Thursday, March 27
Reconciler Update
"Our compassionate efforts toward justice guarantee a deepened faith and prayer life. They will lead us to disciplines of the spirit and of the heart. By engaging with suffering, we learn true joy. By touching despair, we discover what it means to embrace hope. By coming to know Christ crucified, we participate in his resurrection. By pouring ourselves out, we gain our lives."
Joyce Hollyday, "Then Shall Your Light Rise."
+++
Happy Easter!
Larry and I met for our Pastoral Team meeting Wednesday and I said to him: "It *feels* like a whole new season!" and he said: "It is! So that works out." and we laughed.
I like it when I register change internally as well as externally, when I feel in synch with the revolving seasons of the church and/or nature. The calendar says it's spring, but hmm....another snowstorm yesterday. The liturgical calendar says the Easter season has begun, and that it has. He is risen! (even if the flowers aren't).
Holy Week was a remarkable experience at Immanuel this year, as it usually is. All of the services of the Triduum, The Great Three Days, were markedly different from one another, each one uniquely beautiful. On Maundy Thursday we followed Jesus's commandment that his disciples wash one another's feet, as he washed theirs, and his institution of communion in asking his disciples to eat bread and drink wine together in remembrance of him. It was a joyful service that ended on a solemn note as we stripped the altar of its furnishings. On Good Friday we remembered Jesus's passion and death in a darker service. We brought our brokenness and desire for wholeness to the cross, and strove to see it as tree of life as well as place of death, knowing that new life comes from what is passing away. At the Easter Vigil, we heard stories of salvation, the Scripture stories that are part of our heritage as Christians: the Creation, Noah's ark, the Exodus,and others. We danced our way to the baptismal font, where we remembered our own baptisms, then danced into the sanctuary, bright and bedecked with lilies -- we sang and clapped and the place rang out with Alleluias. When it was all over there was a champagne reception and teenagers from Sweden singing gospel music in Swedish and English. People ate right in the sanctuary. (This is not your parents' church!) :-) The entire evening was a feast for the senses. On Easter Sunday, the place was packed. It was a very joyful and festive morning, with trumpets and communion and a sermon about rolling away the stones in our own hearts. It was a marvelous four days.
One of the joys of doing these shared worship services with Immanuel and St. Elias -- the other two congregations with whom we share space -- is having people of different traditions and backgrounds come together harmoniously. Children were welcomed as worshippers and participants in the services. Lessons were read in Arabic. People of all ages served at the altar and were present in the congregation. There was diversity of gender and ethnicity and orientation.
One of our joys and challenges, as followers of Christ, is to remember Jesus' openness to the foreigner and the outsider, and to have that same spirit of inclusivity within us. As human beings we often tend to gravitate toward our own kind, those we perceive as like us. And yet Christ continually went beyond the boundaries of his own kind to reach out to the Samaritan woman at the well, the Syro-Phonecian woman who asked him to heal her daughter, the leper, the blind, the lame. As we at Reconciler experience growth and prepare to start a Search Committee for a new Baptist pastor, we do well to keep in our minds and hearts that same openness, and the knowlege that if we are to grow we have to be open to change and difference. All churches struggle with simultaneously wanting to grow and wanting to stay the same, and we are no exception. It's comfortable to see the same faces each week, even while we feel excited about, and hospitable toward, newcomers.
In this season of Easter, let's remember that Christ came for everyone, not only his own, and strive to embrace that spirit of inclusive love for which he lived and died and lived again.
Alleulua, Christ is Risen!
Laura+
The Rev. Laura Gottardi-Littell
The Pastoral Team
The Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
Announcements:
Laura will be out of town March 29 through April 7. Please contact Larry for pastoral care and emergencies.
The Rev. Jacki Belile will be our guest Baptist preacher on March 30.
Also, on March 30 from 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. Melissa and Wes Browning will host a benefit at their home for Amani, the women's sewing co-op in Kenya with which they have worked. Kenyan coffee, tea, and treats will be served, and there will be wonderful items for sale (clothing, handcrafts) to directly benefit this organization that fosters positive change in the lives of Kenyan families.
On April 15, Laura, Larry, Monte, and Gabi -- the four pastors on the Immanuel "Campus of Discipleship" -- will be speaking at the National Workshop on Christian Unity, about our experiences of being three congregations sharing and working together in an ecumenical context.
Saturday, March 22
Easter Vigil Sermon
My sisters and brothers, this is the night that Jesus Christ passed from death into life. Tonight is the night that gives Good Friday and the Cross their meaning. Tonight we celebrate that Christ indeed is victorious over Sin Death and the Devil, through his death on the Cross and Resurrection from the dead.
