​Family Matters
Genesis 29  January 21, 2018

    I like reading about our beginnings in the book of Genesis.  It is interesting to read about the relative chaos out of which God brought his people into the nation that God calls God’s people.  As I read chapter 29, I saw the family dynamics out of which we were called.
    In chapter 29, we enter into a story that is already in progress.  Jacob (the grabber) is on the run from his older twin brother Esau.  Jacob got his name because he was born second, grabbing on to Esau’s heel.  He continued to earn his name when he stole Esau’s birthright in exchange for a bowl of lentil stew.  Now he was on the run because together with his mother Rebecca he fooled his father into giving Jacob the blessing that was reserved for the firstborn, for Esau.  This was the last straw for Esau and he swore that he would kill his brother as soon as their father Isaac was dead and buried.  When Rebecca heard of this she convinced Isaac to send Jacob back to the old country, back to Uncle Laban to find a wife and to be safe from his brother.  On the way, Jacob dreamed that he had found the gate of heaven and named the place Beth-El.  At Beth-El Jacob made a conditional agreement with God that if God would bless him, Jacob would worship God.  Jacob was bargaining with the God of his father to see if that God would be his own.
    When Jacob arrived in Haran, he met Laban’s younger daughter, Rachel and they fell in love.  Laban welcomed Jacob into his house warmly as a long lost family member.  Laban probably remembered when Abraham’s servant had come to Haran and had taken Laban’s sister Rebecca to be Isaac’s wife.  The servant came because Abraham forbade Isaac from returning to the old country and being taken in by the old way of life out of which God had called Abraham.  Laban probably remembered the gold and other gifts that Abraham’s servant gave in exchange for Rebecca’s hand in marriage.  He probably remembered the stories of how God had blessed Abraham and Laban probably decided then that if he ever got the chance, he would get some of those riches for himself.  So when he saw Jacob the grabber, the deceiver, coming, I think that Laban saw his chance.  He welcomed Jacob as a family member and asked him to work for him as a shepherd.  Jacob agreed to work for seven years in exchange for the privilege of marrying Rachel.  Laban agreed and Jacob hard as he looked forward to the marriage.  At the end of seven years Jacob got married and Laban threw a huge wedding feast.  The only problem was that the morning after the wedding night, Jacob found out that he had married Rachel’s older sister, Leah.  Jacob complained to Laban, and Laban explained that in the old country, the rule was that the older daughter had to be married first.  The Deceiver had been deceived! He had been deceived in the same way that he had deceived his father to grab  his older twin’s blessing.  
    Laban allowed Jacob to marry Rachel as well as Leah in exchange for another seven years of work.  While Jacob got what he wanted, the resulting marriage to two sisters resulted in rivalry where the sisters competed for their husband’s love.  Since Jacob loved Rachel more, God intervened and gave four sons to Leah.  These four sons grew up to be the heads of the first four tribes of Israel.
    This story explains the origins of the nation of Israel and helps us to understand why the tribes often didn’t get along, but there are lessons that apply directly to us as well.  
    Families have been dysfunctional since—well, since forever.  We often think as we argue with brothers and sisters and put up with the failings of parents, aunts, uncles and other family members that we are alone.  We think that ours is the only family with problems.  The story of Jacob and Laban shows that these problems and these arguments are a part of what forms all families.  
    These problems come from many of the same sources.  Unequal love from parents and other family members results in strife and jealousy between brothers and sisters and an unhealthy competition to be the one best loved.  While we expect these problems in our human families, we rejoice that as children of God, our heavenly father love us based on our popularity or our beauty, but on the fact that we are all God’s children.
    This story also shows us the danger of returning to our old ways.  Abraham forbade Isaac’ return to the family God called Abraham to leave because he knew how great the temptation would be to resume the old way of life.  Jacob learned that lesson the hard way as he did return and got caught up in the old, deceptive ways.  
    Jacob is only one example our desire to return to the old places that seem safe. The Israelites longed to return to Egypt when life got difficult.  They were willing to exchange their freedom for the comfort of the old familiar ways.  
    We do the same thing when we encounter uncertainty in our future, in our finances, in our traditions and our way of life.  We want to return to the old ways.  We want to return to our worldly ways when our spiritual lives become difficult.  We want to abandon the God’s ways and return to the ways of the world.  We remember the comfort of the old country, but we forget that its ways were based on greed, and power, and status.  We forget that the old ways were based on prejudice and exclusion.  We forget that the old ways are self-centered and only accept God conditionally—we loved God only in proportion to God’s blessing.  We want to go back, but we can’t.  When we chose to follow God, we made a clean break.
    But God commands us to make disciples.  For that we need to go to the old country, to people who are still living in the world.  We need to go carefully, realizing that those who live in the world are experts at playing worldly games.  We cannot let ourselves get drawn in. We go back to bring others out and show them the better way; the way of Christ.  The only way we can do this is by imitating Christ in our lives and in our love for others.  We are here for one purpose: to call others to live in the Kingdom of God.  We can only do this through the grace of God in our own lives.  Amen.

