On Fire: Witnesses from Acts 1:1-11 on September 6

I love the disciples, I really do, and I respect them. They were great men of faith, much better men then I will ever be, grown in the spirit by Jesus, prepared by mission after mission to do God’s work, used by Jesus to create the visible presence of the kingdom of God, the church, in this world.

But they were also sometimes goof balls, or as Noah, our grandson says, golf balls!

Now I mean goof balls in the best sense of the word, because I have no intention of disparaging them. But, let’s be real, they were much too much like us! They were a big bowl of granola, fruits, flakes and nuts altogether! Peter was impetuous! Thomas was incredulous! John was a lover, not a fighter! And don’t get me started on Matthew.

Each of them was unique, gifted, flawed, wonderful, and nuttier than fruitcakes.

And right here again in this conversation with Jesus after the resurrection they prove it again.

Because they now, according to Luke, ask Jesus if after all that has gone on, whether he, Jesus, who they have figured out finally is God present in human form, if he is going to give Israel a king.

Understand, in many ways it was a perfectly reasonable question.

It fits the narrative of most folks in their land who were hoping for the Roman occupation forces to be overthrown, and for the weasels who were in control of the religious establishment to be ousted from their positions of authority.

They wanted a King like David, grand and glorious, a man after God’s own heart, generous, kind, compassionate, loving, graceful, yet powerful both in the spirit and in presence so that Israel would no longer be the Middle East’s most conquered nation.

But… Their thinking was off! It was foggy.

Somehow, after all Jesus had taught them, they were still thinking in nationalistic terms, even after Jesus had made clear the Kingdom of God was for the whole world.

And so, Jesus kind of points that out in his response. He says:

“You don’t need to know the time of those events that only the Father controls. But the Holy Spirit will come upon you and give you power. Then you will tell everyone about me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and everywhere in the world.”

So, first of all, you don’t need to know. That information is above your pay grade, and in fact mine too, and …

You have other work to do until then.

You see, it’s not about Israel.

Yes, preach in Jerusalem. Yes, preach and heal in Judea. Yes, preach and heal and cast out demons in Samaria.

Wait, what? Samaria? The land of heretics? Well, it used to be the Northern Kingdom of Israel, so I supposed we could try to get them onboard and come back and be a united nation.

Yes, preach and heal and cast out demons and make visible the Kingdom of God…

Everywhere in the world!

It’s not just about wonderful little Israel!

It’s about the Kingdom of God becoming present everywhere, here and now, through the work of the church, preaching, healing, inviting, encouraging, loving, growing, and making disciples, and then baptizing them, and then sending them on to do the same as you are doing.

It is not about a nation. It is not about an ethnicity. It is not about a gender. It is not about a geographic region. Its not about what so many of us want to make it.

It is about God’s Kingdom!

And until you and I have done the work of the Kingdom to its fullest capacity, as long as there is work to be done, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will not be back, to gather his whole church and reign forever and ever.

So… You need to get to it.

And, just so you understand, you disciples and all my followers, will be filled with the Holy Spirit - so you can build God’s Kingdom!

Yeah, keep that in mind. We, God’s people, receive the Spirit, so we can build God’s Kingdom! We are on fire


And then Jesus kind of dropped the mic and walked out of the room!

Through the glory he went, into the cloud of God’s eternal presence. And he was gone.

And all God’s people said, “whoa”?

And Luke tells us that two angels were standing next to them as Jesus left and as they stared in wonder, they said:

“Why are you men from Galilee standing here and looking up into the sky? Jesus has been taken to heaven. But he will come back in the same way that you have seen him go.”

So, go! And all God’s people said, Amen!

Strange Faith: Samaritan on August 30 from Luke 10:25-37

Just in case there is a possibility that some of you have the incorrect impression that I am a scoundrel, I want to immediately clear that idea up.

In fact, I am a wonderful, amazing, talented, handsome, and generous man! And did I mention humble? Just saying!

I don’t think of myself as a bad guy, and I suspect neither do most of you, of me, or of yourselves.

