is that the failure of Israel to practice justice and righteousness for  its people brought on the occupation and exile. Not as a punishment, but as the natural consequences of breaking the bonds that tied a society together and rending the social fabric. The landowner is God, the vineyard Israel and the tenants the Jewish religious and political establishment. In Matthew’s typical scheme of writing, in essence, a new Torah, having Jesus relive the story of the people Israel, he’s making a prophetic point. As their ancestors had failed to live up to their end of the covenant, their contract, and opened the way for the Babylonians, so this generation has failed and opened the way to final subjugation by the Roman Empire.  Now the new Christian community will be given its chance. 

It’s easy to see the tenants as sharecroppers. They after all did all the hard labor to produce the crops. There is revulsion at the violence of the tenants’ punishment. But the point usually is, in the Gospels, that the punishments are self-created and  natural consequences, not external punishments imposed by a vengeful God. 

It is easy to see the unravelling of our own society reflected in the failure of the entrusted servants to do justice for our own people. We are creating our own societal falling apart.The message is clear. We are all tenants. It’s not about Jews and Christians and we as the new chosen people. We too have an obligation to  fulfill our side of the contract. In the violence against the son, we see John Lewis on the Selma bridge, beaten and bleeding, we see George Floyd with his breath choked out.  As we watch our society shaking and vulnerable, prophetic words speak clear. 

It is the eve of the Presidential debate.

9/29

Th eGreat (virtual) Race

Today’s 5K is the (virtual )Pittsburgh Great Race. As I make my way south through the streets of Upper Manhattan, I imagine the streets of my hometown and the course I have run  so many times. Wondering if and when  we’ll run together again.

Vino Levantino

Another one bites the dust....

I pass by Vino Levantino. Spent many nights there with another pastor friend of mine sharing a bottle of wine and Mediterranean Food.  And talk fo theology, ministry  and just life. We gathered there with friends when she lost a controversial  bishop's election. We followed one of the servers in a  music career. They just couldn't make it. Another Covid casualty. 

Pastor Heidi's Trinity Lutheran

Heidi has a virtual book launch for her Sanctuary: Being Christian in the Wake of Trump. It’s a good conversation, virtually speaking. I miss  the wine and cheese and casual conversation  between people.

And it’s the first debate. Its upsetting when your worst fears are realized. When you receive proof that yes, things are exactly as bad as you think they are. Though I shouldn’t be, I am still shocked by the crass bullying behavior of the President. How pundits keep wanting to act as if it’s a normal election somehow when this like nothing we have ever seen before. I feel sick to my stomach. Embarrassed. And when Trump tells the right wing militia “Proud Boys” to “stand back and stand by,”  as he all but says he won’t leave office, a growing feeling of fear and anxiety, 

We are all tenants. 

YOM KIPPUR 5781

 

5781

Good morning.  I hope your fast is going well.

Wow! It’s been  a year since we’e been together and what a year it has been. I remember at the nend of last calendar year having  a conversation with a friend and saying you know, you just never know what’s going to happen next year that we can’t even imagine right now.And never has that been more true.

My oldest son…and my two grandchildren…live in Berlin. They were supposed to come visit in April. Of course that didn’t happen. We would have visited in August but as my son said, Dad it’s going to be a long time before they let people from the US come here. It’s now been over a year since we’ve  seen them. Like many of you, we have weekly family ZOOM meetings.  So a coupe of weeks ago, we’re talking about our current reality. Orange skies over San Francisco. Temperatures of 120’ in Los Angles and weather reports with the word firenado in it. Ten percent of Oregon burned to the ground. Hurricanes, floods and now “zombie storms.”  Killer  hornets. A virus that has killed 2000000 of our fellow citizens. And armed groups of Americans facing off against each other. My son says, Dad, I’m not sure if there’s a God or not. But if there is, and God wants to get our attention, uh, I think it would look something like this…

What I’m saying is if ever there’s a time for a fresh start, this would be. it. I’m fully ready to let 2020 go and just embrace 5781.