 In the Name
Mark 1:4-11 January 14, 2018

    John came into the world to prepare the world for the coming of the Christ, the Messiah.  He appeared out of the desert dressed like one of the prophets of old.  He preached a gospel of baptism for the repentance of sin in preparation for end times.  We’ve read it so many times that it doesn’t seem strange that people would come to John to be baptized. But from a first century Jewish perspective, this would have been unusual if not almost blasphemous.  It was not that baptism was unfamiliar to the Jews; it was just that it was not for them.  For a first century Jew, the only way to forgiveness was through sacrifice in the Temple.  Of course Jews bathed ceremonially in preparation for worship, but that was not the same as baptism.  Baptism was reserved for Gentiles who chose to convert to Judaism.  This baptism symbolized a death to their old life and a taking up of their new faith.  Jews did not need this cleansing.  They were already God’s chosen, special people.  But the Bible tells us that the people went to the wilderness and willingly received John’s baptism and its promise of forgiveness.  Why would they do that?  Maybe those who came to John were the same people who were excluded from the Temple and therefore had no access to the usual means of forgiveness. Or maybe it was something else.  Luke tells us that John was filled with the Spirit.  Have you ever noticed how people begin to listen when the Holy Spirit speaks?  Things change.  People listen even if the message is not something they want to hear.  I believe the people were responding to the Spirit, not just to John.
    All along John said that his baptism of repentance was incomplete.  What the people needed was new life.  Life lived under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus came to receive John’s baptism things changed.  John baptized for forgiveness of sin, but Jesus had no sin.  His baptism was not an act of repentance; it was an act of obedience to God’s call.  And through that obedience, Jesus received confirmation of what he had known all along.  More importantly, we received a vision of the oneness of God.  God the Father spoke and revealed Jesus as His son.  God the Son received the blessing of His Father, and God the Holy Spirit rested on Jesus.  When Jesus was baptized, the whole Trinity got involved.
    As we listen to ourselves talk about baptism, we make it sound like baptism is something we do.  We talk about surrendering our lives to God.  We say, “I have decided to live my life according to God’s will.  We claim that we are accepting the sacrament of baptism out of our great love for God.  Some faith traditions even go so far as to claim that baptism is only for those who can understand its meaning and make an informed decision about how we will live.
    I think in this type of discussion we have our understanding almost right.  We do receive baptism out of love.  We do begin to live according to God’s will.  But baptism is not something we do. Loving God and living according to God’s will are not things that we can do on our own.  Our sin nature, inherited in the Garden of Eden, prevents us from loving anyone but ourselves. We are even, or maybe especially incapable of loving God.  We may be able to put on a show of love and obedience for a while, but eventually when we are given the choice between following our own will and obeying God, we will choose our own selfish way.  It’s just the way we are.  But God has never given up on us.  God has continued to reach out to us to restore the loving relationship that God always intended for us.  God loves us so much that God sent Jesus to restore our ability to love and obey God.  Only through God’s grace can we respond to God’s love.  When we do respond by realizing and accepting the justifying grace that is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, God claims us as God’s own; just as God claimed Jesus as his own.  In baptism, God works first through God’s grace to give us the ability and the will to respond.  Baptism is a gift from God.  And as a gift, we don’t need to understand it; we simply need to accept it.
    God is the primary actor in our sacrament of baptism, but God in God’s grace invites us to participate.  First, the person being baptized or their sponsor is asked to reject evil and sin and is invited to rely on God’s grace to order their lives.  Next, the entire congregation does the same and commits to teaching and modeling what it means to be a Christian.  In baptism God claims each of us as a child of God. God welcomes us to God’s family.  Then God expects us to act like a family and nurture each other in love with God.
    Today we are invited to remember our baptism and be thankful.  Many of us who were children or infants when we were baptized may not be able to remember the actual event, but that’s OK.  We are not remembering the act, but the effect.  We remember that God has claimed us as God’s family.  And for that we are thankful.  Amen.    

