Just Not Feeling It...but Doing it Anyway

I sit here at my computer thinking about Advent, the season of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love, when we remember to welcome Jesus the Messiah into our world and our lives again. Only I'm not feeling as hopeful, peaceful, joyful, and full of love as I would like to be experiencing. I'm having some trouble treating others like I should be...as if they were Jesus Christ himself. I keep bumping into my own selfish feelings and desires when I try to help others.

I get my feelings hurt by what people say and do just like anyone else. I'm not immune to anger at the actions and words of others anymore than you are. However, given my role as your pastor, I have to carefully think about my reactions to others, my words to them, my actions toward them, and ask myself that not so easy question: "Am I being Christ to them? Am I treating them as if they were Christ?" Sometimes the answer is a refreshing, "Yes!", and sometimes I have to admit to myself that it is a disappointing, "No!"

There is another dimension to the answer though and that is: does the other person perceive my words and deeds as helpful to them? Sometimes the answer is "Yes" and sometimes it is "No." But when the answer is "No" does that mean that I have failed that person, or not done the Christ-like thing? I have a feeling that doing the Christ-like thing isn't always taken as being kind and helpful to others. Sometimes doing the right thing for someone else is very difficult for me to do and difficult for them to receive.

I believe that it was very difficult for Jesus to always do the Christ-like thing in his ministry to others. I think of his interactions with the Pharisees and religious lawyers and the Sanhedrin and priests and I know he must have felt great frustration at their inability to comprehend the truth about their lives and the scripture. They were so immersed in their own history, society, and reasoning that they couldn't see the truth Jesus was giving to them, or they refused to take the truth to heart even when they could see it. Even his closest friends misunderstood him and his mission. But he kept himself focused on the goal of bringing God's Love to all in order to create God's community on earth.


So despite the fact that I don't always feel hope, peace, love and joy during Advent I have decided that I am going to follow Christ's lead and keep myself focused on communicating God's Love to everyone by trying to create God's Community of Hope-Peace-Love-and-Joy on earth right here in Seattle. I may be an imperfect servant, but I am a servant who is determined to succeed with God's help. I pray that you are, too.

Hope for the Hopeless! World AIDS Day 2010

Today's Scripture: John chapter 11

This is the first week in Advent, a season prior to Christmas that we set aside to focus on the coming of God into the world: God in Christ, God with us. Advent is a season of hope, a time when we focus on God giving hope to the hopeless. I had not previously seen the Advent qualities of John chapter 11 prior to my decision to move this passage from All Saints Day to the first Sunday in Advent when we also focus in our church on World AIDS Day in worship.

Normally in a passage like this I’d take you through it verse by verse to help you understand the social context, the history, the geography, the theology, and come up with a spiritual teaching that will help you to understand the scripture and how to apply it to your life. But this is a very long chapter and we don’t have that kind of time today.

Suffice it to say that Lazarus, whom some believe was the “beloved disciple” that John and others refer to in the gospels has fallen ill. We know that this family was very special to Jesus, who spent much time with them when he was in the area of Jerusalem. This is a very non-traditional family: an unmarried male and two unmarried sisters. However, these three persons were part of Jesus’ chosen family.

So, when Lazarus falls ill, the sisters, who will be left destitute when he dies, for they could not own property and would not have any income, call for Jesus to come immediately. They send for Jesus, their only hope. Without Jesus’ help and without Lazarus they are hopeless.

Probably by the time word gets to Jesus Lazarus has already died. Jesus stays where he is a couple of more days before departing. Why? Perhaps because he knows what he is going to do and he also knows the tradition that says that the spirit stays hovering over the body for three days. When he arrives it has been four days. The spirit of Lazarus has gone. The body is rotting. It is absolutely too late for a miraculous resurrection to happen. Lazarus is beyond hope. The sisters are indeed hopeless. However, just like when he healed the blind man, Jesus says that this situation will result in God being given glory. Indeed, when we are hopeless, when we have exhausted all other possibilities, there is only One to whom we can turn, only One who can restore our hope and help us to live with joy again.

We are too often like the sisters. We ask God to be present with us but we can’t understand why God doesn’t show up exactly at the moment we want, doing exactly what we want. When we are in trouble or turmoil, or illness or disaster hit us we want God and we want God right now doing exactly what we have already decided that God should do to solve our problems for us. When God doesn’t answer our prayer exactly that way, solving our problem immediately, we question whether God loves us at all, maybe even whether there is a God.

I’m often asked, “What did I do that God hates me so much that God would let this happen to me?” I understand the question and the very human feelings behind it, but I also understand that God is present even if we don’t think God is there. God is always present with us working with us even when we can’t see the what God is doing in us and for us.

This week we will turn our attention toward World AIDS Day on Tuesday. People with HIV and AIDS are often left depressed and defeated when they are given the diagnosis. They feel their lives are over. They might as well already be dead. It is very much like the sisters feel when Jesus arrives four days too late to do anything for Lazarus. Why try now? Surely the body stinks from rot. What could you do now?

The tragedy of our modern lives is that most of the rest of us act the same way toward those diagnosed with this virus, thinking that HIV is a death sentence. We avoid and exclude those with HIV and AIDS. They have become the modern day Lepers who aren’t welcomed in society. There have even been attempts in our own nation to legally isolate and exclude anyone with such a diagnosis. It is only this year that men and women from other nations who have been diagnosed with AIDS are now allowed to visit our country. Probably the most terrible tragedy is that many in our society blame the victims for having the disease, or see it as punishment from God for a variety of ridiculous reasons I shall not even credit with mentioning them.

This week we set aside Tuesday as World AIDS day in an attempt to educate our city, our state, our nation, the world in what HIV and AIDS really are, and how we can reduce the infection rate, treat those with the virus and help those who are dying from AIDS. Many groups in our own city provide care and support to persons with HIV and AIDS. Several of you are volunteers in those programs. Thank you. You are bringing hope to the hopeless.

Very often in life we reject the very idea of God working a miracle in our lives. We are hopeless and we even explain to ourselves and to others exactly why a miracle is impossible in our lives. We even, almost, begin to feel sorry for God in the situation. Like the sisters said to Jesus we say to God, “It’s too late, God. Don’t do anything now, God, the stink will be unbearable.” And we tell God that there isn’t anything that God can do about it now.

Aren’t we so kind to God. “Hey, God, we’re not going to get our hopes up and be disappointed when you don’t work it all out for us, God. After all, it’s just too late for even You to change things. So just leave us alone in our stinking situation. We forgive you God for not being able to help us.”

But God won’t leave us alone. In fact, God never leaves us alone. God is always present with us. We may not think or believe that God is there in the most difficult moments of our lives, but God is right there with us, giving us reassurance if we will accept it, giving us the strength that we need, encouraging us to have faith and hold on.

Jesus stood at the entrance to Lazarus’ grave after they removed the rock from the entrance and he called out: “Lazarus come out!” That’s what God is doing for us in the most horrible moments of our lives. God is saying to us, “Come out! Come out into the light of my love. Come out into the power of my creativity. Come out of your misery? Come out and live again.”

I had a conversation with a friend who has HIV. He was depressed and defeated. He had lived for several years with the diagnosis and was taking his medications with good results. But he had decided that he was condemned to death by the disease and wouldn’t be able to have a complete and happy life. I said to him: “You know what your problem is? You are going to live and you don’t know what to do about that fact.” I’m glad to report to you that this same friend did come out of his depression and has been the one to give me great help over the years by encouraging me come out of my own self-imposed grave and live again.

We get these ideas in our heads about what life is going to be like for the good or the bad and it is very hard to give up those ideas when we are faced with the realities of life when things are very different from what we imagined.

It’s as if we have to die to the old life we were living and be resurrected to a new life where there are new possibilities and new opportunities that we hadn’t even imagined or ever dreamed we would need. I know, I’ve been through several of those moments in my own life including facing traumatic disease, the death of a child, the end of a marriage, and more. But in the depth of my depression in each of those situations there was someone that God sent into my life to tell me, “Ray, come out of your tomb. Come out and live again.”

Where are you today? Are you lingering in the tomb with the stink and the rot of your life? Or are you willing to come out into the light and live the resurrected life that God has waiting for you? Are you willing to let God give you new life for the old life that needs to die? Do you need to let go of the old and embrace the new that God wants to give you?

Only you can answer that question. Nobody can go into the grave you have created and bring you out. You have to come out yourself. No matter how difficult it was, when Jesus called him, Lazarus had to get up from his grave and come out into the light. So do you. So do I.

It is important to note that the community, the family and friends of Lazarus had to do their own part of help him live life again to the fullest. They had to unbind him, to take the grave wrappings off of him so he could live again without any limitations. He couldn’t unwrap himself. He had to have help to fully return to life. Lazarus needed a little help from his friends.

Friends are critically important to us. Friends bring us the real presence of God. Friends lend us the help we need to begin again, they fill us with hope and expectation that life will get better and we will be able to do what we want, what we need to do, what we hope to become. I cannot tell you how very important my friends have been to me in life, especially my Christian friends who have held the Christ-light for me so I can see my way out of the darkness of my depression.

I had not been out of my marriage for very long when I lost an adult daughter in a car accident. I went back to our former hometown for her funeral. Having just come out to my family and friends I felt alienated standing alone in that reception line at the funeral home on one side of her casket while my ex-wife and children stood together on the other side.

My daughter was dead. However, my family and so-called friends treated me like I was the one who had died. I looked up from that reception line and saw the faces of two friends from MCC Knoxville who had traveled over two hours by car to do nothing but give me a hug and a kiss and tell me that my church family loved me and wanted me to know that they were praying for me and loving me from afar. I cannot express to you the importance of their presence in my life at that moment. They were helping me to remove the grave cloths from my life.

We need to be the ones who are helping others unwrap the bindings that keep them from experiencing the abundant life that God wants to give to each one of us. We have to help others overcome the difficulties they are facing by being present with them when we can, by encouraging them however we can, by letting them know that we are loving and caring for them in whatever way is appropriate. Yes, I believe you can experience a relationship with God all by yourself. But I doubt you can ever experience a relationship with God fully the way God intended for us to experience it apart from the company of other Christians. Jesus didn’t try to go it alone. The first thing Jesus did when he began his ministry was to find others to share the work with him. We were created to be in community with each other.