Which is why reading some of Jesus stories can be perilous. Why, because while Jesus’ intention in his stories is to put us on edge, we often decide that the character in the story we most identify with is the very person Jesus is suggesting we are not.

So, for example, the story in John’s gospel where the adulteress (not you noticed the adulterer) is brought before Jesus along with a religious crowd, we often identify with the woman, not those who wanted to see the woman stoned to death because of her sins.

She is a contagion that must be eliminated from their community. We don’t want bad people as our neighbors, because they make us look bad, feel bad, and evidently, some of us assume, do bad. They are like a virus. If your next-door neighbor has an affair with someone they are not married to, evident you will too!

The assumption seems to be that if your neighbor jumps off the Mid-Hudson bridge, you will to! So in order to fend off temptation, we eliminate it! But, then since Jesus seems to suggest that these good townspeople are bad, we choose to identify, if a bit reluctantly, with the woman.

We are not adulterers; we aren’t fooling around on the sides of our marriages. But the alternative in the story is to identify with the guys with the stones.

And while we don’t often consider ourselves to be sinners worthy of punishment, we don’t want to be those guys surrounding Jesus just waiting to lob the first rock either.

We don’t want to be thought badly of by Jesus!

So, the thinking goes, we aren’t like those guys, judgmental, biased, sexist, although judging by many folk’s Facebook posts, it seems we have become perfectly willing to cast the first stone online, or at least the second or third if someone goes first.
We don’t want to be like those men, angry and self-righteous who are willing to kill a woman in cold blood, searching for and finding the right heft of stone to cave in her sinful skull.

Yet, Jesus thinks we are. Oh, how well he knows us.

Jesus seems to think we are much more like the scribe and the priest and the Levite, all who wish to justify themselves or at least not get ceremonially unclean, or perhaps, just not willing to be mugged by the same gang of robbers that got to the guy laying still on the side of the road.

We are afraid to care, afraid to act, afraid to speak up because it might cost us our righteousness, or perhaps our standing in the community, or even our lives, even though Jesus suggests that by not loving our neighbor, no matter what they look like, or act like, or even smell like, we have pushed away not only a man beaten and robbed, but also pushed away God.

We worry about ourselves and in doing so, miss the opportunity to care about what God cares about.

Remember the man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

He was a fellow Jew. He was a man of his times like you or I, but who had fallen on the worst of life’s mishaps.

And the priest and the Levite, were fellow Jews too like the man beaten and left for dead. They were neighbors and friends who too were like you or I.

They were, the elders in their church, or deacons perhaps, Sunday School teachers or youth leaders, all good solid citizens, but who out of fear didn’t want to make the necessary sacrifices.

So instead, they left him behind to die. And in doing so, did not care for God present in the man.

And then, imagine this, a heretic made the sacrifice.

Jesus made his point clear! We are the ones who fail the kingdom time and time again, not because we couldn’t succeed, but because we are unwilling to. We have been given the Holy Spirit. We have the power to heal, to cast out demons, even, if we listen to the Book of Acts, the power to raise the dead.

But because we give into fear that somehow God won’t protect us, God won’t provide for us, God won’t be with us when we choose to care for others that life has forced into poverty and illness, that have lives made more difficult by our unwillingness to share and care, we in fact leave them to die.

The Samaritan, however, instead of living in fear, lived with generosity, and hope, and a willingness to go out of his comfort zone and care for somebody not like him at all.

He went to help him, he bound up his wound, he administered appropriate antibiotics, wine and olive oil, and then he loaded the man on his four-legged ambulance and took him to a place where the man could rest and recover, and get this, the Samaritan paid for it all and offered the caregivers even more!

He saved the life of a heretic, of an enemy, of a person who had no reason to trust him or like him and one for whom the Samaritan had no reason to trust and like and care for. But he did.

Because deep in him was the unshakable belief that other people, even heretics, were worthy of being cared for.

Even if they cost you money!

Even if they rode on your four-legged ambulance!