I’m in a Wednesday morning conversation group. There’s a woman who has the annoying quality of always looking at the bright side of things. Just when I’m ready to really enjoy being depressed about everything, she’s got to come up with something good. She keep saying that there have been gifts, new opportunities brought to us by the virus.  And I say, “Yeah, but it still sucks…” But she has a point. I remember, in the middle of the full lockdown, being in Central Park. How blue and clear the sky was. And I heard all these birds singing. I realized there was no traffic. No honking horns. No planes or helicopters. I remember having read that in Wuhan, they heard the birds sing for the first time in decades. With clear skies, many more birds were hanging out. 

I began taking closer notice of nature. The coming and going of tulips in the Conservatory Garden. An egret I saw every day in Morningside Park, sometimes journeying over to the Harlem Meer.  I began noticing turtles. How they look like I do swimming the breast stroke. They can quarantine in place by just pulling in their head. The way they come out and bask in the sun. The gingerly way geese walk on the rough pavement and their web feet then their smooth glide across the water. One day for twenty minutes I watched a squirrel eating pizza.  And one day, I had this realization, that all creation, all creatures, are perfect just as they are. (Well maybe not the platypus..) All creatures are perfectly deigned to do what it is they do and be what they are supposed to be. That thought was is serious tension with my conviction that we must always be involved in tikkun olam, repairing the world. And that  the most sacred part of life is that everflowing prophetic stream that has always fought for a more just, humane, inclusive and sustainable world. 

But then I had an even deeper realization, if all these creatures, egrets, geese, turtles, squirrels, are perfect, then so are you and I, in and with our imperfections. 

This is a season for repentance. And forgiveness, Reconciliation. And getting written into that book of life for another year. I so deeply appreciate and respect that Judaism has taught us that if you have wounded, hurt someone, you must ask them for forgiveness before going to God. Likewise, we are to forgive others. But here’s the thing….I am convinced that the hardest person for us to forgive is ourselves. As a minister, every time I lead a service I lead the prayer of confession and then give the assurance of pardon, “Jesus came into the world not to condemn, but to forgive. Know that who you are, as you are, you  are seen, are welcomed, are accepted, forgiven and loved.”In conversation with my colleagues, many of us struggle to accept that for ourselves.

I’m thinking of Adam and Eve. How they coved themselves because they realized the wee naked and were ashamed. Let’s be clear,,,this was not about not having no clothes. Or not about sex. They had just eaten of what? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil….which means they now knew the dfference…they were adults….the were afraid the seen as they really were…when we are aware of the content of our actions, remorse is good. Even guilt. If we take rseponsibility and act to make amends. Shame? Ah,not so good. It makes us want to hide, which causes all kinds of problems…

When my congregation studied the Torah, it took 2 1/2 years, every Monday, to read every word, we discovered that the “great commandant,” to love your neighbor as yourself, is in the exact center of the Torah, equal before and after. (Lev.19: 18) Like all the mitzvot on either side are ways to do that. But here’s the point….as you love yourself. You can’t love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself.  There’s ample evidence to suggest that people who join mobs, people who join hate groups, proud boys, what not, are people who are not able to love themselves. So my first hope for you on this day of atonement is that you can feel a sense of oneness with yourself. 

But the other is important too. My tradition used to have  a rule that if you came to the communion table with something against someone, something broken, you were supposed to leave and geo take care of it before taking communion. By the same token,I almost feel like people really ought to make healing of relationships part of the Yom Kippur experience. Yeah, I know there’s not much time left. But try this between now and when  you break your fast, try to think of one relationship that is broken, or not right, And try to think of just one thing you might do to begin to open the door to healing. (It’s never easy…a step at time.) Nothing brings more joy to God than healing of relationships.  Being at one with each other is a big step towards atonement with God.

My hope for you this Yom Kippur 5781 I that you might experience yourself as one known and beloved by God and one capable of loving others and engaging in the holy work of Tikkun Olam. That you might feel your onenesss with God, Adonai, Hashem, the Creator, the Spirit, the source, the nameless one…however you experience holy reality….that this may that be yours.