I’m glad you are here this morning to worship God and to be in community with us. This is a very important part of my week and I hope it is a very important part of your week whenever you can be here. But you and I must extend our need for community with other Christians by finding ways to be with others during the week. Sundays aren’t enough. It will take more than Sunday for us to truly experience the strength and power of Christian community.

Let me leave you with an observation this morning: If you want to experience the resurrected life God wants to give to each one of us, you must realize one important thing: There has to first be a death. Death comes before resurrection. There can be no resurrection without a death. Death isn’t something we like to think about whether it is the death of a loved one, or the death of a life situation. We don’t like change, even when we expect things to be better. No matter how good change is, we miss what we had because that was what we were used to experiencing. However, change is inevitable. How will we deal with change when it comes, as it always does, to our lives, to our church?

Mostly we like to hang on to what we had. We like living in the grave clothes and bindings of our old life. We even enjoy the stink after awhile. We learn how to ignore the rot. But unless we have the courage and hope to begin again, to change, to start to experience the new resurrected life that God wants to give to us, we will never give up the old grave clothes, nor will we let others begin to unwrap us and help us experience the abundant life that Jesus promised to those who would willingly follow him.

Christ came to give hope to the hopeless. You and I can begin again. We can live the resurrected life no matter how dreadful our lives have previously become. All we have to do is come out of our tombs and begin to unwind the bindings from each other that prevent us from experiencing the joy-filled life of God’s new community. We can begin living heaven on earth. Sometimes it’s just a matter of attitude.

There is told the story of a woman who is allowed to visit heaven and hell on the same day. When she arrives in hell she sees a room full of starving people. Though there is plenty of fabulous food piled high on tables all around they are starving because they have had enormous wooden spoons strapped to their arms so that they can’t pick up any food and feed themselves. They are weeping and cursing their condition and each other.

Later she is let into heaven. The scene is incredibly similar. Large tables of scrumptious food piled high on the tables. Long spoons strapped to everyone’s arms preventing them from feeding themselves. But here there was much happiness and conversation going on and everyone was well fed and healthy. What was the difference? In heaven everyone was feeding each other. And that made all the difference.

Where do you choose to live today? In the tomb with the stink and the rot of death? Or are you willing to come out and let others unbind you and help you begin to live the resurrected, abundant life that Christ promises to all of us?

Come out of your grave. Come out of your troubled situation. Come out and live the abundant life. Let your Christian family help you unwrap and unbind those things that keep you from living the abundant, joyful life God wants to give you.

Will you help us all create the new community of God, a renewed and joy-filled Metropolitan Community Church Seattle, by bringing about a little bit of heaven on earth? Will you be a part of bringing hope to the hopeless?

Becoming a Caring and Generous Community Acts 2:42-47

Acts 2:42-47
They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers. Everyone around was in awe—all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.

Mark 12: 42-44 An Example of Generosity: Making Love Real
After this, Jesus sat down near the temple offering box and watched as people made their financial contributions. Many rich people clearly put in large sums of money. One poor elderly woman came up and put in a couple of small coins, less than a dollar in total. Jesus called his disciples over and pointed this out to them, saying: “The fact of the matter is that this woman was the most generous giver of them all. The rest of them just gave a percentage of their surplus, money that they will never miss. She, on the other hand, despite never having enough to make ends meet, has given all that she had.”

 
We don’t like reading this Acts 2 passage because we don’t like the idea of being a part of a community of believers where others would believe we should sell our homes, our cars, our furniture, and other possessions and bring the money and give it to the church to distribute to those who have need. Hey, we, cry out, if I do that then I’ll be the one in need and you’ll have to start providing for me cause I won’t have a home, a car, furniture, or clothing any longer.

Having come through the Cold War between Communism and Democracy we also don’t like the fact that living out the vision within Acts 2 appears to most of us to be some kind of communism, where you don’t get to own your own stuff any longer. We, in America, are especially proud of our possessions, especially our homes and our cars, and from what I can see from my sales position at JC Penney, we certainly want to wear the best clothing we can afford.

There is no doubt about the fact that the Acts 2 passage is an idealized telling of what happened after Pentecost when the Spirit of God came upon that brand new community of believers in the resurrected Jesus Christ and they practically turned Jerusalem upside down with their eagerness to tell others about the profound spiritual experience they had had. The record indicates that there were some amazing changes in those persons and that they did in fact impact the city of Jerusalem in miraculous and awesome ways.

Relax, I’m not going to ask you to sell your home, or to even move into a smaller place or apartment, unless that is what you personally need to do to assure yourself that you can make it financially on your income. We know for a fact from other New Testament passages that the apostles and others continued to own their own homes and continued to own their own personal possessions. What is assumed, then, from these scripture passages is that the infant church members gave property and items that they had in surplus, sold them and gave the money to the church to be distributed among those who had specific needs, especially to those who were living on the edge of life: the widows, the orphans, the homeless, the blind, the ill, those with defects caused by birth or injury. Just like Jesus the infant church seems to have had a miraculous ability to continue the same ministry of Jesus Christ by taking care of others, whoever they were, whatever their need.

There is no doubt that the miraculous kind of community that takes shape following Pentecost when 3,000 persons become believers in the Risen Christ on one day is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit. It is God who calls persons into a saving relationship with God through the work of the Spirit in their lives and it is God who then creates a miraculous, awe-inspiring kind of community described like that described in Acts 2 and later in chapter 4.

The very idea of such a community tends to both attract us and repel us. We want the positive benefits for ourselves and others that belonging to such a community could mean for us, but we find it extremely difficult to accept the level of commitment it would demand of us if we truly became a part of such a community. Some have come to the conclusion that creating such a community in 21st Century America is impossible and have given up on the hope of ever achieving a congregational life where persons are truly cared for by each other. Why? Because we believe we have as much, if not more, to lose than gain by becoming this kind of community.

As we move through the rest of the book of Acts and into the Letters from Paul and others in the New Testament we realize that this idealized community of Acts Chapter 2 did not continue to exist as fully as described In chapter 2 and 4, but the unique spiritual and caring factors of this community did reappear as characteristics of the new communities of believers that were formed as the story of Jesus was carried to new cities and villages throughout the ancient world. Eventually the Good News went to Europe and then down through the ages until we arrive today at this church in this city where you are gathered together celebrating God in Christ and trying to become to each other as much of that ideal as we can achieve.

We do not always live up to that ideal as individual Christians, nor as the body of Christ the church. We often fall short of achieving the same kind of celebration of praise, the same kind of caring concern toward each other, the same kind of actions in worship, prayer, and deed that result in miracles happening among us.

Congregational Discussion:
• Why is that do you think?
• How could we overcome such difficulties?
• What is it exactly that we want to become as a community of believers? What would your ideal church look like, or act like?
• What would happen if we did achieve that kind of community? What affect could we have on our city and region?
• What could we do in 2010 and beyond that would help us make the same kind of awe inspiring effect upon Seattle that the church in Acts 2 had upon Jerusalem?

Remember that church began with 120 persons gathered together in an upper room in Jerusalem on Pentecost Day and soon grew into thousands of people in community with each other. In fact the Christian church began with one man who gathered a small group of disciples, women, friends, and family around himself.

Big things often start small. We may be a very small church but with God’s spirit within us helping us, encouraging us, we too can become a proud, worshipping, caring, generous community where your needs and mine are met and where we joyously reach out to others in the name of God in Christ Jesus.

The fact of the matter is that it is up to you. What will you do in terms of committing your time, your talents, and your treasure in the year to come?

But, you say, I don’t have much, pastor. Neither did the widow that Jesus saw who gave all that she had to God while she was worshipping in the Temple. She made a sacrificial gift that demonstrated how much she loved God. I don’t care if you can’t give hundreds or thousands, you can give out of what God has blessed you with. You can give sacrificially, giving up something to give back to God out of your love for God. And you still have your time and your talents to consider giving to God.

Some of you may not be able to give financially very much, but you may have an abundance of time and talent to offer to the church in amazing ways that will result in miracles of growth for this congregation and miracles of ministry as we care for those living on the edges in our city and region. You can make a difference.

Some of you have already made commitments, but as I reflected on my own commitment to MCC Seattle this coming year, I made a realization that what I was giving wasn’t what I would call sacrificial. I had decided to keep my commitment level at the same place as I have been attempting to give this past year. That first commitment didn’t make me readjust my priorities in life nor did it keep me from doing what I wanted to do for myself. So I went back and I prayerfully reconsidered my commitment and I increased it to the point where I have to think carefully every week, every month how I will spend my money in order to keep my commitment to God.

I am praying that several of you will do the same thing? I am encouraging you to give sacrificially and in such a way that you will think about it every day, every week, every month, all year long. Our commitments to God whether of time, talent, or money should not be things we make lightly or without thought, they should be commitments that literally change the way we think and live and worship.

You each have a commitment form. Some of you have already turned in your forms. Some of you have only turned in the financial portion of your pledge. All of us need to complete both portions of the pledge and turn it both parts so we, your pastors and leaders, can reflect on them and come up with a budget and a plan of action to make sure that we move ourselves toward the ideal community of Christ that we would like to become in the new year that will soon be upon us. Believe it or not, as we sang earlier in the service this too is part of your worship of God: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.

Do you love God? What will you commit today to God’s church in terms of your time, talent, and treasure that says that you do in fact love God with all that your are, and all that you have?

Generosity: Making Love Real Ruth 3 and 4

Ruth chapters 3 and 4

We were introduced to Ruth and Naomi last week. This is a very strange book that falls between the time of the Judges and the time of the Kings. As we pointed out last week it is a story that begins with a famine of food and spirit and ends with an abundance of both.

It isn’t a story about a man, though Boaz, who would have been the main character in most Biblical stories does play a very important role, but a story about two poor, desperate widows, who leave the land they have been living in and journey back to Naomi’s home in Bethlehem of Judah. Since this is a story about famine and feast, it is significant to note that the name Bethlehem literally means “the House of Bread” implying a place of hope and abundance. For Naomi and Ruth that is exactly what Bethlehem becomes: a place of hope and abundance.