Soon we will shout, “Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed!” Though first in darkness we wait like Jesus’ disciples in the upper room. Yet also unlike the disciples for we wait with anticipation, not fear. We sit and wait -- We remind ourselves of God’s great saving deeds in History. We retell the stories of old and are transformed by their wisdom. These stories feed us they are what give shape and definition to our lives. We tell them again and we sit and listen and sing and pray. We do this because the wisdom of these stories teaches us to see God’s saving acts in our own lives. Also, this telling again shows us that the death and Resurrection of Jesus is the culmination of all God’s saving works in history.
We are told stories of a God who out of love calls and woos us and all humanity back to the intended relationships we were to have with God, the creation and each other. We are reminded that God has been seeking to restore and heal humanity and the cosmos since the Fall.
So, tonight is the night that makes all reconciliation, justice and peace possible. Tonight is the night we are called beyond ourselves into the Kingdom of God. Let us hear and be transformed by this wisdom, attend!
Soon we will shout, “Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed!” Though first in darkness we wait like Jesus’ disciples in the upper room. Yet also unlike the disciples for we wait with anticipation, not fear. We sit and wait -- We remind ourselves of God’s great saving deeds in History. We retell the stories of old and are transformed by their wisdom. These stories feed us they are what give shape and definition to our lives. We tell them again and we sit and listen and sing and pray. We do this because the wisdom of these stories teaches us to see God’s saving acts in our own lives. Also, this telling again shows us that the death and Resurrection of Jesus is the culmination of all God’s saving works in history.
We are told stories of a God who out of love calls and woos us and all humanity back to the intended relationships we were to have with God, the creation and each other. We are reminded that God has been seeking to restore and heal humanity and the cosmos since the Fall.
So, tonight is the night that makes all reconciliation, justice and peace possible. Tonight is the night we are called beyond ourselves into the Kingdom of God. Let us hear and be transformed by this wisdom, attend!
Friday, March 21
Good Friday Sermon
This sermon was preached at the joint Good Friday Service of Immanuel Lutheran Church, St. Elias Christian Church, and Church of Jesus Christ Reconciler, on March 21, 2008, by the Rev. Laura Gottardi-Littell.
***
As we gather tonight, the mood is solemn. But though we mark this day with sadness we are not called to despair because…we know about the Resurrection. We are an Easter people, so we gather tonight in hope as well as to mourn.
We call this day Good Friday, not because it’s good that Christ suffered, but because of the joy and hope of Resurrection that have come through the cross.
As Christians, we observe this day of death as a day that paradoxically brings forth life.
Our faith contains many paradoxes, many contradictions. Christ is both victor and victim, shepherd and lamb, slave and king. The cross is a meeting place for many forces we usually think of as opposites: God/humanity, heaven/earth, sin/grace, hate/love, life/death. The cross holds all these opposites in tension, in wholeness.
Just as the cross holds together many contradictions, we ourselves are bundles of contradiction. Each of us has many sides, many aspects. We are simultaneously guilty and innocent, broken and whole, strong and weak, living and dying. We may wish we were only the positives. We may deny and push away those parts we fear or dislike. As they say, Denial is not just a river in Egypt. I know often feel I must put my best foot forward to the world, even to God.
But we can bring our whole selves to Jesus. We can come to the cross, that place where contradictions meet. There we can be fully known by God, and know ourselves more fully. The more often we recognize ourselves in our many aspects, and bring our whole selves honestly before God, the more likely it is that parts of ourselves we don’t like or are unhealthy can lose their grip on us, and begin to die. And new growth, new life can flourish within.
Since the early days of the church, Christians have seen the cross not just as a symbol of death but also as tree of life. There are many examples of Christian art where images of the tree of good and evil in the Garden of Eden are placed alongside the tree of death and life on Calvary. “It’s as if with the eyes of faith, when the church looks at the cross it sees not an electric chair, but a vibrant tree.”
Tonight I invite you to see the cross not just as a place of death, but also as the tree of life.
As you come to the cross tonight, is there something you want to leave behind there? Guilt, fear, pain, resentment? Is there something in you that needs to die? Excessive pride, self-centeredness, addiction, a tendency to be unkind?
As we come to the tree of life, is there something is you that needs to be born? What do you most need? What are you longing for? What in you needs to be transformed, resurrected, made new?
Christ accepts us in our totality. He accepts the parts of us that are broken, the parts of ourselves we deny and refuse. As he himself was denied and refused. The cross, once a symbol of hateful rejection, is now paradoxically a symbol of loving acceptance. We can come to the cross with our whole selves. We don’t have to be on our best behavior with Jesus. We can let it all hang out by the cross. And by hanging out with parts of ourselves we don’t fully know or like, we can gradually accept and love them into transformation.