Even if they used up your wine.

Even if they made you somehow unclean.

Because he knew deep in his soul it was the right thing to do.

And he refused to let fear control him.

The lawyer asked who is my neighbor?

Jesus asked who is it that acted like the neighbor.

The Samaritan. Now go, and be like him!

And all God’s people said, Amen!

Rejoice: from the Sunday Evening Outdoor service Philippians 4:1-9

Hey, it is great to be with you all tonight on this test run of an outdoor service. We know there are all kinds of challenges to any kind of gathering of people in these days of COVID-19, but particularly for churches.

Just last weekend four Syracuse area churches had to contact their members after a church service to tell them they had been in contact with a person who tested positive for COVID-19 and needed to quarantine for 14 days.

It’s not that churches are necessarily doing badly handling COVID. It’s just that we have communities that are more susceptible (we can be older and have more medical issues) and we have practices in our worship experiences that lend themselves to the spread of germs!

Part of the challenge is our fondness for big gatherings in small rooms because of the intimacy and energy. Part of the challenge is our love of music, praise and worship songs and hymns and musical groups, singing of all kind at the top of our lungs because we are happy to be together, all of which has the potential to spread aerosol droplets that may contain viruses.

Part of the challenge is that we like to talk and visit and hang around even after the pastor has pushed us out of the worship spaced and locked the door. Some of us even hug folks that we may know well (or not) but don’t live with. We pass the peace with handshakes.

And we love to eat! Well, yes, and talk, but it all means we are hanging around in an environment that is in some ways ideal for the spread of a virus, not as bad as a hospital, nursing home, or jail, but just a notch lower.

And then there is the challenge with this illness, that like few others, it is possible that the carrier of the virus may have no idea they have it.

They are not sick, but they are unwittingly sharing the virus at every contact, and potentially making others sick.

So, what do we do?

We, instead of meeting inside, have an outdoor service! Lots of fresh moving air in a place where there is no ceiling, and where we can still practice social distancing while also checking up on and checking in with all our brothers and sisters in the faith.

And gathering in this way we can what we always do best, we can rejoice!

Not that we can’t at home, because we could and we have! I for one have heard all the singing and shouting right through Facebook Live and Youtube Live and now the church app and the church webpage.

But today, we rejoice because we are able to see the joy in each other’s eyes (our masks cover the smiles) and it is really good news for our weary hearts and souls!

We have felt disconnected, and increasingly so as the time has gone on. We need each other’s energy. Some of it can come through the online worship experience and the emails and phone calls. But the reality is, we don’t really feel it until we are in each other’s presence.

I’ve told the story before about the Presbyterian minister who went to see the old Scotsman who hadn’t been to the church in a while. The man invited the pastor in and they both sat warming themselves before the fire and basically saying nothing.

Eventually, the pastor got up and taking the tongs, pulled a red-hot coal from the fire and set it on the hearth and sat down. Slowly the coal turned cold, ashen, and gray. After a moment the pastor got up and set the coal back in the fire where it returned to its previous red-hot state.

The pastor then got ready to leave, at which point the old man said, “I be in worship this Sunday!”

The gathering of God’s people for worship is certainly not impossible online. It works, sometimes very well, because you can mute the pastor, go and get a cup of coffee during the long prayer, and even wear your jammies to church.

But gathering together, even six feet apart, even outside, even with our really cool masks, has the great potential of rekindling some of that fire in us that we love to warm up to. We need to be shoved back into the red-hot coals, because we need to keep going and growing!

And we rejoice!

Paul’s letter to the Philippians contains a great deal of joy. And here is chapter 4 he makes it plain as day when he tells his readers, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

He is not making a suggestion! He is telling the Philippians and through them us, to rejoice. It is an imperative, a command, it is clear marching orders. We are to be jubilant!

We are not to miss the blessing that comes to God’s people when we choose, no matter the circumstances, to rejoice.

