SCRIPTURE: Mark 16:1-8
TEXT: 8So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. THEME: The story of Jesus’ resurrection is evidenced in the story of our lives. INTRODUCTION There have been times when I have been accused of ending a sermon abruptly. “I was just settling into the sermon when you ended it.” they say. While I was thinking, “I have said all that I need to say on the matter.” Mark would agree with me as he seems to have ended his account of the resurrection of Jesus abruptly without proof; without an eye witness seeing the resurrected Jesus, without doubt being satiated by touching the nail holes and without an Emmaus meal with disciples, where scales fall from our mind and all of the facts of Jesus’ traumatic death are ordered, giving sense of knowing. Emmaus is like Brigadon, everybody has heard of it but nobody knows where it is. A literary device to convey truth. The resurrection is bit like that. We don’t have empirical proof but we are certain about it. SCRIPTURE Why didn’t the women ignore for the Sabbath before they went to the tomb? Jesus didn’t wait for the Sabbath to be over to heal, Jesus didn’t resist tearing off the heads of grain to eat as a snack along the way on the Sabbath. Without Jesus, have they already snapped back to the way things were before him? If they had disobeyed the Sabbath rules (as we were not made so the Sabbath had observers but the Sabbath was made for our good - to give us time with God and foster relationships) they could have been at the tomb earlier, when the stone was rolled away and Jesus folded the cloths and walked out of the tomb. When the Spirit moves, we don’t always get all of the details, but we just know we need to move. The women go to the tomb and as they go, they are wondering about the obstacle to Jesus’ body, the stone rolled in front of the entrance. They don’t have a plan but when they get there they will figure it out. Come to find out, the Tomb was already opened. Was the young man in the tomb the stone roller? He is the only witness to the resurrection event. I wouldn’t have let him get away without spending more time with him. It puts all believers in the same predicament. We have to contend with what someone else has told us, without our seeing for ourselves that Jesus is not here, he is risen. But this is a pivotal event. For all the other spectacular events; the healing of Jairus’ daughter, the healing of the leper, the healing of the deaf mute and after the transfiguration event, we are mandated not to tell, until the Son of Man is risen from the grave. Sometimes I am silent because I don’ know if I understand exactly what I am supposed to share. I don’t want to say the wrong thing or misrepresent something. Sometimes I have to look over my notes again, play the video over again, check in with the other witnesses before I go and tell. Then lastly, when did Jesus say that he would meet them in Galilee. The other way to read this is to follow Jesus who is ahead of you. “Go” away from this place of death and of endings, and return to life and a new beginning.——-“Follow me” to Galilee where the new beginning was shown; of feeding the hungry, driving out the demons that torment people, preaching words of hope to the broken-hearted, healing those in distress, and breaking down the barrier walls that separate people takes place. Nobody produced the missing body of Jesus to counter the resurrection claim. APPLICATION Jesus’ resurrection is present in the way he is be present for all of us; shock and amazement and a paradigm shift with no physical evidence. I have to admit that I am afraid to share my faith. I want to think that just living my life as best as I understand who God and Jesus is should be enough, but I have come to realize that my life needs a narration. I do turn a conversation towards the theological when given the opportunity. I am not an arguer, I do like to share what I am thinking about to see how others receive this revelation. I am putting together my systematics. I have changed some of my presupposition for new ones. I am still discovering and allowing my theology to evolve. In reality, we don’t have to know everything to believe. All we need is a little bit and that will start us on a journey of faith. We don’t even need evidence. The unexplainable, a feeling, being surprised from the ordinary can launch us in God’s direction. We do have invisible stones in our way that block us. Why were they obeying the Sabbath rules. Following the sabbath rule, they missed seeing Jesus, the Sabbath was the other stone in their way for something else they could be doing for Jesus. CONCLUSION Monty Python’s Holy Grail, Now that is an epic bad ending. Mark’s “go and tell and they do not” is sort of a bad ending, but we couldn’t be having this discussion if that is exactly what they did. They did get to a time when they began to say, “Remember that day we went up to prepare Jesus body? This is what happened when we got there.” or “This is what we didn’t see. And This is what we saw and heard.” and “Remember that road trip we had planned to Galilee right after that but we didn’t go. Instead, we sat around the kitchen table and remembered things; like the guy who couldn’t walk and could, or the person who couldn’t see and did. Or the person corrupted by sin and wasn’t. The change in personality for the better, the hand made whole, the catch phrases of loving our neighbor, and surprise at who my neighbors is? And forgiveness. Being stewards of the things we have. We exchanged a few more stories across the table, baked a few loaves of bread and sang a few hymns with a few glasses of wine before we were done. Then we decided to live as if we were going to live and not die. Freed from laws that need to be fulfilled by us, but living in consideration of others. We do the work to reconcile relationship instead of hold grudges and we don’t know everything and are always willing to learn more things. Then, we go and tell people, by the way, this is what I think about Jesus, the church, and what it means to live my life with faith in Jesus, who is here, but not his body, he is risen. We all get to write our alternate ending to Christ’s epic story.