In her book Things Seen and Unseen, journalist Nora Gallagher writes about her experiences working in a soup kitchen run by her church. There is a section about her experience at a Good Friday service in that church, in particular the moment where people were invited to the cross. Gallagher writes: “ I see the faces of the men [who eat at] the soup kitchen, those human beings made into rags, into debris. Their faces shine here at the cross in a way that no other faces do. They know what this man hanging here has suffered, as he knows their suffering. He was made into trash here on the cross…[I know] the parts of myself that are alive among those men are the parts I hide everywhere else. Crazy, inarticulate, imperfect, in need. The person humiliated by simply being born a woman. How often I apologize, desire to please. All the parts of myself that I colonize, make into trash. In the darkness, I see them, hidden in my shadows, and I understand then how it is that seeing them makes me whole.”
Tonight as we come to the cross, that meeting place of contradictions, let it be wholeness that we seek. The words wholeness, holy, and healing all come from the same root. By being present to a broken world,and being broken for us, Christ paradoxically heals and makes us whole. Let us be present tonight with Christ, just as we are and allow Christ’s saving health to take root in us. The holy and healing cross binds together our many contradictions, and makes us whole. Come to the cross, to honor Christ, to let go of what needs to die and to celebrate what can be born. Come to the cross, the tree of life… with your whole self. AMEN.
+++
Sunday, March 16
Palm Sunday Sermon: "You Can't Always Get What You Want"
Palm Sunday, Year A
April 16, 2008
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
The Reverend Laura Gottardi-Littell, Preacher
Readings: Isaiah 50:4-9, Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11
Passion Gospel: Matthew 26:14-27:66
***
Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem starts out so well. A crowd gathers to welcome their champion. They throw palms in his path, and shout “Hosanna!” What a wonderful welcome into the city of prophets.
Today we re-create that hero’s homecoming. We begin with a joyful noise, palms, and a procession. But not far into our service we sense the change. What started off so well is not going so well. Suddenly we are singing mournful hymns and there’s tension in the air, foreboding. Jesus has come to Jerusalem not only as beloved hero but also as martyr. He has come… to die.
The same crowd who cheered for Jesus will five days later be clamoring for his death. Many of them had hoped he would be a great leader, a warrior king to free them from the oppression of Rome. That’s not what they got. They got Jesus, who was not about force. The revolution he sought wasn’t a violent uprising. His power to liberate was of another kind. Although he has delighted and healed so many, Jesus has angered and disappointed others.
Human beings today are not so unlike the people of Jesus’s day.
We have many of the same hopes and fears.
We too can feel angry and cheated when we don’t get what we want. Or what we think we want.
There’s an old Rolling Stones song that goes: “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”
And it’s like that in our personal lives. We think we want a certain job, relationship or place to live, and it doesn’t work out. In response we feel disappointed, hurt, or angry. Only in hindsight, after some time has passed, do we realize that we’re glad we didn’t’get what we wanted or thought we wanted. We got something better for us, something we needed more.
On a spiritual level, how does Jesus give the world not what we want, but what we need?
Our world is a competitive, stratified place that tells us what we should want. Status. Power. Money. We should be winners, we should be tough, we should be self-promoting,. It’s OK to step on other people to get where we’re going.
But Jesus was a savior who emptied himself, as Paul writes to the Philippians. Jesus didn’t try to exploit his power, like the Roman emperors and other power brokers of his time. Jesus didn’t see his equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself of the need for power, status and wealth. He hung out with poor and sick folks, outcasts, and those on the wrong side of the Law. He didn’t kiss up to the Roman or Jewish authorities. Instead he challenged them.
SO if Jesus walked among us today, and no one recognized him, wouldn’t some people label him a fool, loser, or dangerous lunatic? And cast him aside? Wouldn’t they say he was not the kind of leader they wanted? Wouldn’t they shout, in so many words: “Crucify him!”
Not only is our world hung up on power and money – it’s also a violent place. And Jesus was not into violence. When Jesus is captured in the garden, one of his disciples cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave. “No more of this!” Jesus tells his disciple. If violence is needed for Jesus to save himself, than Jesus wants none of it.
So if Jesus, who rejected the use of force, walked among us today, and no one recognized him, wouldn’t some call him a wimp, a crazy pacifist, unpatriotic? Wouldn’t they reject him and shout: in so many words: “Crucify him!”
The Christian message is still deeply challenging. It challenges what the world tells us to want.
But God likes to give us what we really need.
God gave us Jesus to meet our deepest human needs.
To show us where real power lies. Not in status, money or the use of force.
Jesus is a winner but of a different kind.
By emptying himself, he changes the world forever.
In dying, he destroys death.
Now that’s power.
Ghandi, Martin Luther King Mother Theresa and others have known the power of this self-emptying, nonviolent love. And living it out, made enormous changes.
The Christian life, if taken seriously, is largely about self-emptying. Giving up our desire to be first, right, powerful. Giving up, or at least questioning, much of what we want and becoming more and more open to what God wants. Weeding out parts of ourselves that are self-absorbed and cruel, that accept the need for violence. The parts of us that shout “Crucify him!” and mean it in today’s passion play.