Because we are not defeated, we are not oppressed, we are not without a clear mission and a clear blessing. We are the Lord’s own people and as such, remembering who we are and what we are called to do and be starts our hearts to bubble with the joy of the Lord!

Now the challenge is to make this kind of experience available to all our church people safely. It won’t be easy. Some of our folks won’t come out until there is a vaccine that works, and even then, they will be nervous.

Others will come out to a service like this, if they see that it is safe, that the people running it are doing all they can to make it safe, and that the folks participating are doing everything safely too!

Soon the weather will make outdoor services unlikely. I’ve scheduled them through October 25, but, the reality is, it’s going to get cold and dark. Very soon, 7:00pm will be too late, then 6:00pm will be too.

At that point we will have to decide how to do services safely inside if we can, possibly several services. And that only if COVID doesn’t go crazy again.

But in spite of all this, we have a choice to make that can make a difference. We can fret, and worry and be upset. Or we can rejoice, because the truth is, the Holy Spirit is at work in all of this. We just need to look and see what it is the Spirit is doing, and what the Spirit wants us to learn and to do.

God’s word never comes back empty handed, so as we share God’s word with folks in these strange times, we can be sure that God is in this too!

So, rejoice, as Paul reminds us, and then rejoice somemore!

And all God’s people said, Amen!

Strange Faith: Failure on August 23 from Luke 10:1-12

One of the things I am very good at is failure. I have failed more times than you can shake a stick at, whatever that means, certainly several dozen times and probably many more than that.

And let’s be honest, so have some of you! Failure is ubiquitous and more than that failure is also one of the most powerful experiences of our lives.

It can make you stronger, wiser, and more resilient, or it can make you unwilling to experiment, angry, and even bitter.

Failure can show us where we are in the learning process, how quickly we can adapt, and how flexible we are; or it can be a rude awakening to our inabilities and incompetence, something that we may feel we must hide or bluster by.

Failure can be as simple as forgetting our lunch bag on the way to the car on the way to work, or leaving that coffee cup or briefcase or cell phone on the car roof as we drive off.

Or it can be as devastating as a bankruptcy or a divorce or even a death.

How we understand failure, what we do about it, and how we choose to feel about it can make us the most amazingly flexible and growing people on the planet, or it can give us a case of rigor mortis, stiff, unyielding, and dead.

When I was in the process of preparing for ministry one psychologist, I met with had me, and all the ministry candidates, make a list of all the major failures in our life we could remember up to that point. Typing Class, yes, I am that old. Getting cut from the High School football team. And asking that girl to the prom!

In a conversation about the list, the psychologist admitted as not the failures themselves, but rather was a pattern as to how we handled failure.

Did we immediately quit whatever thing we were working on, unable to handle the grief, or did we, possible not in all instances, come back and start again, and perhaps see that failure was actually an opportunity to do what we had set out to do differently, better, maybe even with a new open attitude that would take in some helpful criticism.

In the world of business there is a mantra that business should “fail fast” at the new things they are doing. The idea is that if a business tries something new, they should go all out and crash early, so they can stop, learn important lessons, recalibrate, and then head out again, and … not waste money on a plan or program that doesn’t work.

I read yesterday that Taco Bell is thinking of putting two drive in lanes at their restaurants, admitting that drive in business is the future. Doesn’t MacDonald’s already have two lanes?

And there is even a school of thought that suggests that we should teach kids how to fail fast? Why. Because often children are taught that failure is bad, so if you fail you should stop trying.

Lots of us know students who having bombed the first test in a class and instead of thinking, “wow, that’s great, now I know what I need to learn better or more about,” instead throw their hands up in the air and guit. Embarrassed or frustrated by their perception of what failure means, they decide it is just not worth it.

The mission is aborted.

Yet entrepreneurs all over the world tell of how they failed at a dozen businesses before they found, as it were, the “secret sauce”. They didn’t and then did, they couldn’t and then could. And the most important ingredient was not giving up. Learn from your mistakes and try again in a new way!

