Sunday, June 3, 2018

Recycling; Sermon for June 3rd, 2018 by Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins


It's amazing how the Holy Spirit strikes a chord with you with different verses in the scriptures. The Gospel this morning definitely speaks of conflict, a very real conflict Jesus would have once again with the Pharisees. It's bad enough He and the disciples were caught like teenage boys chewing wheat gum in the field, but that He dared to heal someone, a man who was suffering, a man who was out of work because of his hand on the Sabbath day... they plot to kill him afterwards?! The Pharisees were so self-righteous that they refused to say anything to Jesus, they wanted their accusation to stand as rigid as the legalism they followed as “righteousness.” Perhaps it's those last few verses in today's Gospel that struck a chord in my heart— they were silent, and Jesus was grieving at the hardness of their hearts, then they plot to kill Him. Remember now this is only chapter 2 of Mark's Gospel. Already Jesus was too much of a rebel for them to deal with.

The image that the Holy Spirit sent to me almost immediately after thinking about that verse was a horrible story that happened at least more than 20 years ago at a hospital where a man was just outside the emergency room doors basically beginning to collapse from a heart attack but the hospital in fear of insurance issues, let the man die at their doorstep. After all that happens of course, the hospital lawyers and doctors apologized away with legalism how they couldn’t go outside of their doors to help someone just because. It was a bittersweet justice to recall that same year that this same hospital would then be closed down and partly demolished because of such a horrible act of indifference under the guise of legalized righteousness.

It was delightful the other day to hang out with one of my new friends out here and talk about our ministries and he mentioned in passing that yes in some senses the Pharisees died out, but many of those that were former Pharisees transformed into the rabbis we have today. So, in some senses you can say there's perhaps a victory of the spirit that even they acquiesced and began to change. It was a very small change of heart perhaps, but they did change. One of the things I have mentioned on and off in different sermons is the substructure to our quote saint sinner selves and this is greed and indifference. Those are the two great pillars that weigh in judgement to our justification of our actions either on the side of God or indirectly against God. Maybe what disturbs me the most about this Gospel and the Pharisees lack of compassion was that the law became their passion and justification over compassion to someone else and that in my mind is profound indifference.

Being indifferent about something or towards someone is a very ugly sin. It's very easy with the evil one’s help, to twist into justifying this sin, just because. Today we're so polarized with condemning judgment lenses. These lenses are either political or catering to a particular ideology, and agenda that we’ve successfully incorporated into every aspect of our thought. Some have lost the true focus of loving and serving neighbor, being a bright light of compassion to others yet alone loving God for the sake of loving as a response in Grace.  The lessons we have this morning have not been heard in several years. That's the one thing I can appreciate about the lectionary in how it tries to teach us different things and it's not the same every three years, it can be completely different. In fact, the last time we have seen the same strand of lessons hasn’t been since 1994.

Why is that important? Every day is different, every day is new. Okay so what? I bet you don't really think about that with each day's passing? It is gone and, in some senses, is a movement in death... In that very same breath however, it is truly a movement in life. This wonderful lesson we have this morning from Paul is another little snippet conversation of his wonderful pastoral patience in trying to teach his wayward Corinthians, something that is beyond the self.  He needed the Corinthians to step outside of themselves and see what service really means, and what faith really calls us to DO. We are beginning the season of Pentecost which as mentioned last week, is one that lasts seemingly forever but there is a discipleship teaching nugget here with both Paul and our Gospel. We are God's creation, we are His children… but do we Faithfully live as His children blessed by grace? Do we keep to His promise and are we faithful to one another?  

I love one of the verses that spoke out to me in first looking at the Corinthians text. This is let light shine out of the darkness. we have treasure in clay jars. Only a short time after my conversion experience that fateful summer of 2003, the little church I was going to as well as a still attending Bethany used to sing this wonderful little Canticle in between different elements of the worship. The canticle sings how we are empty vessels seeking to be filled by the truth and wisdom of God to transform us and shape us. I tried to google it and look through all of my resources… but I only have a nugget of my fading memory of that little Swedish Church and this canticle.

You have to love the message though:  we are empty vessels longing to be filled. We are impressionable. We know this is a truth of human nature for we definitely can be tempted or impressionable as well as on that same note, be inspired and encouraged to do the right thing. Doing the right thing, that uses the verb do. Years ago, when I was first studying pastoral care in one of my CPE units, (which CPE means clinical pastoral education), the lead chaplain there who was a crotchety old man for lack of a better expression, got in my face and said quit trying, just do! Past the nasty air of hostility that blew my eyebrows back that day, I learned something about myself in regard to taking action.