It is my hope that MCC Seattle will become a modern Bethlehem, a true place offering hope and abundance to all who come here seeking help in their lives. I want us to be known as a generous congregation that shares abundantly from our own time, talents, and treasure with those around us through the ministries that we can offer to our community, through the lives that we can touch by demonstrating to others that God truly does love them, care for them, and accepts them exactly as God has created them. You and I have to begin to transform the world around us into becoming a real expression of what some have called “Heaven on Earth.”

Imagine with me a ministry to the homeless LGBT community where people can find a warm place to stay, with food and clothing, with job counseling and job training, skilled counselors offering psychological healing and recovery. What about a home for gay and lesbian and transgender youth who have become homeless when their parents kick them out of their homes because they have just come out as gay? Did you know that our gay youth are more apt to commit or attempt suicide than straight youth, and that they are more apt to become homeless because of their sexuality, ending up on the streets where they become prey for those who would exploit and abuse them? Why can’t we be a part of the solution to that problem? MCC in New York City offers such a shelter of help and hope to homeless teens and young adults. Why can’t we?

Ruth and Naomi had nowhere to go, no one to help them. Naomi tried to send Ruth back to her own family, but being the widow of a foreigner and childless, she was not what that society would see as an attractive prospect for marriage. Widows could own no property, and as we shall see in today’s story, were still considered the property of their deceased husbands, who could be given away to the next male relative that would claim them. Ruth and Naomi represent to us the homeless and the rejected that fill our homeless shelters in Seattle to overflowing every night with thousands left out on the streets even in the coldest weather. We should be doing something about that. We should become the Bethlehem, the house of bread and hope, for as many of those persons as possible.

Ruth makes her famous commitment to Naomi and they leave for Judah, for Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem. She and her husband had left Bethlehem and gone to Moab because of a famine of grain. Now, Naomi, having buried her husband and her two sons, in a foreign land where she comes to live a famine of spirit, she returns to the only place that might offer her hope.

Did you know that every week people walk through the doors of our church coming with hope in their hearts that we just might be the community that can offer them relationship and care that they aren’t getting from anyone else? Most people come to church because they are seeking community and an escape from loneliness. Are we the kind of community where they can find the relationships they need, where they can experience real community with us and with God?

Naomi and Ruth make a journey toward hope. Naomi has changed her name to Mara which means bitterness. She is sad and depressed and grieving, but Naomi still shows us that she has hope by going back to the one place where she has experienced true acceptance and real community and she has great expectations that these people, these friends and relatives, will offer to her and to Ruth, the chance to start their lives over again.

As your pastor I am privy to the true story of many of your lives. I know for a fact that some of you came to this family, to this community that we call MCC Seattle, because you wanted to find a place of hope and acceptance, a place where you could build real community, find true and honest friends, and start your lives over again. Some of you have found us to be that kind of family of choice for you. I hope many more will experience the same kind of abundance as they begin their lives over again with God and with God’s people.

You cannot take the social situation of the Old Testament and translate the story over literally into the 21st century. We don’t understand the social and tribal history or taboos that Ruth and Naomi lived under. And we certainly can’t apply the social rules and expectations that society had for women or men to ourselves today. Listen, nobody really takes the Bible literally. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, for everyone interprets the Bible in their own special way based upon their own history and social setting. You and I are no different. We do not apply the Biblical rules for the marriage of widows today and force them to marry their brother in laws or another close kin.

A widow had no standing in Naomi and Ruth’s day. They were the poorest of the poor. They were the rejected ones lying on the doorsteps and huddling in a doorway to stay out of the cold wind. They were the homeless and the hungry of their day. A woman like Ruth, a widow and a foreign widow at that, would have been subject to harassment, sexual embarrassment, and even rape. It was expected in that society that such a woman would make her living as a prostitute. Not a wonderful way to begin your introduction to a new community where you hoped to build a live full of hope and abundance. Ruth began her new life about as low down the ladder as anyone could ever be.

Biblical Law said that you shouldn’t take all of the grain out of your fields, but that you should leave the grain that falls to the ground and that might be left on un-harvested stalks for the widows and orphans who could come after the harvesters and scrape together whatever they could for their own livelihood. That is what Ruth is doing in order to support herself and Naomi. She is doing whatever it takes to make sure that they survive.

As luck, or God would have it, Ruth goes to glean in the fields of Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s husband. We don’t know much about Boaz, other than the fact that he is rich and that his name literally means Strength or Strong. Most people assume that he is older, perhaps a widower, but his marriage state isn’t that important, because at this time, a man could have more than one wife at a time, and might have due to a law called the Levirate Law, which we’ll explain in a moment. And so, when Boaz comes to see how the work is progressing in his fields he sees Ruth gleaning. She would have been noticed. She was an exotic beauty, someone not from their community, perhaps dressed in fabrics made by herself with different colors than the local women used, or with a slightly different cut of her dress or the style of her hair. In any event, she caught the eye of Boaz.

He asks about her. Perhaps one could say, it was love at first sight. The story of Naomi’s situation has made the rounds in the community. Gossip always gets around. He is told about how Ruth has committed herself to Naomi and made the journey back to Bethlehem with her. It is an impressive story and one that wasn’t that common. In fact it was an extraordinary story about an extraordinary young lady. Family was important. Boaz had a commitment to extend his care to Naomi and therefore to Ruth out of his abundance. It’s just the way things were done.

So he goes to Ruth and he tells her to stay in his fields when she is gleaning and to stay with his own young women when she is working and to stay away from the young men. Boaz understands his society. He knows that a young foreign widow will be abused and he does what he can to protect her out of respect for her relationship with Naomi, and out of respect for his own relationship with Naomi and for her deceased husband, his own kinsman. Obviously, Boaz, is a man who has great moral strength. Strength, as his name implies, can mean strength in many aspects of his life, but obviously strength in character and concern for others.

He forbids the men to bother her or touch her. He tells her to make herself at home when she is working in his fields: To drink from the water jugs the men have filled; to take her rest in the house with the young women. He provides for Ruth.

Ruth asks why she has found favor in his eyes, and he tells her: "I've been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."

Ruth thanks Boaz with graciousness. Boaz calls her over and gives her bread and lets her dip the bread in his drink. He gives her some of the roasted grain that has been prepared for the men to eat. This is very significant event in that society. Boaz has a family meal with Ruth. Boaz is including her in his family.

Boaz extends his care for Naomi and Ruth beyond what was considered to be normal. Boaz gives to Ruth and Naomi out of his abundance, out of the blessings that God has poured out upon him by giving them extra grain. He even tells the men to allow Ruth to glean not just from the fields they have emptied, but from the stalks that they have already gathered for the harvest. He wants to be sure that she and Naomi have enough to live on. This is incredible. This is amazing. This is not what was expected of Boaz. It goes far beyond what one could have hoped for.

Naomi celebrates this happy circumstance with Ruth. And she tells Ruth to avoid the young men and stay with the young women. The only hope for survival Ruth has is to not become what everyone expects her to become, what society would have forced her to become: a prostitute.

Boaz has provided them a gift that goes far beyond mere food, but goes toward creating a life that offers hope and opportunity for the future. When we help others in God’s name we offer them hope and opportunity with a future! It doesn’t matter who they are, where they have come from, or even how horrible their own life story up to now, we can offer through our abundant giving of our time, talents, and treasure, hope and opportunity for everyone in our community.

Naomi begins to plan. She is a very smart woman. She has learned all she can about Boaz from her relatives and believe me, people loved to gossip then just as now and she probably knew everything about the man the very next day. She was quite resourceful. The grain harvest is coming to an end. The question of food will again become paramount when that which Ruth has gathered for them becomes exhausted. What will they do then? Naomi begins to lay the groundwork for a future for both of them.

The men will be trashing the grain, separating the grain from the heads, and this is a big event with lots of food and drink at night. The men sleep in the trashing house out in the fields. Drunkenness abounds and a lady slipping into the situation under darkness of night would not be uncommon or unexpected…if you understand my meaning. Naomi tells Ruth to dress up to the nines and to go to the trashing house and wait, but not to be seen by Boaz until he has eaten his fill of harvest foods, and drank enough wine to become sleepy.

She is then to go to Boaz where he lies and to uncover his feet and lie with him.

The Bible uses a lot of euphemisms about sex and uncovering the feet means to uncover the genitals of another person. This is quite a forward kind of act for anyone, in any culture, but this is part of the expectations of the Levirate Law which provides that when a man has died that his brother or other next of kin goes to the widow and takes her as his wife and if she has a child the first born male child is to be known as the child of the deceased man and to receive that man’s inheritance and property. The man is then known as the kinsman-redeemer: The one who redeems them from their situation. It’s so absolutely different from our way of thinking as to be totally foreign and outlandish, but that’s the society that Ruth and Naomi and Boaz lived in and they are acting in accordance with that society’s laws and expectations. Shocked though we might be, it was how things were back then.
Boaz awakes and asks who it is that has come to him in the dark. Ruth identifies herself: "I am your servant Ruth," she said. "Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer."

Interestingly enough, she uses the exact same word which is interpreted here as garment and which Boaz used earlier when he talked about her being under the wings of God’s protection. She is asking Boaz to put her under the wings of his protection when he places his garment over her. Boaz replies:

"God bless you, my daughter," he replied. "This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. 11 And now, my daughter, don't be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character.

But there is a problem. Boaz continues: “Although it is true that I am near of kin, there is a kinsman-redeemer nearer than I. Stay here for the night, and in the morning if he wants to redeem, good; let him redeem. But if he is not willing, as surely as the LORD lives I will do it. Lie here until morning."

He sends Ruth back to Naomi with a great deal of grain, what some have seen as a wedding gift, a betrothal gift to Naomi for Ruth’s hand in marriage. However, Naomi, too is aware of the complication of another closer kinsman-redeemer and she knows full well that Boaz will take care of the problem quickly.

The story continues with Boaz going to a man who in the Hebrew is identified only as “so and so” or “What’s his name” and he tells the man about Naomi and how her deceased husband Elimelech has some property that the man could redeem by claiming himself to be Naomi’s kinsman-redeemer. The man declares that he will do so, and the property, the land, will become his own, and he will give Naomi a home. Naomi is old and the man doesn’t have to worry about what his wife and children might say. She will have no children. All of the property he gets from Elimelech will go to his own children.