To be honest, there are times I’m not sure how much self-emptying I’m willing to do. I’m a human being, and Jesus is asking me, asking us all, to evolve, to be nearer to the angels than the beasts. To go against, or at least seriously grapple with, core values of the world. I love Jesus so much and yet…he asks so much. Yes, we want to follow Jesus when it’s palms and processions. And we may be willing to endure some sacrifices and pain to live out our identity as Christians. But who among us, no matter how faithful or courageious, really wants to follow Jesus to Gethsame or Calvary?
So if you feel conflicted today, you’re not alone. You have good reason to. Palm Sunday has a schizophrenic quality. Hope joy fear and despair. are by turns the mood. We watch a king ride in majesty into Jerusalem and then he ends up on a cross. We start out thinking we’re at a party and end up at a funeral. We watch a good man, the best kind of person, God’s own son, handed over to an inhuman death. And worst of all, he dies in part because of us. Because of the way the world is, how human beings are. Because of what we think we want: power, status, the use of force. He hasn’t played those games. So now he must die. All hope seems lost.
And yet………God knows our deepest needs. God knows we don’t need more domination. We don’t need more violence. We need a savior who through self-emptying, non-violent love can show us the path of life. Can help us evolve. And God provides that. God has given us a way out of our endless cycles of sin and death. It is joyful and liberating to break those cycles by following Christ. Yes, there are losses when we empty ourselves, but the gains are incalculable. We gain freedom and peace when we lose our bondage to self-seeking and violence. And even if we die, death does not have the last word. And that is the good news today on Palm Sunday. That is the joy of Easter. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has given us not what the world tells us to want, but what we needed most.
You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you just might find, you get what you need.
AMEN.
+++
April 16, 2008
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
The Reverend Laura Gottardi-Littell, Preacher
Readings: Isaiah 50:4-9, Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11
Passion Gospel: Matthew 26:14-27:66
***
Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem starts out so well. A crowd gathers to welcome their champion. They throw palms in his path, and shout “Hosanna!” What a wonderful welcome into the city of prophets.
Today we re-create that hero’s homecoming. We begin with a joyful noise, palms, and a procession. But not far into our service we sense the change. What started off so well is not going so well. Suddenly we are singing mournful hymns and there’s tension in the air, foreboding. Jesus has come to Jerusalem not only as beloved hero but also as martyr. He has come… to die.
The same crowd who cheered for Jesus will five days later be clamoring for his death. Many of them had hoped he would be a great leader, a warrior king to free them from the oppression of Rome. That’s not what they got. They got Jesus, who was not about force. The revolution he sought wasn’t a violent uprising. His power to liberate was of another kind. Although he has delighted and healed so many, Jesus has angered and disappointed others.
Human beings today are not so unlike the people of Jesus’s day.
We have many of the same hopes and fears.
We too can feel angry and cheated when we don’t get what we want. Or what we think we want.
There’s an old Rolling Stones song that goes: “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”
And it’s like that in our personal lives. We think we want a certain job, relationship or place to live, and it doesn’t work out. In response we feel disappointed, hurt, or angry. Only in hindsight, after some time has passed, do we realize that we’re glad we didn’t’get what we wanted or thought we wanted. We got something better for us, something we needed more.
On a spiritual level, how does Jesus give the world not what we want, but what we need?
Our world is a competitive, stratified place that tells us what we should want. Status. Power. Money. We should be winners, we should be tough, we should be self-promoting,. It’s OK to step on other people to get where we’re going.
But Jesus was a savior who emptied himself, as Paul writes to the Philippians. Jesus didn’t try to exploit his power, like the Roman emperors and other power brokers of his time. Jesus didn’t see his equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself of the need for power, status and wealth. He hung out with poor and sick folks, outcasts, and those on the wrong side of the Law. He didn’t kiss up to the Roman or Jewish authorities. Instead he challenged them.
SO if Jesus walked among us today, and no one recognized him, wouldn’t some people label him a fool, loser, or dangerous lunatic? And cast him aside? Wouldn’t they say he was not the kind of leader they wanted? Wouldn’t they shout, in so many words: “Crucify him!”
Not only is our world hung up on power and money – it’s also a violent place. And Jesus was not into violence. When Jesus is captured in the garden, one of his disciples cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave. “No more of this!” Jesus tells his disciple. If violence is needed for Jesus to save himself, than Jesus wants none of it.
So if Jesus, who rejected the use of force, walked among us today, and no one recognized him, wouldn’t some call him a wimp, a crazy pacifist, unpatriotic? Wouldn’t they reject him and shout: in so many words: “Crucify him!”
The Christian message is still deeply challenging. It challenges what the world tells us to want.
But God likes to give us what we really need.
God gave us Jesus to meet our deepest human needs.
To show us where real power lies. Not in status, money or the use of force.