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SCRIPTURE: Lamentations 5
TEXT: THEME: INTRODUCTION When I got my first computer. There was a setting on it that I was always afraid to press; default. Default was not part of my vocabulary at that time and I wondered what it would do. Now I know if I pressed it. It would erase all of whatever I have done. All of the rabbit holes I have gone through, the discoveries I have made and the system errors that I have caused, not to mention links to viruses. My progression, the evolution of my computer skills, the Simm City I have created on my desk top would be reset, to a sterile past as my default. Steadfast love of the Lord, Never ending mercies, And great faithfulness is our default with God, even predating a time before sin. SCRIPTURE Most of Lamentation 5 is a recap of what has happened to Judah. They want God to know what they have been through. It is a common feeling that we have of being on our own then feeling disconnected from God and yet, we want God to know our misery. This is exactly how Judah behaved with God. They were like children who rebelled against their parents and went their own way until it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Then we wonder where God is and we want God to know our woe. Maybe to have pity on us or do something and to rescue us. Babylon attacked Judah while they behaved independently from God and decimated them. The fame walled city Jerusalem was destroyed. The temple was stripped and defiled, many people died; Husbands, wives, sons, and daughters. Daughters have been violated; the death of each young person robbed Judah of a different future. Homes were turned to rubble, the orderly utopia in disarray. The ownership the Holy Land was awarded to foreigners. There are no protections from the violence around them. There is a rising criminal elements that makes it dangerous even outside of the city streets. There are no rulers to bring order to things or negotiate on their behalf. There are no prophets to petition God or to give any assurance of spiritual help. Their resources have been torched leaving famine and starvation to those who remain. Their natural resources have been tainted. They had to create a Humanitarian Trade Agreements with Neighbors so that they could pay for food, water, wood, and other supplies. Judah is living the consequences of their ancestors’ folly. The new normal is a harder Life with less to show for it. Survival does not afford time to waste on pleasure, poets, creativity, or Joy. Music is gone, dance is gone, artisans are gone. But… verses 19-22, God’s reigns forever and to all generations. It may feel like God has forgotten Judah in all that they have gone through. And here in the last two verse of the book of Lamentations is a plea to be restored. Hit the default button. Erase the recent disaster and set us up back in the good old days. Unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry beyond measure. Relationship has always been God’s goal for us. Rejection and anger are all part of relationships, but so is Love, mercy and faithfulness, going back to that default. APPLICATION There actually is no going back to past things, no glory days to recreate. It’s gone. How is God setting us up for the future? How do we begin to heal our relationship with God? I got two mantras to take with me into tomorrow: one with steadfast love, unending mercy and great faithfulness, the other is to have Koa (courage), imua (move one foot in front of the other) and Pono (do the right thing). This is not about nationalism but about people becoming the People of God based on relationships of love, mercy and faithfulness. Citizenship beyond boundaries, race, gender and even religions styles. The future is not in the past but in what we can create, consolidate, fuse, invent, hybrid and imagine. Whatever we build we will bring our values, tradition, culture, style, beliefs, and collaborate, discerning the truth, listening, giving space for evolving and creativity form. Lamentation leaves the people of God with the chance to build something new relying on the steadfast love of the Lord, Unending mercies, and Great faithfulness. They are later released from their captivity and are able to return home. What they build with their freedom is seen in the setup of the temple worship when Jesus begins his ministry. A people of God based on righteousness through the adherence to the build with Law of Moses. Relationship with God through ancestry. And a religion based on the payment of sacrifices to make atonements for sins. Last week I spoke with a fellow from Florida who was doing a survey of our buildings for our insurance claim. He made some comment about how we are all immigrants even in Florida, then I said isn’t it interesting how the immigrants took over the host’s land and now they are afraid of new immigrants who might do the same thing to them. The irony was palpable. CONCLUSION