Failure is not the end, it is the beginning of something new. Just like with COVID. Yes, some things will stop and they may not come back. But that doesn’t mean that new things can’t begin. We need to learn from what has happened and get started again in a new way.

I heard this week that dozens of churches are already planning their online Christmas services. They don’t believe we will be meeting in person, so they are planning to have the most amazing online Christmas services ever recorded! Failure is not an option!

Which is exactly what Jesus tells his followers! Aborting the mission is a no go. You must persist!

So Jesus sends out 72 of them (symbolic in Luke’s gospel or the whole known world’s nations) to all over Israel to tell about the Kingdom of God being present and then healing folks.

It would be exciting and scary!

And there would be great stories to tell of what had happened as they went from village to village, with people healed, new communities of faith starting all over the place, and faith renewed and re-energized.

But… there would also be failure!

They would bring their “A” game and still be rejected. They would bring the stories of Jesus the Messiah and folks would still say, “not for me”!

Have you ever failed?

What did you do? Brush yourself off, get back up and get back at it? Or give up?

I remember in 6th grade being promoted to the highest-level English class out of six in my school, because I was so good at reading and writing and taking the tests. The class was studying grammar, ugh. I took the first test and failed. I went home and convinced my parents that the class was too tough and I need to go back to the level five class.

I can happily recount many times that I have failed and then dropped out. But even in spite of that, I have learned something.

Like when I dropped Hebrew 2 before I failed it, and took it again with a different teacher, teaching a very different way, and ended the semester with a B+. Fail fast, so you can start again.

One of our church values is: “you can try anything once. If it works keep doing it. If it doesn’t stop and we’ll try something else!”

Jesus tells his disciples before they even head out the door on their preaching and healing mission that failure is likely! And then he proscribes a remedy. One friend even calls it a sacrament instituted by Jesus like baptism and the Lord’s supper.

The sacrament of failure.

Jesus says, “If the folks you go to don’t want to listen, shake the dust of your shoes as a sign to them of their failure to jump into the kingdom of God, and walk away to a village that wants what you are offering!

“Don’t fret, don’t worry, don’t keep trying to fix it. Walk away. Either that village will hear the good news on another day or they won’t, but they are no longer yours to worry about.

“Don’t consider it a failure so much as an opportunity to find a community that is ready to meet the Savior and Lord of all.”

And think about this, what an incredible gift he gives them! He tells them that if on their mission things go bad (and they will, he assures them) don’t give up; instead, learn and move on.

Shake off the dust and move on. Learn the lessons and move on. See the problems, the mistakes, the bad assumptions, change the plan and move on!

Don’t mourn! Don’t lose sleep! Don’t keep going back and hitting your head against a brick wall, move on! Remember, that God has got this, and you aren’t God!

You are an apostle, one sent to bring good news. Do that, and leave the failures back in the dust where they belong, because God has amazing things for you to do just ahead.

Failure?

It is always possible.

But never ever let it define you, because you my friend are a child of the King!

And all God’s people said, Amen!

Strange Faith: Frustration from Luke 9:37-42 on August 16, 2020

One of the absolute truths about life in our contemporary world is that frustration is rampant. Everything is nuts! And, if you listen closely, so is everyone you know!

Part of the problem, of course, is the massive uncertainty.

We humans like for things to be predictable and plannable. We want to know that things are going to be just like the last time we did them, but perhaps with a few flourishes thrown in.

Like school shopping. Do you really need a new backpack for junior or don’t you?

Most of us can deal with some uncertainty. We may not love it, but we can struggle through. And a few of us are wildly creativity and so enjoy the change, but even then, within certain limits. But very few of us are dealing well with the world we live in today!

Struggling with uncertainty takes a toll. It depletes our energy. It makes us wish for a different time when things seemed simpler, even if the reality wasn’t that simple.

Sue and I used to laugh at our neighbor DiDi Reynolds who lived across the street who seemed to repaint the whole interior of her house each year.

But she didn’t take the whole house apart. That would have been too much to handle, just like the “too much to handle” we are dealing with right now as we try to negotiate the massive scale of changes that are upending life.