Jesus is a winner but of a different kind.
By emptying himself, he changes the world forever.
In dying, he destroys death.
Now that’s power.
Ghandi, Martin Luther King Mother Theresa and others have known the power of this self-emptying, nonviolent love. And living it out, made enormous changes.
The Christian life, if taken seriously, is largely about self-emptying. Giving up our desire to be first, right, powerful. Giving up, or at least questioning, much of what we want and becoming more and more open to what God wants. Weeding out parts of ourselves that are self-absorbed and cruel, that accept the need for violence. The parts of us that shout “Crucify him!” and mean it in today’s passion play.
To be honest, there are times I’m not sure how much self-emptying I’m willing to do. I’m a human being, and Jesus is asking me, asking us all, to evolve, to be nearer to the angels than the beasts. To go against, or at least seriously grapple with, core values of the world. I love Jesus so much and yet…he asks so much. Yes, we want to follow Jesus when it’s palms and processions. And we may be willing to endure some sacrifices and pain to live out our identity as Christians. But who among us, no matter how faithful or courageious, really wants to follow Jesus to Gethsame or Calvary?
So if you feel conflicted today, you’re not alone. You have good reason to. Palm Sunday has a schizophrenic quality. Hope joy fear and despair. are by turns the mood. We watch a king ride in majesty into Jerusalem and then he ends up on a cross. We start out thinking we’re at a party and end up at a funeral. We watch a good man, the best kind of person, God’s own son, handed over to an inhuman death. And worst of all, he dies in part because of us. Because of the way the world is, how human beings are. Because of what we think we want: power, status, the use of force. He hasn’t played those games. So now he must die. All hope seems lost.
And yet………God knows our deepest needs. God knows we don’t need more domination. We don’t need more violence. We need a savior who through self-emptying, non-violent love can show us the path of life. Can help us evolve. And God provides that. God has given us a way out of our endless cycles of sin and death. It is joyful and liberating to break those cycles by following Christ. Yes, there are losses when we empty ourselves, but the gains are incalculable. We gain freedom and peace when we lose our bondage to self-seeking and violence. And even if we die, death does not have the last word. And that is the good news today on Palm Sunday. That is the joy of Easter. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has given us not what the world tells us to want, but what we needed most.
You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you just might find, you get what you need.
AMEN.
+++
Thursday, March 13
Update: Holy Week
It has been awhile since Laura or I have sent out an update out to you all. The pastoral team is feeling the loss of our third member of our team and the early departure of our deacon Beth Scriven at the beginning of February. Being volunteer and thus bi-vocational has its limits and Laura and I are doing work currently designed in Reconciler's structures to be carried out by a team of three with only two. Needless to say somethings slip through the cracks that is simply how it is right now.
The last update came at the beginning of Lent and now we are on the edge of Holy Week. While culturally the feast of Christmas is highlighted for us, really this time of the year is the highest of holy days for the Church. Here we face the central reality of our faith. In these upcoming days we remind ourselves of our human strengths and weaknesses and our human propensity to violence even in the face of God in our midst in Jesus Christ. We also face God's grace love and non-violent power, exemplified in Jesus Christ submitting to the cross and death, and thus gaining victory over death, breaking down the gates of Hell through the Resurrection. To some this might seem to be a strange thing to enter into after our Lenten series on inter-religious relations and dialogue. Yet, what we proclaim while it differs from what Muslims or Jews believe about those events 2000 years ago, the story itself allows little room for a sense of superiority merely because we are Christians, the attitude of some Christians not withstanding. Also, I believe that the best place for dialogue between differing faiths is not some invented common ground nor some adaptation of our faith to be acceptable to the other but in the humble confidence of faith, and of knowing God in Jesus Christ, and his death Resurrection and Ascension. We the followers of Christ did not make the Church appear, nor affect the salvation God brings to the world and offers the world in love, through Jesus Christ. We as followers of Jesus are called to do no more than God did in Jesus Christ and that is to offer what God in in Jesus Christ offers, which means to simply witness to the god who is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. God does not coerce or forcefully persuade but invites all, we can do no more. Thus inter-religious dialogue and relations is simply an aspect of being who we are as the body of Christ in the world witnessing to the one we know to be the ultimate hope and the full revelation of God in human flesh. The coercion and intolerance of many Christians today, and in the past, is, and was, a failure of individuals faith and evidence of the persistence of sin and thus of our need for the event that we proclaim encounter and witness to in Holy Week.
Announcements:
Holy Week and Easter Services with the Immanuel and St elias:
Maundy Thursday
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
7:30 pm
Good Friday
Friday, March 21st, 2008
7:30 pm
The Easter Vigil Saturday,
March 22nd, 2008 7:30 pm
Easter Day
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
10:30 am. No service at our usual time of 5PM.
The Rev. Jacki Belile will be our Baptist preacher Sunday March 30th.