Supremacy wants to default and go back to slavery. Putin wants to default and go back to an Old Russia, Big business wants to default and go back to a time when they don’t have to pay workers a fare wage so they can gain more profits at their expense. We see this with coal companies, Briggs and Stratton who moved their lawn mower plant out of the US for cheaper labor and Kaiser who refuses to pay workers here the same cost of living as workers in California. There is no default to go back to, God is always building on the foundations of the past toward something better. Imua I’m wondering if the models of the church need to change to be less about righteousness and more about love, mercy and faithfulness. I wondering if our United States needs to take a different look about what freedom means for all, and how our America can be different in accommodating new immigrants instead of trying to preserve an out-dated demographic. I’m wondering about which political model we want to support, one that advocates for business thinking that profits will flow down to the worker, or one that advocates for checks and balances because businesses are not good at morally doing the right thing. Pono In Lamentations 2, when it talked about prophets who did not talk speak out against Israel’s iniquities. I thought about churches that don’t speak God’s truth about what society is doing. What are we doing if we don’t have the courage to speak God’s truth and keep silent? Koa SCRIPTURE: Lamentations 4
TEXT: THEME: Our lives are a representation of our relationship with God. INTRODUCTION The Bible is a collection of humans stories about their experiences with God. The story of the Nation of Israel included times when they grew independent from God in their; government, foreign policies, worship and lives. They became no better than anyone else, so when their King Zedekiah foolishly rebelled against the king of Babylon, it set them up for attack and God treated them like everybody else. Letting this tiny nation duke it out with the Babylonian superpower on their own. They were surprised, they arrogantly thought that all of the success they had in the past against greater powers would be repeated, but they were decimated without God having their back. The city was lost, everything was destroyed, now in its wake is famine and starvation. Today’s chapter of Lamentations picks up after the 1st chapter of devastation, the 2nd chapter of grief and the 3rd one of turning to God and finding love, mercy and faithfulness, but turning to God does not magically erase the devastation of destruction. Shifting gears a bit, Lamentations 4 gives us insight as to what lead up to this fiasco. SCRIPTURE Instead of reading the entire chapter, I chose a few representative passages as our reading today. The People of God have become no better than any other people as they have turned away from their tradition, their heritage, their religion, their belief in God for; other idols, greed, fame, popularity, power, pleasure and vanity. They have become useless as a people representing what life in relationship with God looks like. God loves them even though they were not witnessing a belief in God. As a result of the Babylonian attack, fields were burned and the city is now facing a severe famine and starvation. No one is escaping because there isn’t anything anywhere. Money is useless as rich and poor are faced with the grim reality of starvation. We are ash. The King put on a false morality and was fed the rhetoric by false prophets to speak religiously. He was more concern about his tan and the color of his hair than ruling, foreign relations, the economy, or justice for his people. When Babylon attacked, he escaped into the wilderness. He was hunted down and taken to Babylon where he watched his family being slain before he met the same fate, killing any hope of the messiah coming from his lineage. The famine was so severe, being killed by fighting for the country was preferable to starvation. Compassionate mothers took the lives of their suffering children to end their misery. The prophets filled the King with thoughts of a Spiritual Warfare against the Babylonian pagans and demonized their opponents. Boosting a false confidence against the Babylonians, the arrogant king egged Babylon to attack, assuming God would come to their aid as God had done in the past. God would have, if they were Israel in spirit, but they were Israel only in name. No one came to Israel’s aide against Babylon, rather the than fight Babylon, Edom, their neighboring country, became Babylon’s friend and plundered Jerusalem after the Babylonians. The Daughters of Edom are warned in this chapter. This is not a story about nationalism, but of a nation that had turned away from God and lost their distinctiveness. Now that everything has been taken away, they have a story of what life without God is like and reminded of the steadfast love of the Lord that