(Now…as Passover seders end with Next Year in Jerusalem, I’d like to say next year at the Bitter End…may God preserve that special place until we can meet again there…)

Living in coronavirusword 177: Erev Yom Kippur

 

9/27

what the world needs now

Sunday afternoon. Erev Yom Kippur. Time for a family brunch in Brooklyn before Kol Nidre and the fast.The community trying to figure out  the High Holy Days in the midst of Covid 19. One of us enjoys progressive High(er) Holy day services from the Kitchen in San Francisco. Another will preach for Sim Shalom online Yom Kippur morning.  New Covid hot spots are popping up in the Orthodox neighborhoods. My boys live in Crown Heights, a neighborhood that has successfully (so far) navigated gentrification.

Memories of Ebbetts

Jackie

I walk down a (for me) previously unexplored Sullivan Street. The street that used to lead to Ebbetts Field, the home of the Dodgers, now terminates in a public housing project. Much to my surprise, I find a "Dodger Playground” with a Jackie Robinson mural right over, the fence with gates  that echo the original  Ebbetts architecture and tribute to long gone heroes and days. In the very center, the one and only world series championship of 1955. The Dodgers leaving broke Brooklyn’s heart. The identity of the old Brookyn was inextricably interwoven with the beloved Dodgers. Jackie Robinson changed the game here. The new minor league Cyclones do their best to keep a connection with that past in the midst of the funkiness of Coney Island. All this foreign of course to the new hipsters that now define the word Brooklyn. And the urban hipness the NBA Nets. The Dodgers were victim of a squabble between their owner Walter O’Malley and urban one man driving force Robert Moses. It is fitting irony that a ballpark built to mimic Ebbetts sits exactly where Moses wanted it and the Nets play in an arena on the land O’Malley wanted. The Ebbetts flagpole near by.  

Fish pool 

On the corner of Sullivan and Stoddard is a house with a pool in front filled with Japanese koi fish. 

We ZOOM with my son and  grandson in  Berlin, kept separate from us  for over a year by the virus. All is of the return of live students to school in their new hybrid mix. And lament over the inescapable non-democratic  realities of election college and the Supreme Court. And the constant anxiety over an election process that no one can truly see what might happen. We hold our breath. And hope we are inscribed in that Book of Life one more time.  

Yom Kippur 5780

10/9/19

with my friend Rabbi Steve Blane

On a cold rainy day, I make  my way to the Bitter End for Congregation Sim Shalom's Yom Kippur service with my good friend,  Rabbi Steve Blane. His usually on-line congregation gathers once a year during the High Holy Days to be together in person for a service filled with jazz-oriented music. And the warm and generous spirit of my friend Steve.

I'm thinking about the retimes I've performed here..the honor of being booked at this Village icon. Before the service, I look at the mural behind the bar of famous people who have performed here. And see that Bill Cosby's been put "behind bars." Just desserts, for the former Jello spokesman.

Soon the Yom Kippur band will begin to play and we are underway.  (The video of the whole service can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=sim%20shalom%20yom%20kippur&epa=SEARCH_BOX) Soon enough, it was time for my sermon. This is what I had to say....

the Sim Shalom Yom Kippur band

Cosby behind bars

So this is Yom Kippur 5780. The days of awe are all but done. I hope  that this  has been a good time for you of refection, of getting your  life into perspective, of taking the opportunity to start anew. Even as arbitrary  and constructed a s a new year is, even in  a religion, hey, always take the chance for a fresh start, or even do over.

The goal here today is to feel ourselves at one....at one with God..and that would  seem to include each other as well? And as we're learning, it includes  even creation itself. At-one-ment.

But it also has this sense of atonement...as in atoning, as in confessing ...and paying for your sins. Which means confessing...an owning up to..a facing of.  And of asking for forgiveness. As a Christian pastor, I feel we have a lot to learn from my Jewish brothers and sisters about forgiveness. As one in need of forgiveness, the  Jewish tradition teaches that you can't ask God to forgive what was done to another  human. You must seek it from that person. And also that you can't forgive what wasn't done to you. 