The verb try can go both ways. You can start to see the finger of David touching God in Michelangelo’s famous scene from the Sistine Chapel murals. David’s being very timid and frankly not that excited to reach out his finger, but he sort of, kind of tries. We sort of kind of with a lot of different things, don't we?  In some circles, people would say well you just sort of made a half-ass effort. You're only going to go so far, you're only going to be motivated just to your terms of comfort.  Determination is a gift. It is a gift in spiritually growing in God's Grace to be motivated to really do something beyond yourself, for a much greater purpose. That's part of what discipleship school is to bring you. I am to help you grow as leaders in your faith, who are able to be and do all things through Christ who strengthens us all. 

How all these texts are connected this morning topically is first talking about the whole of creation, where God is at the center, to the day of creation and God's day. What we have learned about God's day or God's day off, is that it has many understandings. The Pharisees turned it into legalized ritual of you just do what we say, and you follow this, or else. Jesus is prompting us to see the Sabbath as a gift of Grace, not of achievement and a time we are to look inward to discover what we need to do outward as a New creation.

All this introspection, and outward call to action sounds a lot like a process we are to do as Disciples of Christ. And yes, it is a process. It is living into that belief, believing and receiving God's Grace as well as coming to understand and grow. This growth is incorporating the Word of God, among many other things, the spirit teaches us to then be truly renewed, living into that renewal. Let's go through this as a quick visual memory demonstration: believe, receive, incorporate and share. Looks like I'm doing some light exercising. Take that process though, into your hearts and minds, spiritually. In many ways we are recycling. We take the good and bad of all the things that we have been through in our lives, and we transform that into a new layer of understanding, one that we can spring off of, in order to do the right thing.

This treasure in clay jars, that Paul is speaking of is, his reaching out to our humanity. It's just human nature to always have the battle between absolutes. I said this last week, we live in a black and white world where striving for the middle it is just too hard for us a lot of the time. It's easier to have yes-no answers, and let things fall between the cracks. Falling between the cracks brings us to think about this poor man with the withered hand. His hand was basically paralyzed. Mark doesn't go into too many details as you probably have noticed, most of his Gospel is guilty of this. He's our “just the facts ma'am,” shorthand news reporter Gospel writer. The Pharisees were so blinded by this legalism and power to keep things a particular way, that they could not allow any variation. Just like this Hospital was so afraid of what their lawyers beat them over the head with to do, they let a man die outside their front door! If Jesus hadn't seen this poor man and healed his hand, this man would still be suffering unemployment remain an outcast, suffering hunger and who knows what else… because according to the Pharisees, they would let him fall between the cracks. They could care less about this man's well-being!

We're just beginning the season of midpoint elections. We know what our current culture is fixated upon. It is polarized and infused with politics. All the mudslinging advertisements are just starting up and we're probably all sick to death of seeing them already. Because what's falling through the cracks are what the real issues are, what are real problems are. Restorative justice is not observed in this country, “really.” I've said this before, but it's too expensive to do. People don't want to serve one another on a case-by-case action. We tried to reach out in specialized roles to meet people where they are. But we still can't even see the God of our Creation, in our midst, beckoning us to do the right thing. We still let our decisions fall on one side or the other most often to the detriment of others that fall between the cracks.

Reaping that new nature is radically contradictory to our human nature on so many levels. Paul even mentions it today: we are afflicted in every way, but we're not crushed, we still stand back up on our feet. We may have lots of questions that never get answered, but we don't all fall into despair… many of us persevere onward. Persecution is alive and well against Christians and that's the fact. It may have changed dynamics and we have different enemies, but Christianity is certainly being persecuted.  Why we're still hanging in there is because we have a God who has come down to us. This is not only the story of the Cross and the resurrection, but how that Resurrection lives onward through us— getting us to die and rise anew each and every day. A dying and rising towards being the New Creation, reaping that New Nature.