Then Boaz declares that Naomi also has a widowed daughter-in-law and that the man would become the kinsman-redeemer of a young woman to whom he would also be wed and to whom a child might be born who would inherit the land of his grandfather. Now this changes the situation.

I would like to think that this man has a wife who wouldn’t be too welcoming to Ruth and might make the man’s life a living hell if he took upon himself this responsibility. Perhaps Boaz knew this already. In any event, the man says, no way can I do that.

Boaz is then left with the opportunity to become the kinsman-redeemer of Ruth and Naomi. Later when their first child is born, there is great celebration. It is interesting to note that what the women say: “Praise be to God, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! 15 He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth."
Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, "Naomi has a son."

The child, Obed, was the grandfather of King David, the greatest king of Judah, who brought a time of success and honor upon the nation. Thus our story goes from one of famine to abundance because of the generosity of Ruth to Naomi, and of Boaz to both women.

We’ve been through much as a church. We’ve been through several years that many might term as famine, when all a small group of people could hope for was just to hold on, just to be here again another Sunday. That was important for you to do. You have been those who trusted in God and kept on keeping on even when others told you that you should just give up. But you persevered! You trusted God and your trust and your patience, and your persistence, and your commitment have paid off. We are on a new journey together toward an abundant future full of hope and grace not just for ourselves but anyone and everyone that comes to be a part of this new community of God.

It won’t happen without you. It won’t happen without your commitment of your time, talents, and, yes, your treasure, your financial resources. Will you take the journey with us toward the future that God has waiting for you and for me and for MCC Seattle. Will you make the commitments that are necessary to help us become that new community of hope that I believe, and I hope you believe, we can become together. Will you offer your own generosity to God, to our church, to our community, by making your love real?

Stepping Out in Faith: On Being A Good Steward Ruth 1:1-18

You may think that kicking off a stewardship campaign with two sermons based on the story of Ruth from the Old Testament is a strange way to begin a discussion about what a good steward is in the Biblical sense. But hopefully after today and next week’s sermon you will have a better understanding of just what God requires of us in terms of our faithful stewardship of our time, talent and treasure.

I do wonder how many of us believe that being a good steward has only to do with what we do for others and nothing to do with how being a good steward affects our own sense of ourselves and, therefore, how we view our own lives? That’s what we’re really going to talk about today: How being a good steward affects all of your life, and not just your decision about giving to the church or charity. Have you ever considered the idea that being a good steward means living the abundant and joy filled life that Jesus promised us we would experience if we would follow him in the way? How many of you feel you are living that abundant, joy filled life right now? How many hope to find that life in your future?

The verb “to steward” means to guide or to direct. How are you directing your life? Each of us is called to establish a pattern in our lives which enables us to direct our living into the fruitful and joyful ways that God wants for us to live. This calling is not a call to a life of drudgery and sacrifice, but rather it is a call to live a life that frees us to enjoy to the fullest extent the abundance of God's good gifts to us. Such a life is not only inclined toward meeting the needs of others but rewards us lavishly as well. Our driving question in today is: What does good stewardship look like in the life of an individual? The story of Ruth will aid us in this quest.

The three women in today’s scripture passage were widows. We know that widows in that society could not own property and did not have jobs that could support them financially. Such women, within a male-dominated society, were destitute once their husbands died unless family or others had mercy on them. And because they were widowed, because Naomi was older, and because Orpah and Ruth had no children, they were not likely to find themselves with any prospective husbands knocking at their doors. After the death of their husbands these women essentially had nothing but the clothing on their backs. Not the usual characters we think of when we try to come up with examples of good stewardship.

The book of Ruth begins with a time of famine, not only of grain but also of spirit. But the book ends with an abundance of both grain and spirit. As we look at our own individual situations and at our church’s situation, we may want to take this into consideration. Are you living in a famine of resources as well as spirit in your own life? Are you facing what seem to be insurmountable circumstances? Have you turned your situation over to God and faithfully began to steward your life and seek God’s will and way like Ruth did? You might find abundance along the way that you could not have expected or anticipated.

So, too should we be looking at our situation as a church! Perhaps we should give up the, “Oh, woe, are we,” responses we are prone to utter when we look at the financial challenges before us and put our time and effort into being and doing what God has called us as a church to be and do. Let’s face it, being a church isn’t only about income and expenses anymore than your own life is only about income and expenses. It’s time that you and I began to move beyond the negatives and toward more positive attitudes for ourselves and our church.

Significantly, Ruth is a transitional book between the time of the Judges and the Kings. The book of Ruth ends with these words, “They named the child she bore Obed; he was the father of Jesse who became the father of David.” Lest you don’t remember, that means Obed was King David’s grandfather. And it was with King David that Israel began one of its most prosperous times of existence.

However, the time of the Judges was not a good time for Israel. In the book of Judges this refrain keeps repeating: There was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”

Having no king, meant there was no order, no good law to remind them of their responsibilities outside of their own selfish desires. The book of Ruth shows us what happens when people act in a different way by stewarding their lives not according to the desires of their hearts, but in response to God’s graciousness toward them.

Ruth is our example of a good steward today. What do we know about Ruth? What would her life have been like?

We know she was from the land of Moab. Throughout the Bible, when she is referenced she is most often called “Ruth, the Moabite,” just so we won’t forget that fact. Why is that so significant?

Moab was a country just west of Judah. The Israelites marched through Moab on their way to the Promised Land even though the Moabite King refused them access, even hired others to harass and do violence against them. Thus Moabites became some of the most despised of foreign nations summarized in this way from Deut: 23:3-4, 6: “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of God…because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey out of Egypt. You shall never promote the welfare of their prosperity as long as you live.”

The Israelites were also forbidden from intermarrying with foreign peoples. The Samaritans were despised because that is how the Samaritans came about, the Israelite men intermarried with foreign wives against the commands of God in the Old Testament. So Ruth became the wife of Mahlon, the eldest of Naomi’s sons, by marrying into his foreign family which meant she would have lost social standing among her own Moabite people. She was twice excluded from proper society. There is a lesson for you and me to hear in her story. Society may exclude us for even so-called Biblical reasons, but God in God’s love and mercy always includes us, no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done.

Knowing the traditions of the time, it is possible she could have been as young as 12 or 14 when she married Mahlon. Many believe Mary the mother of Jesus was only 13 or 14 when she became pregnant with the Christ child. Apparently Ruth and Mahlon had no children, or the children, too, had died. Ruth would have been about 22 or 24 by the time of today’s story.
From Naomi’s comments we understand that the only real choice Ruth and Orpah had was to return to their own families and beg to live as servants in the home of their parents or brothers. Hoping to be remarried eventually to someone else was probably out of the question because they would have been doubly tainted as eligible brides having married foreigners, and given the fact that neither one had borne a child. Not having children would have been viewed as their just punishment for going against their Moabite God by marrying Naomi’s alien sons.

It is interesting to note that Naomi tells her daughter in laws to return to their mother’s homes. Perhaps their own fathers have died. That would mean they had even less opportunity to regain any social standing or to hope for a future marriage if they returned home. The author of the story is painting a pretty depressing picture for these women.

What can we learn from this foreign widow about stewarding our own lives? If you haven’t noticed, Ruth has no treasure to steward. So this sermon today isn’t about money, just so you understand that preaching about stewardship doesn’t necessarily only mean I going to talk about your giving your money. Stewardship is so much more than just how you use your money.

First of all I notice Ruth’s willingness, perhaps we should call it determination. She is willing and determined to leave her homeland and to follow her mother-in-law. Even after Naomi releases Ruth from all of her obligations toward the older woman, tells her to return to her own mother’s home, Ruth persists. We are told that Orpah, kissed Naomi, but that Ruth clung to Naomi.

It’s the same word used in Genesis 3 where we are told that a man leaves his mother and father and clings to his wife. Ruth is demonstrating a commitment toward Naomi that is not unlike the vows we make to our spouse when we commit ourselves to live our lives with our beloved. I am so glad that we will soon be able to celebrate all committed domestic partnerships in the state of Washington with the approval of Ref. 71, which at last count, looks like it will be a winning effort for all of us who have worked so hard to make it a reality. The Domestic Partnership Law will become the law of our state and we can enjoy the same benefits and responsibilities as do married couples, even without the name of marriage.

Ruth not only commits herself to Naomi, but Ruth makes an oath. When we make our annual pledge of support to the church we are making an oath to God and to each other, just like Ruth made. Ruth’s oath is the most famous oath in the Bible, and the longest:
“Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you. Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried. May God do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you.” Ruth 1:16-17.

And what a response God makes, completely out of expectations, for God takes and makes this foreign woman, whom other Biblical traditions say should not be tolerated or even allowed to live in the community of Israel because according to the law she was unclean, and makes her the grandmother of Kind David, the one whom God loved and blessed.

Ruth’s oath is the longest loyalty oath in the Old Testament. It is a very powerful speech all by itself even if you don’t know the full story about Ruth and Naomi. Isn’t it funny that so many use this as a marriage vow for heterosexual couples. And with a wicked gleem in his eye the pastor asks, Do you think we should we remind them that it was originally a vow made by a woman to a woman?

Think of what Ruth takes on—lodging, family, burial place and God. Her commitment to the God of Israel is a commitment to a new family and a new community much like the refugee families I worked with in the 1980’s following the end of the Vietnam War. They came to our church community and became a part of our church family, professing faith in God, being baptized, joining the church, becoming a part of the greater community of Madison, Wisconsin. They came with hope that their future would be better than it had been in the failing society of Vietnam. The risks were enormous for them. Some didn’t make it. I buried some who took the exit that suicide provided from the anxieties they felt.