Larry and Laura with Pastor Gabi of St Elias and Pastor Monte of Immanuel are giving a seminar at the National workshop on Christian Unity, on the ecumenical relationship that has developed between the three congregations and reconciler as an ecumenical congregation. It runs April 14 - April 17. We will be giving the seminar Tuesday April 15th.
Pastoral Care Roata: Larry is on call for emergency pastoral care needs in March through the firs week of April. Laura is on call from the Second week of April through the First week of May.
In Christ,
Larry
The last update came at the beginning of Lent and now we are on the edge of Holy Week. While culturally the feast of Christmas is highlighted for us, really this time of the year is the highest of holy days for the Church. Here we face the central reality of our faith. In these upcoming days we remind ourselves of our human strengths and weaknesses and our human propensity to violence even in the face of God in our midst in Jesus Christ. We also face God's grace love and non-violent power, exemplified in Jesus Christ submitting to the cross and death, and thus gaining victory over death, breaking down the gates of Hell through the Resurrection. To some this might seem to be a strange thing to enter into after our Lenten series on inter-religious relations and dialogue. Yet, what we proclaim while it differs from what Muslims or Jews believe about those events 2000 years ago, the story itself allows little room for a sense of superiority merely because we are Christians, the attitude of some Christians not withstanding. Also, I believe that the best place for dialogue between differing faiths is not some invented common ground nor some adaptation of our faith to be acceptable to the other but in the humble confidence of faith, and of knowing God in Jesus Christ, and his death Resurrection and Ascension. We the followers of Christ did not make the Church appear, nor affect the salvation God brings to the world and offers the world in love, through Jesus Christ. We as followers of Jesus are called to do no more than God did in Jesus Christ and that is to offer what God in in Jesus Christ offers, which means to simply witness to the god who is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. God does not coerce or forcefully persuade but invites all, we can do no more. Thus inter-religious dialogue and relations is simply an aspect of being who we are as the body of Christ in the world witnessing to the one we know to be the ultimate hope and the full revelation of God in human flesh. The coercion and intolerance of many Christians today, and in the past, is, and was, a failure of individuals faith and evidence of the persistence of sin and thus of our need for the event that we proclaim encounter and witness to in Holy Week.
Announcements:
Holy Week and Easter Services with the Immanuel and St elias:
Maundy Thursday
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
7:30 pm
Good Friday
Friday, March 21st, 2008
7:30 pm
The Easter Vigil Saturday,
March 22nd, 2008 7:30 pm
Easter Day
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
10:30 am. No service at our usual time of 5PM.
The Rev. Jacki Belile will be our Baptist preacher Sunday March 30th.
Larry and Laura with Pastor Gabi of St Elias and Pastor Monte of Immanuel are giving a seminar at the National workshop on Christian Unity, on the ecumenical relationship that has developed between the three congregations and reconciler as an ecumenical congregation. It runs April 14 - April 17. We will be giving the seminar Tuesday April 15th.
Pastoral Care Roata: Larry is on call for emergency pastoral care needs in March through the firs week of April. Laura is on call from the Second week of April through the First week of May.
In Christ,
Larry
Monday, March 3
Sermon: How Did He Open Your Eyes?
4 Lent, Year A “Laetare” Sunday
March 2, 2008
Gospel: John 9:1-41
Preacher: The Rev. Laura Gottardi-Littell
+++
When we see through the eyes of judgment and self-righteousness, we don't see.
We miss the signs of God's kingdom.
Take the Pharisees in today's gospel. They think they see accurately into the hearts of others, but they don't. They don't see accurately into their *own* hearts.
It's the unexpected people, those at the margins, who often have the real insight.
As in the Beatitudes... the poor, sorrowful, and mourning are the ones who are blessed. Not the ones who think they have it all together.
In today’s gospel, the blind man -- the one who is helpless, the one others point the finger at – is the one who shows the miracle of God's mercy. Who becomes the focal point of God's grace.
Today's Scriptures are about God choosing and blessing unexpected people. In our Old Testament reading, God chooses David, youngest and least experienced of Jesse's sons, to be the new king of Israel. In John's gospel, Jesus chooses a man blind from birth, considered an outcast, to demonstrate the in-breaking kingdom of God.
Unlikely choices. They shake up the expected order. And Jesus himself is an unexpected choice -- the Pharisees expect that a Man of God would never heal on the Sabbath. Jesus must be a sinner...but if he is, how could he have the power to heal a blind man? The poor Pharisees are very perplexed.
But today's Scriptures tell us that God doesn’t see along lines of traditional human hierarchies or judgments.
God doesn't look at a youngest child and think: "Not as good as the eldest." God doesn't look at a blind person and think "Sinner." And God didn't send the kind of Messiah Jesus's contemporaries were expecting. God sent a healer, not a warrior. God sent one who mingled with outcasts, not upheld the rigid purity codes of his time.