never ceases, of Mercies that never come to an end. And about the great faithfulness of God. Once again, these people, as wayward as they have been, can include this chapter in their continued story of their experiences with God. APPLICATION The story of Israel is our story too. We know what it means to live with God and be a witness, an example of living with an awareness of God, but then to lose our distinctiveness living only according to our greed, and come to our senses finding our way back to God. How does our lives give witness to a living God? At the installation service of the new Pastor Gordon Marchant, at Makawao Union, I met a lady who told stories about growing up as a youth during the second world war in Makawao. She said her father told her 3 things; have courage, put one foot in front of the other and do the right thing. Then she proceeded to tell me about all of these things her friends and she did while no one paid attention to teen aged girls during the war from; Apana’ junk yard, to camping along the water line, to cutting fences and learning how to mend them. Always about having courage(koa), putting one foot in front of the other (imua [moving forward]) and doing the right thing (pono). Hawaii is losing the Aloha Spirit because those who have come are bringing in what they were like from somewhere else, and many of those who have aloha are leaving to live their aloha elsewhere. We have to teach others how to live aloha and we have to be example of aloha. Some people mistake our aloha to think that we are here to serve them, until they realize that it is not that, rather that Aloha is the better way to live in being respectful of each other and doing what is loving towards each other. This is pono, doing the right things to build something that is caring and loving. There is no going back to the past, but imua, moving forward towards something fussed, combined, diverse and inclusive. We can take our value, our traditions, our love, our heritage, our DNA and our faith to flavor the future. If we don’t have koa, courage to live and encourage others to do the same, we could lose our aloha then we lose our distinctiveness and become like everyone else. CONCLUSION Don’t only listen to prophets who only tell us what we want to hear. We have to be willing to hear those who tell us the truth, the hard stuff of about our character, our behavior, our actions, our policies and what is right. If we silence opposing voices, we have nothing new to consider, no refinement to our thought, and we limit our thinking to only one voice and that is of our own foolishness. The author of Lamentations reminds us that we are dirt, reckoned as earthen pots. But what is steadfast is that God loves us and has never stopped. God’s mercies never come to an end and God’s faithfulness is great even when we have not been. When we turn to God, Things will still be difficult until they get better, and our waywardness becomes a couple of chapters of our story with God. SCRIPTURE: Lamentations 3:
TEXT: THEME: Taking hope with us through our lament. INTRODUCTION The first chapter of Lamentations gives us words to articulate the raw feelings we have at a loss. Yesterday I was outside in my yard and I could hear an argument that was taking place in our neighborhood. There was tremendous anger but I felt sorry for the guy because the only way he had to express his blame, anger and hurt was to shout an explicative. Lamentations expresses our loss, in words that plunges deep into our feelings, that help us get in touch with what is going on inside of us. There is something powerful that happens when the words of the Bible are saying what we are going through. It makes our faith in God real in knowing that God knows what we are feeling. Lamentations is a record of loss that echoes the grief the world is holding. In the second chapter we are encouraged not to move to quickly from our grief but to give it space and time to think, contemplate, meditate, consider others scenarios, gather up the facts, process, tell our stories to others, and listen to others. In this Time and Space we give ourselves time to think beyond our first reaction, our assumptions, our blame, our pity, and our shame. Then in chapter three, we are still in pain, and sorrowful but begin to lift our eyes and take on another view. There is Joy that we survived and at the same time guilt because we ask “why me?” We may begin to make peace with our loss but then begin to feel the gravity, of all that we have to do. It is not over yet. Although all of the stuff is gone, the one thing that still remains are relationships, good and bad. So now what? SCRIPTURE This is not the way you are supposed to study the Bible, but as I read the opening verses of Lamination 3 I couldn’t help but think of how God is shepherding Israel. I over laid a bit of the 23rd Psalm here: the rod, bringing us of darkness or shadows of death, dwelling with us all day