From Ruth we learn today that leading a life of stewardship can mean breaking society’s norms and following God in new and unexplored paths. It can mean committing to an untraditional, non-heterosexual relationship, in this case between a mother and her daughter in law. That’s exactly what you and I will do with our commitment to each other through our faithful ministry through this church. We can break the norms of what it means to be a church and we can follow God into new and unexplored paths of being the church in our community and to each other. We need to stop looking at the churches we have come from and stop looking at the churches that society believes to be successful and ask ourselves exactly what is God calling us to become as a church, and that answer might be a whole lot different than anything we have ever imagined or experienced previously. Are you okay? Am I disturbing you a little bit? Yes? Then I’m doing my job as your pastor. Getting you to think beyond the box, beyond what you have known and experienced, and begin a new journey with God into the future.

Ruth stepped out in faith and followed Naomi and God to a new life of abundance, full of hope and expectancy. Like Abraham of old who was told to leave his homeland and go to a new promised land of plenty without any guidance on where that would take him or where he would end up. Basically God told Abraham to get up and go and that God would tell Abraham when he arrived at the place he was being sent. And without knowing much of anything, Abraham got up and left home and began a faith-filled journey with God.

That’s a lot different from what you and I want today. When God tells us to go, we stop to ask lots of questions. Is this in my best interest, God? As if God would ask us to do anything that God hasn’t considered what would be best for us. Too often we think that if it will be different or force us to change that it can’t be good for us. Change may be exactly what we need to undergo. Different ways of living and being may be exactly what we need to do in order to find the abundant and joyful life God wants to give us. Remember the old saying: Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and thinking that this time it will result in a different outcome. It’s time for our church to begin to journey with God, to begin to do things differently.

But we are human, and when God calls us to change and go, we want to know the destination before we leave home. We want the exact directions we are to follow to get there. We want to know everything we can about what might happen before we make the decision to leave where we are and go where God wants us to be. And, for sure, we don’t want any unexpected storms along the way to threaten us. That’s what makes it so difficult to follow God. Because seldom does God answer all of our questions before God tells us to get on the road and go.

Mark and I could share with you a lot about what we went through to make the decision to take the journey to come all the way across the continent to be with you here in Seattle. All we had was a vision of what God wanted us to do and what this church could eventually become. We put everything we had on the line for God and for you. Extraordinarily, though I had gone to new churches previously, Mark, my beloved partner, gave up all he had in terms of family, friends, and jobs, to make this journey with me. And there was an unexpected storm along the way in which I could have lost my beloved in an accident in the middle of a storm. But God worked a miracle and Mark was protected. I like to think of Mark as my Ruth in that he made an amazing commitment to come with me. I just hope he doesn’t meet a good looking local Boaz now that we are here.

Ruth, like the poor widow at the temple that Jesus saw giving her last two cents to God, “has put in all she had to live on.” Ruth gave all of herself to Naomi. Ruth held back nothing. Looked at from this perspective, Ruth’s stewardship of giving was enormous. She gave her life and her future to Naomi and to God.

What will you give to God? Will you give God all that you have, all that you are and let God bless you with an abundant and joyful life? What kind of steward will you be? What kind of stewardship commitment will you make to God through Metropolitan Community Church Seattle? Whether we journey together to that Promised Land of abundance God has waiting for you and me depends upon the decisions each one of us makes. I know where I am going. I know I am going to get there. I’d like to know, by your stewardship commitment to MCC Seattle this year, that you are going to make the journey with me, and that you and I will arrive in the Promised Land that God wants to give us together. Will you make the journey with me?

Seeing Isn't Necessarily Believing Mark 10:46-52

Lectionary Reading from Mark 10:46-52

For many weeks now we have been following the journey of Jesus through Galilee toward Jerusalem as we have read the lectionary selections from the Gospel of Mark. Today’s reading from Mark 10:46-52 comes at the end of our journey when Jesus visits Jericho, the last stop on the way to Jerusalem where he will first be praised and recognized as the hoped for Messiah, then quickly rejected and killed because he doesn’t meet the expectations of the people, and because he is seen as a threat to the stability of the occupying government and more importantly undermining the authority of the local religious leaders. We will pick up the story again at Lent and follow Jesus all the way to the Cross and beyond.

This long section of Mark’s Gospel that we have read through is known as the discipleship section, for in it we are instructed by Jesus and Mark as to exactly what a disciple should be and do. Today we meet Bartimaeus, a blind man, who Mark holds up as an example of a true follower of Jesus, one who gives up all he has and begins to follow Jesus “on the way.” This simple phrase, The Way, became the name that the earliest followers of Jesus used to identify themselves before the word Christian was used.

If you study the stories about Jesus, today’s selection doesn’t really fit the pattern of a miraculous healing story. It is more like the stories of Jesus calling a new disciple. This is a story of a person who has eyes and ears opened so who Jesus is and what Jesus wants is understood and the person then follows Jesus on the way.

Our passage today begins by saying that Jesus arrived in Jericho, then it quickly begins talking about what happened when Jesus was leaving Jericho. Most Bible scholars agree that there seems to be a missing part of the story. What happened when Jesus got to Jericho? We don’t know. But true to form Jesus appears to have been teaching and healing and we expect that the news about him has spread throughout the city because a great crowd of people has surrounded him as he is leaving town for Jerusalem.

Jericho is an ancient city, according to archaeologists it is probably the oldest continually lived in human city in the world. It is also geographically the lowest city in the world sitting 750 feet below sea level. It was a town probably filled with the riff-raff of society, a town full of rebellious individuals violently opposing the occupation of their country by Rome. Given these facts and others, Jericho probably wasn’t the nicest place in the world.

Thousands of pilgrims on their way to the Temple in Jerusalem passed through the city and beggars of all types would have been a frequent sight on the streets of that city, asking those pilgrims for alms, that is for gifts of money or useful things. It is here, on the way out of town, that we find Bartimaeus sitting on his cloak which would have been spread out around him on the ground to catch the coins and other things the people would toss to him as they walked by.

Bartimaeus means the son of Timaeus, but it also literally means the son of the unclean one. Not the kind of name one would choose for oneself. Because he was blind, a condition that was very frequent at that time and caused by a very contagious condition that is still prevalent in some parts of the world, he would have been considered unclean and forbidden to go to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship. And his blind condition would have been blamed Bartimaeus, seen as punishment by God for his own sinfulness and disobedience. We still have that kind of idea lurking around our theological belief system today. You hear it when we say things like: “He must have done something really wrong for that to have happened to him,” or the opposite, “She must have done something really right to have that blessing come into her life.”

Bartimaeus, blind and begging, was living on the edge of society, rejected, overlooked, and ignored. Let me ask you a question: How do you react when you come upon someone begging on the streets? What do you think when you walk by someone wrapped up in a blanket and sleeping on a bench or even on the ground? Do you even acknowledge their presence, or do avoid looking directly at them for fear that if you did you might discover a real person who needed your help. How do you think that person lying there on the street feels about being in that situation? Is it really their own fault that they are homeless? How do you think they feel about you walking past them, ignoring them and their needs?

Thus was life for Bartimaeus…until Jesus walked by that day. The noise of the crowds alerted him to the fact that something different was going on. People were probably crying out, “Jesus of Nazareth is coming!” That wasn’t necessarily a compliment. With probable derision some would have said, “It’s just Jesus of Nazareth, that hill-billy preacher from the sticks.” Coming from Nazareth wasn’t something that one bragged about.

I grew up in Chicago in the 50’s, the child of poor white trash from the southern United States that flooded that city following World War II. We weren’t thought of very kindly by many with our different religion, different traditions, different foods, etc. In fact our catholic and orthodox neighbors called me “That Baptist Boy!” And that wasn’t meant to be a compliment. Though there were many catholic and orthodox churches all over the landscape, when we attempted to begin a new Baptist Church in a suburban community we had just moved into people actually tried to stop us. We were the hill-billies from the south, much like Jesus was the country bumpkin from Nazareth.

The title “Jesus of Nazareth” wasn’t a compliment when it was first uttered, not like we believe it to be now as another title of Jesus the Messiah when we read the scriptures. But that hick from Nazareth was causing quite a disturbance and people were clamoring to hear what he had to say, and to experience the healing that he had demonstrated he could give to those whose lives he touched. No one could ignore Jesus. Not like they could ignore Bartimaeus.

Early in our journey with Jesus, back in Chapter 8 Jesus healed another blind man. Mark makes sort of an editorial statement with that story, a story which none of the other Gospel writers include because they probably feel that it somehow doesn’t show Jesus as all-powerful as they want him to be. Why? Because, in this first healing of a blind man Jesus was unable to achieve a quick healing of the man who required a second touch in order to have his sight restored completely. Mark uses this to show that even though the disciples are told exactly what it will mean to be a disciple of Jesus, have to be retold the same thing over and over again because they continue to experience an inability to really ‘see’ and ‘hear’ what Jesus is telling them.

The disciples keep misunderstanding; keep trying to interpret what Jesus is saying based upon their own life experiences prior to meeting Jesus. Instead of taking their clues from Jesus about what his life and ministry are to mean, they take their clues from the world around them, much like you and I still do. Jesus however keeps turning their world and their understanding of the world upside down by telling them that in the new community of God they must give up claims to power and become servants to each other, and that they must go to the end of the line instead of claiming first place for themselves.
Yet, just like us, we know that they keep on failing to hear and see and they continue to argue among themselves about who will be the most important in Jesus’ kingdom when he is recognized as the new leader of their country. But instead of a political or religious kingdom, Jesus is trying to establish a new kind of spiritual community totally unlike anything they have ever known before.

The crowds follow along after Jesus, but it is Bartimaeus who has to truly identify Jesus for them: “Jesus, son of David. Have mercy on me. Heal me!”

Isn’t it strange though that on this day while walking through Jericho that when the blind Bartimaeus recognizes that this is Jesus, not Jesus the hick preacher from Nazareth, but Jesus the son of David, Jesus the Messiah, the one who will bring wholeness and healing to the world, the one who has come to restore justice and peace to the world, that the crowds tell Bartimaeus to be silent, to shut up. Just a few days later the crowds will indeed hail Jesus as the son of David as he enters Jerusalem. However their acclaim will be short lived for in less than a week they will clamor for his death on the cross.