One of our most sacred  practices as Christians is the sharing of communion, of bread and wine as a moment of being "At one with"...We used to have a rule that if you had anything against another person, or someone against you, you had to  leave the altar and not come back until you resolved it. 

What of we tried that here?  Like on Rosh Ha Shanah, Rabbi Blane said during these next 8 days, if you've got something you need to repair with someone, one way or another, go deal with it and don't come back  next week if you haven't finished it yet. So think about that a minute.  And if you need to go take care of something, we'll wait for you, right Rabbi Steve? 

Okay...the other part of forgiveness...when you have something against someone else. Forgiveness is something we ultimately do for ourselves..it's a letting go. To stop letting someone who has hurt you define who you are by your hurt. To move beyond victimhood. As a friend of mine once said, forgiveness is giving up for all time the hope for a better past. 

Now notice, I'm not talking about reconciliation. Forgiveness is not letting bygones be bygones, it's letting go. About letting you live more freely. It does nothing to make the relationship better. That takes a process of naming and claiming and listening and working through and then slowly rebuilding. As a friend once said, no reconciliation without reconstruction. 
That takes work.

I have to shift here a moment and talk about one of my favorite Bible characters...Jonah. Rabbi Steve tells me he's traditionally on the agenda for Yom Kippur in the afternoon. I wonder why?

Jonah is of course a prophet. But there's something unique about him. And it's not the whale. He is, as far as I can recollect, the only Biblical prophet sent to another country, another people.  In Heschel's classic understanding of a prophet, a prophet came from a people to speak to that people motivated above all by love. 

God didn't want Jonah to speak to his own people, regardless of how much they might have needed it. He was told to go to Nineveh, one of the  enemies of the people Israel. And to  let them have it. And Jonah's like, uh, no... I want nothing to do with those Gentile pagan enemies of my people.

And so he tries to run away and you  know what happens next. He gets out of the whale (or big fish) and God gives him a second chance and off to Nineveh he goes. 

(Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah “shayneet” – a second time. That tells us that God is a God of “shayneets” – renewed opportunities! (Remember that phrase!) When we admit our mistakes, often God will forgive us and allow us to try again. That’s very good news, isn’t it? I’ve needed more than a few “shayneets,” and even some “sh’leesheets” – third times, and on occasion some additional times beyond that! So, just maybe, sometimes we ought to be willing to give others a second chance, too?)

So away he goes. Preaches. And whoa! They actually  And  Jonah is like no way. What's the point of being a prophet if the bad guys get away with it! God has to give him a lesson with a broom tree for him to get it.

So what am I saying?
Sometimes we need second chances.
Sometimes we need to offer second chances.
(Getting heavier..) And I believe that in our days ahead, God is going to call us to our own Ninevehs to talk to people we don't want to talk to and accept the fact that they may even change their mind and we'd have to not be able to dislike them anymore. Are we ready for that possibility?

I really do believe that if we're going to  get through this moment, it's going to take something like that Jonah journey.

Anyways, think about that this afternoon while you're fasting. May your fast go well. And L'shanah tovah. 


Steve and I sing his song, "Spark" and then with the blowing of the shofar, the service is ended

all of us....

Great and Small

9/29

Back to Good Shepherd Faith in the shadows of Lincoln Center....

My other text for the day is ...
"You who choose to lead must follow..." that's actually the Grateful Dead...'

Where to begin? So many moments from this past week floating around...it was Yom Kippur...you ever notice that even with Labor Day, the fall really doesn't begin in New York City until after the High Holy Days? I loved seeing the boxes plied to the roof high in front  of Barney Greengrass, delivery trucks fired up and ready to go..

Ready for BreakFast

.their biggest day of the year...supplying lox and bagels to the world...the last  couple of years, they've rented out the West Park Chapel as an extra work space...something about their night long marathon makes me smile..

Yom Kippur morning my rabbi friend Steve invited me to preach at his Yom Kippur service at the Bitter End.