There is no sect in Israel today that calls themselves Pharisees for now there are rabbinic Jews. Took them centuries, but there was some progress where the focus even of how the temple is viewed today is very different than it was back then. They started to see a little bit past the steeple, and more about the people. That's very important for us today. Why do I say that? Why am I very passionate about that? I recently witnessed something of an injustice in regard to how spiritual formation as a culture is observed with different Christian groups. Religious Orders are definitely very different than they were hundreds of years ago. Religious orders were a very strong culture of faith.

The best image for the church, in my mind, is to think of striving to be a hub where you gather and then scatter. This Hub should be a culture in itself where many things are being shared are being reflected upon and you grow from. My task as your pastor is to lead and feed you with the Gospel, the Good News. That's a very biblical way of thinking about being and doing church. It's a part of our culture, of being and doing Church. This is very similar to sects and orders.  In the postmodern world, a religious order cannot be or recreate true monastic life. Many of us can't live in a monastery. We have families, a home and jobs and other different things. This is a part of our environment these days. It doesn't mean however, that there can't be a way of observing some of that culture and having it be spiritually edifying.

As some of you know for my own personal relationship of growing with God in faith, I like to be involved in the culture of a religious order. In fact, for a brief time I started in a Franciscan order. It was all too brief because the man who ran it got mad at somebody else in the church body and kicked everyone out making his order for Catholics only. Ecumenism, I have heard from many of friend, is believed to be “dead or extinct.” Just like that old CPE director yelling, I hear myself saying that's not true, you're not trying hard enough to be welcoming and inclusive to everyone in your practices. You're not really choosing to do the right thing, because because it's not easy to do.   Life is a series of challenges. If you can't accept that, you're going to sink rather than learn how to swim. 

On that same note, our hearts can be transformed and encouraged by God's Word to truly want to DO, BE the change in the world, in a great way. It can be naive and perhaps overwhelming. There's too much on all of our plates these days. I was thinking the other day of starting an order of my own open to all Protestants who appreciate the Franciscan culture of spiritual formation. it's a lovely thought, but unless I get two more clones of myself, I don't know how on Earth I can really start doing something like that. But I'm grateful to God to even have had a thought like that pop in my mind. This is especially when I see indifference and politics and other injustices going on in our work together to be and do Church, in the world.

John Lennon said it best: “… you may think that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one….” His song, ‘Imagine,’ went on to become a very famous song of peace.  This was a song hoping for peace and truly one that spoke of our struggle to live towards the center of where God needs us to be. We know John Lennon's words got him into a lot of trouble at different points of his life, but when you really look at the whole story of who he was, and where he was, we could say that perhaps he was an agnostic person. He really didn't have someone hold his hand and lead him straight to God he had to dissent and argue with God during the trials and traumas of his life. And we have to do that ourselves, we have to become a bold people that questions why things are, the way they are… And we shouldn't just try to do something, we need to just do it!

At the beginning Journey of the ancient Israelites breaking free from bonds of Egypt and even later dealing with exile… you could say that they had an identity crisis. They needed to have some kind of control. Human Nature created lots of laws for them to be an Earthly guide. We also know Yahweh was their Heavenly guide. YHWH was their Heavenly parent often encouraging them to truly grow.  By the time of Jesus, we know that those laws that once helped to shape their identity and promise of wanting to be God's Chosen people, was changed into legalism and ritual. You could say in some senses, that they were recycling things. These were things that they learned from, and now once again were challenged by God to change.  The sooner we realize that change is truly a matter of life and death, the sooner we realize the joy and treasure we have within ourselves to reap for God's glory.

We are empty vessels that have been filled with many things. Many things that need to be recycled as points of learning and many things that we need to see a new. All around us this morning, is our New physical Church. Within us as I speak to you is the more important church, that God needs us to allow the Holy Spirit to work in, the heart.  God is knocking upon the doors of the Tabernacle of your hearts, are you going to let Him in?   Believe in the words you have heard this morning. Receive God's word in your heart, as blessing. Incorporate everything you have learned from then to now. Renew and DO what is right!

Let us pray,
Gracious and loving Lord Jesus,
Help our hearts to be founts of compassion.
Help us to DO over trying to BE.
May we be a people of faith and service
Not ones of legalism and politics.
Help us to be the loving creation You have made
May we live into the promise of change
By being the change in the world, You seek
AMEN

June 3rd, 2018; Second Sunday after Pentecost; Year B; Proper 4; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm 81:1-10; Deuteronomy 5:12-15; 2 Corinthians 4:5-12; Mark 2:23-3:6








The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church:


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