long or forever in the house of the Lord, starvation satiated by green pastures. There is a story of how a shepherds would break the legs of a willful sheep, then carry it, feed it by hand, and build its relationship with it as it heals. The shepherd and the sheep bond with each other as they journey together. Then, from out of this contemplation of sorrow comes a revelation, verse 21” But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the only verses we are familiar with from Lamentations is 22“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; 23they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Smack dab in the middle of the book of Lamentations. The meat in this sandwich is 2 verses around a lot of thick slices of lamenting bread. 2 1/2 chapters of sorrow to get to here and 2 1/2 more chapters of sorrow to get to the end. This should have been the end of the book but it is not because the sorrow continues and does not magically disappear. So with this promise of God’s daily mercy, love and faithfulness, we are not alone, as God continues to live with us. The rest of the 3rd chapter is about confessing our short comings, admitting our grief, seeking justice and wanting God’s wrath to repay vengeance upon their enemies. Maybe that is why Israel continues to have enemies even to this day? In their grief and sorrow they haven’t moved beyond justice and vengeance toward love, mercy and faithfulness. They are stuck in that cycle of violence. APPLICATION If we don’t take the time to work on our grief, we can get stuck in life, remain the victim feeling sorry for ourselves. Or always angrily blaming others for the situations we are in. What are we feeling in the space between disaster and hope? Lamentations 3:22-33 is part of a larger conversation about traumatized individuals and communities struggling through their own sorrow and grasping for any remnant of a relationship with God. It is a part of faith, but not the final word, and should be carefully used to open avenues of conversation, dialogue, and honest sharing rather than shut them down. Suffering is a part of living. How we deal with suffering enables us to have compassion for others. How we have been able to navigate through our suffering can be a help to others with their suffering. We can share how God has been a help for us through our grieving. If nothing else, it is with God’s promise of steadfast love, unending mercy and great faithfulness that moves us beyond despair and moves us on the path towards hope. The book of Lamentations is a literary marvel as in chapter 2 it adds space for us to have time to sit in our grief. Then it literally puts hope, mercy love and faith in its middle. As the place we reach out to from despair and the as what we take with us as we continue to journey through our sorrow. (Like a Hero/hope sandwich) Grief comes in waves. At first, the time between these waves of grief are short, but as time goes on, and we do our grief work, considering what we are feeling. The times between bouts of grief become greater. This is how we know we are getting better. Not that we are forgetting our loved one or the loss, but that we begin to take that part with us as we live the rest of our lives. CONCLUSION Relationships are important to God. It seems that God’s goals are all about relationship. We get this in Genesis and the family of God. Then it continues in Exodus and the nation who become the People of God. We see this more fully in the life of Jesus as we are called to be heirs of the Kingdom of God as its children. When we think about the peaceful neighborhood, we imagine it is about conversion and getting everyone to be a Christian. But maybe it is more about our living with love, respect, kindness, and acceptance. Being able to identify how we feel when this happens. Without blame, but being able to communicate our feeling with each other so understanding can take place and we can work on solutions together. Then as we live in this manner, relationships with God would be fostered. I don’t think that God is like the shepherd who breaks the sheep’s leg to create a bond with us. But I do believe that when our leg is broken it is God who carries us, provides for us and heals us. We get to see the mercies of God more clearly. Not everything has an instantaneous miraculous happy ending. When I was 8 years old I developed asthma. I had childlike faith and prayed for healing and waited. It took about 8 years before I finally out grew my asthma. God carried me though sorrow and poor health and I learned about prayer and faith. I might not have learned as much about God if my family stayed where they were and didn’t end up moving to the Waimea Larger Parish. So no matter where we are in the hero sandwich of mercy, love and faithfulness, God is discoverable in our sorrow and will journey with us into the remaining set of chapters of our lives. |
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