Yom Kippur at the Bitter End

..he does his usual services online but on High Holy days gathers a real live crowd at the iconic night club with a jazz band. Now that was a pretty good sermon, BUT, ah not quite right for today..

Friday night two West Park members, including one from Kazakhstan had an international music festival including American singer song writers, a rock singer from Malaysia, Central Asian pop singers, rappers form Queens a heavy metal guitar player from Moscow and a Tazhiki wedding singer. Leaving aside the occasional SNL feel to the night, I'm willing to bet there was not a more diverse audience in the Upper West Side. (Or beyond)

Yesterday I studied the beauty of Goergia O'Keefe's Hawaiian paintings  at the Botanical gardens.

Georgia O'Keefe in Hawaii

Georgia O'Keefe in Hawaii 

And last night, again at West Park, a concert for Nicaragua...with a singer who took me back to the 80's and all my time there. FYI, the country's leader has become a despot and over 400 have been killed and 23000 fled into neighboring Costa Rica. "It feels like we've been at war most of my life" the singer says. And when the tour is done, mother and daughter will go to Europe because they can't go back. Our Presbyterian mission workers have left too. 

Katia Cardenal at West PArk

All these in my mind when I think about my "prompting"..but here's where I want to go. I went to Louisville this  week to do a memorial service. For a friend who worked for the PCUSA for 35 years following the circle  from NYC to Louisville. With one year to go before 65, she turned down an opportunity for early retirement out of dedication and wound up being cut in a reduction of staff move. After 35 years....

Remembering Susan

She was not one of our church's visible faces. Stated Clerk or CEO or Division Head with portfolio or tall steeple preacher. Not featured in church magazines or webinars or....she was an administrative person. One who answered the phones. And for hundreds, thousands of presbyterians across the country, she was voice that people heard who called with problems from AIDS to mental illness to healthcare issue to addictions to domestic violence....she was a rolodex, no a Siri, better than Siri...she knew who was doing what where around the country and where to connect someone and would stay with them as long as it took. Far more than any "leader" or "face,"  she was the voice of our church and the loving heart that helped people feel loved, cared for and valued. And when she died, she could not be listed in the church's necrology because she was not an elder. Or even Presbyterian. Her name was Susan. And she is representative of 100's of others across this church who spend their lives, literally, making church real for people.

"Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." See?

Jesus had tried to tell the disciples something important. But they just didn't get it. At all. And didn't even bother to to ask. Instead they fell into bickering about who was greatest. (And where was Martha during this debate?) Jesus sets them straight. Keep that in mind. 

Then he takes it further...
Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37"Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
Children...I'm not going to go too long on this one, but two things come to mind...
ONE...the morning I woke up and realized "I live in a country that separates parents from children and puts children in cages. I'll say that again...I live in a country that separates parents from children and puts children in cages. Let that sink in.

And I thought of the horrible revelations about the Catholic church that broke while I was in Pittsburgh. Numbers so staggering ...300 priests and over 1000 victims in just ONE state. I'm always uncomfortable about talking about another tradition, but sure feels like something's seriously broken...friends in deep pain over now discovered broken trust... 

And responses to the Kavanagh accusations that sound like "boys will be boys, girls you're on your own..."

7"Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

and the opposite equally true...

Jesus was trying to tell them about where his path would lead. And when they didn't get it, he responded with a model of what is called in some circles "servant leadership..."  It is the Susans of this church, this world, that keep it going but more so give witness to what the ministry, the reality of the living Christ is.

So as we conclude, take a minute and see if you can think of one who has been that in your life, who's quiet, unassuming work has lived out the gospel...

Thank God for their lives among us...

Amen


It was interesting to hear the responses...one person picked himself...







Psalm 1

1Happy are those

who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

or take the path that sinners tread,

or sit in the seat of scoffers;

2but their delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law they meditate day and night.

3They are like trees

planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,

and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.


4The wicked are not so,

but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

5Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

6for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish.

Second Reading James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a

13Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

4:1Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

Gospel Mark 9:30-37

30They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again." 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." 36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37"Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

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