The Pharisees ask the blind man: “What did he do to you?” “How did he open your eyes?” They want all the details of this mysterious healing.
And it's significant, the manner in which Jesus cures the blind man. He mixes his own saliva with mud and puts it over the man's eyes. You don't get more earthy than that. I’m not sure in all honesty I would like that kind of paste put on my eyes. But the beauty of this is that it's part of Jesus himself, mixed with mud, ground, the same stuff Adam was made of. Humus, the Greek word for ground and the root of our word humility. Jesus takes this paste -- this very earthy, grounded stuff -- and puts that healing mixture on the man's eyes. Then asks him to bathe in the waters of Siloam, which means the One Who is Sent. Meaning Jesus.
What is healing in this gospel? What helps the blind man, what helps us, who are all born blind? Being grounded, being humble. Being in touch with our basic humanity. And being touched by the one who was Sent from God. Knowing Jesus and believing in him. These two things, being humble and being open to Jesus, are very potent healers.
Many times it's not until we face some hardship or loss that the scales fall from our eyes. We learn to see ourselves and others with compassion, give up our false pride and self-righteousness. We stop making judgments, differentiating between who's in and who's out. We learn to see as a loving God sees.
It may be hard to empathize with someone who has a chronic illness, unless we too have been sick for any length of time. It may not be easy to feel compassion for someone going through a divorce, unless we have had our own relationship struggles. It's difficult to imagine the pain a victim of abuse might suffer, unless we too have known that kind of pain. It may be hard to relate to poverty, unless we’ve ever had to scrounge to get a cup of coffee.
Jesus never glorifies the suffering of those on the margins. Instead he says to them: "Yours is the kingdom of God." In today’s gospel, Jesus says that the blind man is the one who really sees what's going on. Jesus knows the reality of the world, in all its hardships and potential for cruelty. And he knows that if we have experienced suffering, our eyes can be opened in a particular way.
If we know what it's like to dance on the margins, we’re in a more knowledgeable place to offer compassion to others, to offer them freedom from judgment. As Jesus did with the blind, poor, and outcast. Not condemning them or leaving them to their fate. The ones Jesus does condemn are the arrogant and self-righteous, who think they see, but don't.
For many of us, when we accept that our lives are out of control, that we have reached bottom, or that we that cannot live by the Law alone, we finally admit our need for Jesus. That’s when we reach out for a messiah who came not in power and might but in a manger, and who was broken for us on a cross. That’s when we develop the radical openness to Jesus that the blind man shows – an openness that is itself healing.
The Pharisees ask the blind man: "What did he do to you?" "How did he open your eyes?"
And that is a question for each of us. What has Jesus done to us? How did he open our eyes?
For me, I’d have to say that before things became clearer, they got muddier. And I'm aware of this element in the story of the blind man. To help him see, Jesus first puts mud on his eyes -- not something clear. This is part of what Jesus is about -- muddying things. The gospel is an upside down message -- the blind see, the last are first, the master is a servant. God is definitely muddying the waters, in Jesus. Confusion follows Jesus wherever he goes, as do hope and joy. Sometimes in order to really see, we have to lose our sightlines, our bearings. It's a whole new orientation to life -- to see as God sees. To see with the eyes of the heart. And it’s too much for some people. They would prefer to stay blind, like the Pharisees, secure in their own judgments and their world of easy cause and effects. They would prefer to believe that people suffer because of their own sinfulness. There are some folks, for example who believe that the homeless, the battered women, or the children with AIDS are responsible for their own conditions. So they seek to slash funding for shelters and programs that will help people get up and get back on their feet. And they continue to support tax cuts for the rich. As the saying goes: “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
But for those of us who are willing to learn the lessons of humility and compassion -- what a sight for sore eyes – this vista of God’s kingdom that opens before us when we gain our true sight. We see a vision of a world where there is grace and mercy, and where God has a special place in God’s heart for the low and cast down.
The man born blind is just one story. Each of us has a story to tell. What has Jesus done for you? How did he open your eyes?
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March 2, 2008
Gospel: John 9:1-41
Preacher: The Rev. Laura Gottardi-Littell
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When we see through the eyes of judgment and self-righteousness, we don't see.
We miss the signs of God's kingdom.
Take the Pharisees in today's gospel. They think they see accurately into the hearts of others, but they don't. They don't see accurately into their *own* hearts.
It's the unexpected people, those at the margins, who often have the real insight.
As in the Beatitudes... the poor, sorrowful, and mourning are the ones who are blessed. Not the ones who think they have it all together.
In today’s gospel, the blind man -- the one who is helpless, the one others point the finger at – is the one who shows the miracle of God's mercy. Who becomes the focal point of God's grace.