COVID, race relations, politics, fake news, schools reopening or not, unemployment, people unable to pay rent and mortgages (individuals and businesses) stores going out of business, and travel restrictions, and so much more, all while the normal everyday challenges of life continue.

It’s too much all at the same time, and it has left us grasping for comfort as we search for answers. We are frustrated, and angry, and scared. Fear is at an all-time high, and because of it, we see people treating each other in ways that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago.

The hope is that somehow it is all going to go back to normal.

But, of course, it isn’t. Yes, somethings will. Just like after every national crisis, somethings go back. But they don’t go back all the way because some things have changed forever. And thought that leaves us breathless.

Some people will work from home from now on. Some people will order online because the stores they once bought from aren’t there.

And relationships?

Yes, they will go back, but only if we stop now and look around and make sure that our frustration doesn’t cut off friendships with people we care about because we have decided to take out our confusion and anger on them.

We need to deal positively with our frustration. And we need to see the frustration of others for what it is, a reaction to a crazy, dysfunctional world.

We need to listen to others with grace and love, we need to share as best we can what we have including our emotional energy, and we need to be very careful we don’t push others out of our lives right now, because we may need them and their energy, intelligence, imagination and love farther down the road.

Now, to be clear, frustration and anger are part of the human experience. We all feel both of them, yes all of us! Even Jesus!

Yes, Jesus got frustrated, today’s scripture is a great example. And he got angry. Check out the story of the flying tables in the Temple Courtyard or that poor fig tree that forgot to have figs.

In those stories we are reminded that Jesus understands our frustration and anger, our fears and our troubles too! But Jesus also invites us to do something about them that is meaningful and constructive so that those emotions don’t take over our lives and instead, peace, and joy, and grace, can take root.

Last week you may remember we left the disciples Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. Now further in Luke’s gospel we are off the hill and back with the twelve. And Jesus is confronted with a crowd and some real frustration!

A man yells to Jesus about his son who is demon processed and then adds “I begged your disciples to force out the demon, but they couldn’t do it.”

Remember, these are the same disciples who went out on a mission trip for Jesus and healed people and cast out demons! But now, these disciples seem to have forgotten who they are and what they are supposed to be doing while Jesus was away!

Unlike us.

No, we who are angry, scared and frustrated have not forgotten that we are the children of the Most High God, empowered with the Holy Spirit, fearless in the face of whatever we face because we know God has us here and now for a reason!

Well maybe we have forgotten a little!

And Jesus said to them, “You people are stubborn and don’t have any faith! How much longer must I be with you? Why do I have to put up with you?”

Now you can read this as Jesus being frustrated at his disciples and that’s okay! Or you can think that he is frosted at the people gathered too. Jesus was certainly capable of being completely human, and feel our human emotions.

But I suspect it was more a response like what happens when I say to my grandson Noah, “Why are you eating sand! We’ve talked about this. Sand is not for Noah to eat! Don’t eat sand. Sometimes little guy, you make me crazy!”

As in Jesus saying, “Yo disciples! We talked about this. You have the power over demons! But for some reason you still don’t have the kind of faith that can move mountains. I’m not going to be here much longer. Y’all need to get it together!”

Yes, Jesus was frustrated! The disciples were growing in faith, but so slowly. They advanced one day and retreated another and time was running short.

Because you know when we really need our faith to be fully formed? Do you?

Strong, resilient, prepared, dynamic faith ready to hit the ground running? When do we need it? In the midst of the storm!

In the midst of this storm! Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not next year. Not on our death bed. Today.

So that as we meet friends and relatives, and folks at work or in the neighborhood or even online we can be the ones who bring the loving, calming, healing presence of Jesus to folks who are scared, and frustrated, and angry, in the midst of all this craziness!

It turns out that we too are disciples, learning the ways of Jesus.

But make no mistake, we are also apostles, everyone of us, sent to bring the good news of Jesus, the peace that passes understanding, to this frustrated world.

Go, in Jesus name!

Amen.