Part of the reaction of the crowd in telling Bartimaeus to shut up was simply their failure to hear the truth about Jesus that he was yelling. But it is also that he is physically keeping them from paying attention to Jesus, the most current news sensation. Bartimaeus is taking their attention away from Jesus and making them pay attention to Bartimaeus, to a person that they would rather ignore and pretend doesn’t exist. The interesting thing about this situation is that it is Bartimaeus who is truly tuned into who Jesus is and what Jesus is saying, and the crowds who aren’t really listening, aren’t getting it. They are blind and deaf to the truth of Jesus. They can see but they can’t believe! Bartimaeus who can’t see, is the only one who believes!

You’d think that the disciples, fresh from the previous discussions with Jesus about who would be first in the new Community of God, would be running to this man to serve him and to bring him, the least of these, to Jesus. But they don’t. They don’t even try to hush the crowds who are telling Bartimaeus to shut up. They are probably enjoying the sensation Jesus is causing and they could care less about any beggar on the street, especially a beggar that is trying to steal the show away from Jesus.

However, as Mark writes the story, Bartimaeus has an important role to play in this story. He is the ancient blind soothsayer who though he can’t see physically, can spiritually see clearer than anyone else. Bartimaeus will not be shut up. Bartimaeus calls out even louder: “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Heal me.”

He calls out so loudly that Jesus stops and tells the people around him to call Bartimaeus to come to him.

I love what they say to the blind man: “Cheer up. On your feet. Jesus is calling you.” I don’t know about you but there have been times in my life when I’ve been so low, so depressed, that I didn’t even think there could be any way for me to look up, to find anything positive to hold on to, to hope for. I could have used someone telling me to “Cheer up. Get on your feet. Jesus is calling you.” Can you imagine the joy that filled Bartimaeus at this moment. Can you imagine the hope that captured him and drove him forward to meet the Savior?

Just a few days before this Jesus met a rich young man who asked him what he could do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him he must keep the commandments of God. The rich young man states that he has kept all the commandments. Mark records that Jesus had compassion for this young man, which means that he believed the young man was being truthful, and he tells him to “sell what you have and give it all to the poor. And come and follow me.” Mark tells us that the young man becomes immediately depressed and goes away in sorrow because he has great wealth. He could not follow Jesus because he was not willing to let go of what he had. How many of us are failing to follow Jesus because we cannot let go of what we have, of who we are, of what life is like for us right now. We are afraid to give ourselves to God because we aren’t sure we’ll like what God will give to us, so we hang on to what we have, what we are, and we fail to follow Jesus.

But Bartimaeus gives up everything to follow Jesus. He jumps up and leaves his cloak behind. The cloak symbolizes the very life he is currently leading for the cloak is the way he collects the alms that people throw to him. It is his means of life. But he gives it up as a sign of his faith and trust and he goes to Jesus. He knows that he won't need it again; he's confident that he won't be returning to his spot by the side of the road, begging in order to live. Resner describes this beautifully: "Faith sits, leaning forward, ready to leap at the opportunity to answer God's call whenever it might come, and it shows itself willing to shed whatever holds it back from the journey

Jesus asks Bartimaeus the exact same question he had asked John and James when they wanted to ask him a favor: “What is it that you want me to do for you?” Again, I think Mark is using the question to point out the extreme differences between the disciples James and John and the true disciple Bartimaeus.

John and James wanted to claim first place in the New Kingdom that they thought Jesus would establish when he arrived in Jerusalem. They wanted power and fame, glory and honor, prestige and wealth. But Jesus said he couldn’t give that to them. Bartimaeus answers by asking Jesus to heal him. And Jesus gives him what he asks for.

Healing in the Old and New Testaments wasn’t just about healing a person from a physical problem, but healing them emotionally and spiritually as well as economically and socially also. Look at the story of Job which was also part of today’s lectionary readings but which we don’t have time to cover. Job’s healing and restoration was complete in all the ways I’ve just listed. Biblical healing was not seen as only affecting you physically, but healing was of your whole life, everything you are and everything you would be. Healing in the scriptures is complete healing of every aspect of your life. That’s what Bartimaeus asks for and that’s what Bartimaeus was given: Total, complete healing.

What does Bartimaeus do now that he has been completely healed? Well, he doesn’t return to his old life. Mark records that Bartimaeus follows Jesus on the way. On the Way meant to become a disciple of Jesus. Bartimaeus is seen as the perfect disciple, the one who truly does see who Jesus is, who hears what Jesus is saying and understands, who gives up all he has and follows Jesus. The fact that we were given his name means that Bartimaeus was probably someone that Mark’s community knew about, someone whose story was often told and retold much like we in Metropolitan Community Churches tell the story of Rev. Elder Troy Perry who began the first MCC church and led our denomination during its formative years.

Cynthia Jarvis hits home when she urges us to "[t]hink of those for whom faith is a matter of life and death rather than social convention." Bartimaeus didn't care what people thought, and didn't let anything deter him from reaching Jesus. For him, following Jesus wasn't just a good idea or a nice self-improvement program or the thing to do or a good habit to form. For Bartimaeus, as for so many others, trusting that Jesus cares about them and wills good for them is indeed a matter of life and death. If this is a story about values, as all stories of discipleship might be described (David Watson), then finding our place in the story means asking ourselves what we truly value, what we would be willing to leave everything behind for. What's the cloak we need to abandon? Who, or better, what is keeping us from reaching, and following, Jesus?

As members of the Queer Community we should like Job, and Bartimaeus refuses to comply and internalize our marginalization. Bartimaeus refuses to let others tell him that he is not worthy to speak to Jesus. On this election week when we are hopeful that Referendum 71 will be approved and we will be able to enjoy the same rights and responsibilities with our domestic partners as those who are legally married, we should remember Bartimaeus' example. Bartimaeus is not the only person in the story who needs healing. He is physically challenged, but those who try to prevent him from reaching Jesus are also in need of spiritual healing. Despite all that is going on to silence and marginalize the LGBT community, we must resist buying into those false beliefs about who and whose we are. Many of us shake our heads in disbelief as we observe the hysteria of those who would rather we just went away. Efforts for constitutional amendments, religious trials, threats of denominational schisms seem like a lot of energy to expend trying to exclude us. Given the entire hullabaloo, it is easy to understand why we characterize it as "homophobia."

In the midst of all that, we bear witness to the Spirit of Christ alive in us and should not be overwhelmed or defeated with denominational pronouncements or constitutional amendments. While the final outcome of these efforts does matter to our daily lives, we must also remember that those who oppose us are the very ones Christ has called us to love and serve. Moreover, we are not the only ones brutalized by religious hostility and indifference. There are many non-LGBT people who are also cast aside because of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, class or ability. We must not become so focused on our own struggles that we forget to take time to advocate for others who are marginalized.

We begin a journey as a church this week. This is stewardship month when we ask our members and friends to make a commitment of how much you will give to support the work and ministry of MCC Seattle in 2010. We usually do this by talking about money, by talking about how much we need to pay our bills, to pay my housing allowance as your part time pastor, to pay the rent on this chapel. But we’re not going to talk about those things this year. Because that kind of talk keeps us looking down, keeps us from looking up, keeps us from asking ourselves what is it that Jesus is calling us to do. Instead of thinking about stewardship as only money we need to think of stewardship as committing our time, our talents, and our treasure to God for God’s use in whatever way God desires. We need to stop worrying about paying the bills and start worrying about what it would really mean if we would give up all those things we are holding onto and really got up, and followed Jesus on the way.

It’s time we stopped basing our decisions about our budget on what we have done last year and start basing our budget and our actions on what God wants us to do. God isn’t limited by budgets and buildings and neither should we allow ourselves to be limited by such things. God may have so much more waiting for us if we would step out in faith and trust God like Bartimaeus did. I don’t know what that would mean for me or you, any more than Bartimaeus did that day in Jericho. I have hope, just like he had that Jesus will heal us physically, spiritually, economically and socially. We’ve got to give up our limited thinking and start seeking God’s will no matter where that will lead us, and no matter how much that might cost us.

I hope you will join me and Bartimaeus this year and step out in faith and trust, leaving behind whatever hampers us from achieving God’s will in our lives, and get up and follow Jesus on the Way. Get Up. Get on your feet. Jesus is calling you!

This Isn't What I Signed Up For! Mark 10:35-45

"This isn't what I signed up for!" my fellow student exclaimed as we looked over the syllabus for the college course we were going to take that semester. "I don't have time to put in this much work. This was supposed to be an easy 'A!'" He was obviously not ready to face the long reading list and papers and projects the professor required. So he dropped out before the second class
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There are times in our lives that I think we all want to scream, "This isn't what I signed up for!" We wanted a different outcome, a different turn of events, something different than what we think we have received. We invest ourselves in a dream of a possible future and work hard to achieve what we think we want and desire. Then something happens. The economy crashes and we lose the job we always wanted. A relationship goes sour and we are no longer with the person we thought we'd committed our lives to being with. Disease strikes and we are forced to adjust our lives to accommodate something that we never imagined possible.


So I believe it was for the disciples in Mark 10:35-45 when John and James asked for the privilege of being named Jesus' top commanders in the new religious government they think he will set up when they arrive in Jerusalem.

Jesus has been honest with them, in fact, in verses 32 to 34 which immediately proceed today’s reading, he has told them that he is going to Jerusalem to face tribulation, suffering, and ultimately death. But the disciples keep ignoring what he tells them. Why? Because: "This isn't what we signed up for." The truth that Jesus is telling them just doesn't fit with the dream they have created of what their future with Jesus would be like.

To demonstrate the truth of this, the other disciples upon hearing what the two have asked of Jesus get quite upset with their fellow disciples. Can't you just hear the squabble: "Well, if you're in charge, don't go expecting me to follow your orders." Or, the famous one my children always used on me, "Why does she get to be the boss? That's not fair!" Jesus has to get the boys together for a sit down talk and calm them down before they can work together again.

You can’t much blame the boys for their misunderstanding. They have given up everything to follow Jesus. They were the counter-cultural revolution of their day, but they were still trapped in thinking like the rest of their society. They have committed themselves to Jesus and that commitment should be acknowledged and applauded. They want Jesus to succeed, but they are having a hard time giving up their traditional viewpoint of what success will mean for Jesus and for them. However, this is entirely new territory Jesus is taking them into. It might look like the same thing they have experienced before, but it is going to be, oh, so different than they have ever imagined.