​The Greatest Treasure
Matthew 2:1-12
January 7, 2018
    The whole world was expecting a new king.  William Barclay names many sources that something was happening.  A new king was coming and would be born in Judea, the land of the Jews.   When the three wise men, the scientists of their day, arrived in Jerusalem, they did the natural thing, they went to the palace and asked where the new king was to be born.  Having understood the predictions and the signs in the sky, they brought gifts appropriate for the occasion:  Gold for Christ the King, Frankincense for Christ the High Priest, and Myrrh for Christ the sacrifice who would die for the sins of the world.  The wise men came and worshipped.  They celebrated the birth of God’s greatest gift.   
    But not everybody was celebrating.  The Roman appointed King of the Jews, Herod, was worried.  First of all, his rule was very tenuous.  The Jews were a hard people to rule.  Their strange customs and their refusal to follow the approved religion of Rome meant that they were constantly at odds with their rulers.  It took great diplomacy and sometimes harsh punishment to keep the peace.  Herod was chosen to be king partly because he had Jewish blood and understood the Jewish customs.  But the peace he kept was very weak and Herod was very thin skinned.  He constantly felt that his place was threatened.  So talk of a new king of the Jews particularly scared him.  He knew that new kings often eliminated the competition by putting to death the former king and his family.  For Herod, this talk of a new king was a threat.  Dealing with it was a matter of life and death.  Herod chose to do the only thing that he thought would save his life.  He chose to get rid of this baby that threatened his way of life.  It is too bad really, because if he had chosen to worship instead he would have found that the baby had come to save him as well.
    We look at the actions of Herod and think, “How could he ever do something like that?  How could he put his own interests in front of the interests of the world?”  But if we’re honest, we often do the same thing.  We measure goodness based on whether or not it lets us keep our way of life.  Think about the recent tax bill that was passed.  The big question for most of us was how will it affect me?  Will my taxes go up or down?  That’s how we decide whether it is good or bad.  Think about our politics.  Approval of congress as a whole is consistently low but our own senators and representative get re-elected because of what they do for us.  We often choose our friends and colleagues based on how they make us feel and what they can do for us.  We do this because the world tells us to take care of ourselves first and to get rid of anything or anyone who brings us down.
    As we read through the Bible this year we will encounter readings that confuse us, that upset us and that even call us to change our way of life.  When this happens we have two choices.  We can respond like Herod or we can respond like the wise men.  Many people have responded to scripture like Herod responded to Christ.  Marcion an early theologian got rid of the whole Old Testament.  Thomas Jefferson literally cut out portions of the Gospels that he disagreed with.  Today groups like the Jesus Seminar still decide for themselves what parts of the Gospel are valid and what are not.
    We can be tempted to do this as well.  When we encounter scripture that calls us to deeper personal and social holiness through obedience to God’s law—not because it leads to salvation-- but because it pleases God, we put it away by reminding ourselves that God’s love is great. When we encounter scripture that calls us to a deeper sense of love and forgiveness for those who have wronged us—for our enemies-- we ignore it and remind ourselves that God is a God of justice.  We look at God’s love and justice as an either or situation, but really God’s love and justice only work when they work together.  Only when we try and fail to live in obedience and realize how we are subject to justice can we truly understand How great God’s love is.  Jesus put it this way:  Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
    Our other response to these challenging scriptures is to respond like the wise men, like any wise person, and worship God by putting God first.  This also requires us to put things away, to get rid of things.  We need to put away the things in our lives that keep us from living as God wants us to live.  We need to pray and ask God’s help in understanding the Scripture as God intends for it to be understood not how it allows us to keep our way of life.  We need to ask God to help us understand how this reading fits with other seemingly contradictory readings and how they all fit into the Gospel that God loves the whole world and wants us all to return to God.  Finally we need to ask God for the grace, the strength, and the will to change our lives from what they are to lives that glorify God.
    As we read through the Bible this year, we have a choice.  We can be like Herod and put away those things we fear, or we can be like the Wise men who bowed before The King of Kings and received the greatest gift.  Amen