Today's Scriptures are about God choosing and blessing unexpected people. In our Old Testament reading, God chooses David, youngest and least experienced of Jesse's sons, to be the new king of Israel. In John's gospel, Jesus chooses a man blind from birth, considered an outcast, to demonstrate the in-breaking kingdom of God.
Unlikely choices. They shake up the expected order. And Jesus himself is an unexpected choice -- the Pharisees expect that a Man of God would never heal on the Sabbath. Jesus must be a sinner...but if he is, how could he have the power to heal a blind man? The poor Pharisees are very perplexed.
But today's Scriptures tell us that God doesn’t see along lines of traditional human hierarchies or judgments.
God doesn't look at a youngest child and think: "Not as good as the eldest." God doesn't look at a blind person and think "Sinner." And God didn't send the kind of Messiah Jesus's contemporaries were expecting. God sent a healer, not a warrior. God sent one who mingled with outcasts, not upheld the rigid purity codes of his time.
The Pharisees ask the blind man: “What did he do to you?” “How did he open your eyes?” They want all the details of this mysterious healing.
And it's significant, the manner in which Jesus cures the blind man. He mixes his own saliva with mud and puts it over the man's eyes. You don't get more earthy than that. I’m not sure in all honesty I would like that kind of paste put on my eyes. But the beauty of this is that it's part of Jesus himself, mixed with mud, ground, the same stuff Adam was made of. Humus, the Greek word for ground and the root of our word humility. Jesus takes this paste -- this very earthy, grounded stuff -- and puts that healing mixture on the man's eyes. Then asks him to bathe in the waters of Siloam, which means the One Who is Sent. Meaning Jesus.
What is healing in this gospel? What helps the blind man, what helps us, who are all born blind? Being grounded, being humble. Being in touch with our basic humanity. And being touched by the one who was Sent from God. Knowing Jesus and believing in him. These two things, being humble and being open to Jesus, are very potent healers.
Many times it's not until we face some hardship or loss that the scales fall from our eyes. We learn to see ourselves and others with compassion, give up our false pride and self-righteousness. We stop making judgments, differentiating between who's in and who's out. We learn to see as a loving God sees.
It may be hard to empathize with someone who has a chronic illness, unless we too have been sick for any length of time. It may not be easy to feel compassion for someone going through a divorce, unless we have had our own relationship struggles. It's difficult to imagine the pain a victim of abuse might suffer, unless we too have known that kind of pain. It may be hard to relate to poverty, unless we’ve ever had to scrounge to get a cup of coffee.
Jesus never glorifies the suffering of those on the margins. Instead he says to them: "Yours is the kingdom of God." In today’s gospel, Jesus says that the blind man is the one who really sees what's going on. Jesus knows the reality of the world, in all its hardships and potential for cruelty. And he knows that if we have experienced suffering, our eyes can be opened in a particular way.
If we know what it's like to dance on the margins, we’re in a more knowledgeable place to offer compassion to others, to offer them freedom from judgment. As Jesus did with the blind, poor, and outcast. Not condemning them or leaving them to their fate. The ones Jesus does condemn are the arrogant and self-righteous, who think they see, but don't.
For many of us, when we accept that our lives are out of control, that we have reached bottom, or that we that cannot live by the Law alone, we finally admit our need for Jesus. That’s when we reach out for a messiah who came not in power and might but in a manger, and who was broken for us on a cross. That’s when we develop the radical openness to Jesus that the blind man shows – an openness that is itself healing.
The Pharisees ask the blind man: "What did he do to you?" "How did he open your eyes?"
And that is a question for each of us. What has Jesus done to us? How did he open our eyes?
For me, I’d have to say that before things became clearer, they got muddier. And I'm aware of this element in the story of the blind man. To help him see, Jesus first puts mud on his eyes -- not something clear. This is part of what Jesus is about -- muddying things. The gospel is an upside down message -- the blind see, the last are first, the master is a servant. God is definitely muddying the waters, in Jesus. Confusion follows Jesus wherever he goes, as do hope and joy. Sometimes in order to really see, we have to lose our sightlines, our bearings. It's a whole new orientation to life -- to see as God sees. To see with the eyes of the heart. And it’s too much for some people. They would prefer to stay blind, like the Pharisees, secure in their own judgments and their world of easy cause and effects. They would prefer to believe that people suffer because of their own sinfulness. There are some folks, for example who believe that the homeless, the battered women, or the children with AIDS are responsible for their own conditions. So they seek to slash funding for shelters and programs that will help people get up and get back on their feet. And they continue to support tax cuts for the rich. As the saying goes: “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
But for those of us who are willing to learn the lessons of humility and compassion -- what a sight for sore eyes – this vista of God’s kingdom that opens before us when we gain our true sight. We see a vision of a world where there is grace and mercy, and where God has a special place in God’s heart for the low and cast down.
The man born blind is just one story. Each of us has a story to tell. What has Jesus done for you? How did he open your eyes?
+++
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