They base their idea of a successful Jesus on what they know: the ruling Sanhedrin council in Jerusalem and the formative power of the Roman Empire which has taken over the known world. Won’t success for Jesus look like it does for everyone else? You really can’t blame them. It isn’t that they are so dense and so stupid that they don’t understand what he is telling them, it’s just that this situation is so vastly foreign to their experience that they just can’t quite wrap their heads around the idea that being defeated, being tortured, being killed, could somehow bring about a positive anything positive for them. Why hitch your wagon to a sinking ship?

Jesus tells them that even if other people follow the pattern of "Lording it over each other," that kind of behavior doesn't belong in the New Community of God he is trying to create. He goes on to tell them "Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served-and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage." (The Message)

What does it mean to be in community together without anyone else "Lording it over" the rest of the community? What does it mean to be a servant, literally a slave, to everyone else? That concept doesn't sound quite right to most folks. But it is the truth that Jesus taught his followers-and that includes you and me. How will we live out that truth in the New Community of God we are creating at MCC Seattle? What would it mean for us to give our lives away as a ransom to release the captives that are being held hostage in our society by wrong ways of thinking, and wrong ways of acting?

First of all: what we become as a church may not look like what we think we know a church should be. We tout numbers and finances as the keys to success in the life of any church. How many members do you have? How many attend worship? How much money was given? How much money is being spent on mission and ministry?

We ask ourselves those same questions every single Sunday. We report those facts to you in the bulletin and in the weekly email newsletter. But do those facts really tell the whole story about what our congregation is becoming and doing? Are our own views of what it means to be a successful church being taken over and hijacked by what we have experienced in other churches, or what we have heard about from other churches?

Maybe we are looking at the wrong churches for our model. Maybe we should stop looking at the large evangelical churches that pack the pews weekly, that have the cutting edge musical groups and bands, and the video projectors and super-sized sound systems. Maybe we should start looking at churches like the Church of the Savior in Washington DC, founded in early 1940’s by Gordon and Mary Cosby and five other friends to be a different kind of church and have a different kind of ministry than any church ever had. They have never had large numbers or big budgets, but they have had a remarkable ministry that has affected not only their own community as their influence has reached literally around the world.

(From the Church of the Savior website) “From the beginning, church members sought to embody Christ in intentional and sacrificial ways, welcoming radical diversity and calling all to be ministers through the generous sacrifice of their own personal time, energy and resources. Interpreting the call to discipleship as the integration of two journeys in community—an inward journey to grow in love of God, self and others and an outward journey to help mend some part of creation—the church became the catalyst for numerous helping ministries...."

They are formed now by six independent community ministry groups that focus on their particular vision of ministry and make it happen in radical and revolutionary ways. Their membership orientation lasts three years, not two hours.

“Today, 60 years later, Gordon and Mary Cosby and others continue to play with new ways of becoming the authentic Church. What might happen in our hurting and distrustful world if people started coming together in small groups deliberately organized around perceived differences—of race, economic class, gender, age, sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc.—and from that point of diversity vulnerably opened their lives, told their stories, unmasked their shared addiction to a socio-political system that has kept them alienated, and then together they began to take steps toward healing and justice?”

Secondly, building the New Community of God will mean that we make sacrifices in our lives to be available to and for each other during the week. We cannot expect to make an impact on the greater metropolitan area until we begin to make an impact on each other. What does it mean to become a servant, or dare we say the word, a slave to others? Is that idea really as demeaning and degrading as we Americans tend to think?

Jesus and the disciples spent a lot of time together. They didn’t just meet on Sunday mornings for worship and then depart without seeing each other for an entire week. What will a stranger experience when he or she comes into our community? Those of you who have been around here for awhile should be able to answer that question. Are we treating each other like we should be treating each other? Are we making space in our lives for each other? Or is the thought of having to change your schedule to accommodate another appointment with another person, no matter how important the idea is of building community together, contrary to what you personally want for yourself? The New Community of God we need to create won’t just happen. It will need to be created by you and me as we work together, worship together, fellowship together and live together.

What have you done this past week to make space in your life for someone from our church that you don’t normally associate with, or spend time with? Are you making a personal effort to build the community we want to establish by what you do and say with those who God has called together in this place? Look around this room right now. Is there anyone you don’t know? Perhaps someone that you don’t know by name? You don’t know where they work, or even if they work? Do you know their favorite song or their favorite food? Do you know what’s really troubling them about life today? As long as there is someone in this church that you do not yet know, really know, then your work as a servant to them isn’t yet completed and may not even yet have begun.

Invite someone out to eat with you. Invite folks over to your home. Go out to the theatre with them and then talk with them over a cup of coffee about the play or the movie. The experience together isn’t about the food or the movie, or the play, it’s about talking together, spending time together, getting to know each other, discovering what another person needs in his or her life and then being a part of filling that need for them. That’s what being a servant to others means: caring, sharing, loving, and creating a life together. It will take personal sacrifice and commitment by each of us if it is to ever happen. Thinking about it won’t make it happen. Just talking about it won’t make it happen. It will take action by you and me to make that New Community a reality in our lives with each other…daily.

As long as we don’t put this concept of becoming a real living community into operation then this church will remain a disconnected, lonely, group of people who come together once a week to sing songs and pray. There has to be more to being a church than meeting together once a week. We have to become Christ to each other. We have to begin to feed each other with the bread of life.

Thirdly, we must become meek and humble like Jesus. But first we have to stop putting ourselves down. Jesus was a humble and meek person, but those words don’t mean what we think they mean today. Jesus wasn’t a namby-pamby person who let other people walk all over him.

Jesus was meek. Meek meant power under control. It was a term horsemen used to describe a powerful stallion that was under the control of its rider. Meek means “power under control.” Jesus was a powerful person who used his power wisely and properly with the idea in mind of setting others free from those things that kept them in captivity be it social order, religious practices, or economic and political institutions.


Jesus was a humble person, not proud or arrogant, who saw himself realistically. Yes he was divine, but Jesus was also fully human. Being humble doesn’t mean waiting around for someone else to recognize your worth and ask you to get involved. Humble means knowing who you are and getting involved in what needs to be done and using the power you have to effect change in the world.

We must begin to see ourselves realistically for we are God’s messengers sent to serve God’s people. Jesus said he was a ransom for many in order that they might be released from their imprisonment in the social, religious, and political order of the world. Being a ransom means Jesus was of great enough worth that his actions and words gave freedom to the prisoners of the world. Jesus released us from our own personal prisons so that we might continue his work and ministry to the world around us.

Jesus knew who he was and what he could do and he began doing it: creatively, energetically, wholeheartedly and without any reservation. Jesus saw the vision of God’s New Community and Jesus worked to achieve that vision in reality by giving and sacrificing himself. Do you know who you are? Do you know what you could be doing for the cause of Christ? Are you holding back from taking part in becoming all that this church is meant to become to this community? We can’t achieve the vision of the future of MCC Seattle without you, without your sharing the work and the joy with us.

Knowing who you are means that you understand what you might be able to do to help and that you won’t wait for someone else to ask you to volunteer, but that you will step forward and volunteer your time, your talent, your experiences, your education and training, your wisdom and most importantly your love with the rest of the people in this room.

This is an important week, an important month in the life of Washington State. Stand up for God. Stand up proudly as a Christian. Stand up proudly as a Queer person and vote to approve Referendum 71 to keep the domestic partnership law. Stand up also and vote no on Initiative 1033 which would only make the current economic conditions harder on working people, on schools, on governmental efforts to help the poorest in our society.

Be responsible Christian citizens and vote! Stand up, speak out, take action! Be Christ to the world today and every day. Be a Christian servant to others.

I Am Weary of Gay Marriage... Mark 10:2-16

Sermon given on Marriage Equality Day, October 11, 2009.

I don’t know about you but I’m weary of all the talk about gay marriage. I’m sure that sounds like a pretty strange thing for me to say, especially on Marriage Equality Day.

But here’s what I’m weary of: I’m weary of James Dobson and Focus on the Family telling me that I and you are sinning because of who we love. I’m weary of Religious and Political Right wing leaders telling me that society will fall apart and our world as we now know it will end if you and I are allowed to marry the person we love. I’m weary of homophobia, driven by fear and ignorance, being used in an attempt to dehumanize us as “outcasts” unworthy of respect, protection, or inclusion. But most of all I am weary of the Bible being used to justify spiritual violence against us.

The state of Massachusetts has had legal marriage of same sex persons for several years now and, contrary to the predictions by our friends in the Religious and Political Right, that state hasn’t fallen off of the continent into the Atlantic Ocean. Nor has its day to day social fabric been destroyed nor even changed much from what it was like before the laws were changed. Looks to me like all of the warnings of the terrible things that would happen if Queer People got to marry each other have failed to have happened.

Today’s Gospel passage is a good example of how scripture can be misused and abused to the benefit of those who are doing the primary interpretation which they believe to be right and above all reproach. And in this case you must see it for what it is, the claims of the male-gender dominated society in which those who own the distinction of being male believe they are the very pinnacle of God’s creation, far and above everyone else, with rights and privileges that no one else owns or can seek to claim for themselves.

Jesus takes those leaders, the religious right of his own day, as well as his own disciples to task and tells them in no uncertain terms that they have got it all wrong when it comes to marriage, but especially when it comes to divorce, because their viewpoint, their reference for understanding is wrong to start with.

We have followed the story of Jesus for the last several weeks through the Gospel of Mark, as he journeys with his disciples toward Jerusalem, frequently taking the common understandings of the Scriptures and turning them upside down and inside out. I think that is exactly what needs to happen to those who are misusing the scriptures against you and me. They need to look at the example of Jesus before they open their mouths again. They need to let Jesus turn their worldview upside down and inside out.