Works Cited
Barclay, W. (2001, 3 22). StudyLight.org. Retrieved 12 9, 2017, from https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/dsb/mark-1.html

​Something Special
Luke 2:22-40 December 31, 2017

    Babies are special.  Something happens when we meet a baby.  Even though we don’t know them we feel the need to play, to interact with the baby.  How many times have you played peekaboo with a child at the next table in a restaurant or in line at the grocery store?  How many times have you stopped the mother or father to tell them how beautiful their little one is?  Babies are special because they seem to bring out the love in all of us.
    As special as all babies are, the babies brought to be redeemed at the temple in Jerusalem were even more special.  God declared that all first born sons were not only special, they were holy.  But Jesus was even more special.  Simeon had seen hundreds, maybe even thousands of babies presented in the temple.  You can be sure that he had talked to all of the parents and to each baby.  He was seeking the answer to God’s promise that he would not die until he had seen the savior of the world.  He greeted each child hoping this was the one.
    I suppose that he was becoming weary of waiting when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus entered the temple.  But his weariness faded when he heard the Holy Spirit tell him, “This baby is the one you’ve been waiting for!”  In response, he did something that would get us in trouble today.  He took Jesus from his mother’s arms and started talking and praising.  He spoke not to Mary and Joseph, or even to Jesus. He began praising God for the answer to His promise.  Only when he was done thanking God did he turn to Mary and Joseph and explain to them that their son was the savior and the judge of the world. Of course he also had a warning that a sword would pierce Mary’s heart as well.
    Anna was also waiting for the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Messiah.  As a prophet, she was inspired by the Holy Spirit to be the first to proclaim in public that this child of Mary’s was the promised savior. (This should be a lesson to those who say women should not preach).  
    It wasn’t a coincidence that the truth of Jesus’s identity was proclaimed by these two humble servants of the Lord.  For both of them, the truth came from the revelation of the Holy Spirit.  Think about that for a minute.  The Holy Spirit came upon Elizabeth and made John the Baptist leap in her womb, recognizing Christ for the first time.  The Holy Spirit sent the angels to the shepherds who came to Bethlehem to meet the baby Jesus.  The Holy Spirit revealed Jesus to Simeon and Anna.  It was the Holy Spirit who revealed to Peter that Jesus was the Messiah.
    We read about Jesus in the Bible, but it is only through the work of the Holy Spirit that we can truly know Jesus as our personal savior and the savior of the world.   So how do we invite the Holy Spirit into our lives?  We should imitate Simeon and Anna by constantly worshipping through prayer, study, fasting, and praising God.  In United Methodist language we practice these and other Means of Grace.  We order our lives according to the three General Rules; Do no harm, Do good, and Attend to the ordinances of God.  Happy New Year!