I was a great fan of West Wing, the TV series where Martin Sheen played the character of President Jed Bartlett. In one episode the president confronts a woman who is a TV personality known for giving advice usually based upon her fundamentalist literal interpretation of scripture. She has obviously made statements about homosexuality being an abomination, so he takes her to task about exactly how much of the scripture she truly does believe by asking her what kind of a price he should set for his daughter, a Georgetown graduate who is very helpful around the house, who he wishes to sell into slavery, a practice approved of by the same Leviticus text she is quoting. Or should he stone his assistant himself or call the police to do so because the assistant insists on working on the Sabbath. Should he and his family stone his brother to death or call the entire city because his brother has grown two different crops in the same field on his farm? Or should he burn his mother at a small family gathering because she made and wears clothing from two different kinds of cloth.

The question is: can we take scriptures from either the Old Testament or the New Testament which address specific historical, cultural and limited social situations that are extremely different from our own culture and society, and apply those directly to our own times and lives, without some thought and discernment as to whether they may or may not be God’s intended truth for us today?

Don’t be fooled by those who tell you that God’s Word never changes, for the truth is how we hear it, how we apply it, how we pick and choose what we will apply to our own lives, that truth has changed throughout history and will continue to change today from culture to culture, society to society, country to country, denomination to denomination, and person to person. And that’s exactly the point that Jesus is making to the men he is talking to in today’s Gospel passage.

These so-called experts in religious law ask him what seems like a legitimate question, but they, as seems to be their habit with Jesus, simply wish to trick him into giving them an answer that they can turn around against him and charge him with blaspheming against God. Jesus knows what they are doing and he turns the question upon them. They thought they knew the correct answer. When Jesus got through with them, they weren’t sure any longer about what they thought was the truth. They just knew they didn’t like Jesus turning the tables on them. When the Religious Right uses the scriptures against us to promote their own hate and rejection of us contrary to the example of Love and Inclusion taught by Jesus, we have to speak up and speak out and tell them that they are misunderstanding, and abusing the very Word of God they say that they hold in such high regard.

Jesus’ opponents ask him: Is it lawful for a man to kick out his wife by divorcing her.

Jesus doesn’t ask them what the Scripture says, instead Jesus asks them what did Moses tell them which is a significant difference?

They answer that Moses said it was okay for a man to fill out a few papers and divorce his wife, abandon her, and send her out into the streets to fend for herself.

It was a man’s world. Men ruled the day. Women were simply possessions. Women were owned by their father until given by their father in marriage to a husband. They were then owned by their husband until divorced or until the husband died. If divorced they had no one to give them a place in society, no place to live, unless they could return to their own family, but that was highly unlikely due to the social stigma and embarrassment surrounding divorce in those days, even if it wasn’t the fault of the woman.

A man could divorce his wife simply because she couldn’t become pregnant and give him children, or even because she hadn’t given him a living son. They didn’t have medical science that could tell them the man might be the sterile one and that is why the woman couldn’t have children. But that didn’t matter. Not being able to give birth, more importantly, not being able to give birth to a son was the fault of the woman and grounds for divorce. There were many other reasons why a man could divorce his wife that were just as ridiculous and just as demeaning and destructive toward the woman.

Women got no respect. There was no equality in their society. Women could demand nothing from their husband if they were divorced. Life on the streets as a victim of violence and rape was the fate of most divorced women and even of widows whose husbands had died leaving them destitute. Without a living husband a woman was quickly moved to the very bottom of their society.

Jesus says that his opponents have answered correctly, that Moses gave them this rule because Moses knew they couldn’t live up to the real intent of what God wanted. What Jesus is saying is very important for you to understand because Jesus is telling us very clearly that what we frequently call the Holy Word of God isn’t recorded the way that God intended, but has been changed from God’s intentions by an all too human author, in this case Moses.

I point this out to you because we are the recipients of much spiritual violence against us based upon the interpretations of scriptures by Religious Right who are reading scriptures that may not be exactly what God intended because the original intentions of God have been filtered through all too human authors, translators, and interpreters.
Yes, there is no question that scripture gives us much spiritual truth, but you and I must use the discernment and the intelligence that God has blessed us with to determine what that truth might be for us in the here and now. That requires serious study of the scriptures in their historical, cultural, and geographical settings in order to come to terms with what the author intended, how it was heard by the people it was written for, what the underlying timeless spiritual truth is, and how we will apply that truth to our lives today based upon the example of Love and Inclusion taught by Jesus.

In researching for this week’s sermon I kept running up against the criticism of gay theologians by the Religious Right who are upset that we put the words of Jesus above the words of St. Paul. On the other hand, I am aghast that so many on the religious right have equated Paul’s letters on par with the teachings of Jesus by saying that all of the New Testament is the Holy Divine Word of God and that whatever Paul wrote has as much authority as what Jesus said. I don’t think so!
Jesus is paramount, not Paul. We don’t interpret Jesus’ teachings based on what Paul said.
If we are to get at the truth of the scriptures then we have to interpret all scripture, including St. Paul’s actual writings and those that have erroneously been attributed to him, through the witness and word of Jesus Christ. If something doesn’t stack up to the love and inclusivity of God that Jesus came to share with us then I question whether it is what God intended for us to accept as the truth.

Jesus tells his critics that Moses knew they had hard hearts and therefore Moses allowed an out for them that God had never intended.

Did you know that Jesus had much more to say about divorce than he ever did about marriage? Isn’t it funny in this current debate that the religious right isn’t concerned about the threat to marriage that divorce itself presents instead of the perceived threat that gay marriage will bring to heterosexual marriages? How would my marrying Mark be a threat to anyone else’s marriage? It would seem to me that if the Religious Right holds Scripture in such high authority they should be fighting to make it harder to dissolve legal marriages and do so with the same fervor and energy that they are using to oppose same-sex marriages.

Jesus then teaches that God wished for there to be mutuality between men and women instead of the gender hierarchy that had come to exist. In speaking to his own disciples he tells them that the man does not have the right to put out his wife just because he finds someone else more desirable and wants to marry that person instead. It’s a matter of disrespect of his wife, a stunning concept that they would find hard to accept in their male gender superior society. And to make his point clear, Jesus says the same thing is true of the woman who walks out on her husband to take up with another man.

Dr. James Dobson and others claim that Queer people want to destroy marriage and the family by demanding our right to marry each other. Research and history prove otherwise according to the American Anthropological Association. Many societies have held in esteem the differences of God’s creation in gender and sexual orientation.

The American Academy of Pediatrics states that it supports the right of every queer couple to legal recognition of their relationship and co-parenting responsibilities. Children of Queer families are no more likely to grow up gay or to have problems that the children of straight families. If they fear that our children will grow up gay, then how are they dealing with the fact that most of us who are gay grew up in straight families? Maybe they should be worrying about straight families with as much fervor as they worry about Queer families? Hmmm?

The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy states that: “We see no evidence that same-sex couples or family units vary significantly from heterosexual couples or family units in terms or aspirations, hopes or goals, or in outcomes for children.”

Right here in Seattle, Dr. Gottman and his wife Julie Scwartz Gottman, who have conducted research, therapy, and education at the Gottman Institute for over 30 years, say, “Gay and lesbian relationships are the vanguard of how heterosexual relationships could be. Heterosexual couples have a lot to learn from gay couples. Same-sex couples tend to be more positive than straight couples during conflict and tend to use more affection and humor when discussing difficult subjects. They tend to use fewer controlling and hostile emotional tactics during a fight, and fairness and power-sharing between partners appears to be more common in gay and lesbian relationships than in straight ones.”

We’re not doing so bad, are we?

Just a few passages earlier in Mark, Jesus had taught the disciples that they must become like children in order to be a part of the New Community of God, that is they must give up all their aspirations for power and position and take the part of the most insignificant person in that society, the position of a small powerless child.

You’d think that the disciples would have remembered what Jesus said, but now we read that the disciples are stopping families from bringing their children to Jesus for his blessing.

Can’t you imagine what they might have been saying: “Get those kids out of here! Don’t you understand that Jesus has important work to do! He doesn’t have time to be bothered by you and your children! He needs to be with the really important people! The people that can help him achieve his goals!”

I love Nettleton’s translation of Jesus’ words: “Little children can come to me any time they like, and don’t you dare try to stop them. The realm of God is centered on children such as these. The fact of the matter is that anyone who will not welcome the life of God as trustingly as an innocent child will not receive it at all.” www.laughingbird.net

I want to tell you this morning that I am not only weary, but that I am also excited about the future of Queer persons. I have incredible hope that we will see Referendum 71 approved. We have so little time and there is so much to do. In Washington D.C., today our denominational leaders have gathered together with thousands upon thousands of others to speak out and speak up about our love and God’s acceptance of us.

President Obama made some very significant statements and some particular promises yesterday when he spoke at the Human Rights Council meeting. Yes, only time will tell if he can live up to those promises, but when have you heard a President be so inclusive, so hopeful for our Queer community?

All across America people like you and me are gathering in Marches and Rallies, just like we will today, to speak out and up about their love for each other and about God’s acceptance of the Queer community. It is truly an exciting time to be alive. It may not happen overnight, but our society is changing, making room for you and I to live out our lives and live out our love with dignity, respect, and equality.

But the real reason why I am so excited is because of the young Queer people we have in our church and others who I have met recently. I went to the Thinking Queerly Workshops at Seattle University yesterday which were put on by a group of young Queer people who are out to teach us old queer people a thing or two about hope and building the future that we say we want to achieve together. I looked at them and they were, oh, so young, so very, very young. Two of our own young persons were there with me and I was so proud to see them taking part in the discussions and speaking out loud about what our society might become because of their activism.

There was a moment when I became overcome with emotion as I saw in my mind a vision of the Religious Right trying to keep these young people from going to Jesus. They ushered our Queer children aside telling them Jesus didn’t want their kind because Jesus was too busy to talk to them or care for them. But Jesus rebuked those in the Religious Right and welcomed these young Queer people, saying to the Religious Fundamentalists of: “Let my Queer children come to me any time they like, and don’t you dare try to stop them. The realm of God is centered on Queer children such as these. The fact of the matter is that anyone who will not welcome the New Community of God as trustingly as these Queer children do will not receive it at all.”

Today is Marriage Equality Day. Today is truthfully Equality Day in the New Community of God. No one has any special rights or privileges over and above anyone else in this New Community. We are all beloved Children of God and therefore we should be demonstrating our love for God and for each other through mutual respect, honor, trust and encouragement.