What Did We Learn?

If you are of my generation, then 1) you remember “The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam” and 2) you knew who Robert McNamara was.

The Moratorium was held on October 15, 1969 and by some accounts was the largest nationwide anti-war demonstration in the country. Whether or not it had any affect on the outcome of the war is anyone’s guess. Richard Nixon indicated that it would not have any effect on his policies.

That particular time period is somewhat of a blur for me as I struggled with college and my own expectations (some of which are documented in “Our Father’s House”). I should feel lucky because I am certain that others struggled and lost their struggles. I was not doing well in college and the draft seemed a certainty in a life full of uncertainties.

The one thing that I did not like then (and which I am opposed to today) was the draft. I would have almost certainly joined the Air Force and followed in the footsteps of my father and grandfather but the specter of a process that took away my choice to do just that never set right with me. My participation in the Moratorium was as much my own statement about the inequities of the draft as it was against the war.

It was about protesting a system that sent too many young men off to war who, because of their economic status, could not escape the draft by enrolling in college or use their “daddy’s” influence to get an appointment into the National Guard. (One of my roommates that year, on the verge of flunking out of school, was able to obtain a slot in his hometown’s local Guard unit, with the help of his family, and spent his military career safely ensconced at an Army base in Germany.)

It was protesting a system that continued to send young men off to war and saying that we were winning the war. But we kept sending more troops overseas and it looked like some sort of Kafkaesque bottomless pit. And it did not help, when Richard Nixon, a master of the system if there ever was one, said that our protests did not matter.

I was saddened to hear of Secretary McNamara’s death. For many, the Viet Nam War was “his” war; I saw it more as Lyndon Johnson’s war. I just wish that his protests and thoughts about the war had come a little sooner and a little more loudly. Perhaps, it would have changed the course of the war.

But in the course of what he has said and written since then, in the course of what he said in the private councils of war, maybe we will learn something about war and its futility.

Mr. McNamara noted that Curtis LeMay, commander of the XXI Bomber Command, once said, in reference to the firebombing of Tokyo, that “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” McNamara said “And I think he’s right. He – and I’d say I – were behaving as war criminals.” McNamara also asked “What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?” He could not answer that question, a question that the leaders of all countries should consider. It is a question that we all must consider as well.

There are two other insights from Robert McNamara’s life that we need to learn. He pointed out that the greatest lesson that we can learn from war and about war is the need to know who the enemy is. We must put ourselves in our enemies’ place and empathize with them. The failure in Viet Nam can be seen in our failure to understand the enemy we were fighting, the failure to see the limits of high-tech weaponry, a failure to tell the truth to the American people and a failure to grasp the nature of the threat to which we were responding. While for Mr. McNamara, that threat was communism, the points still bear true today.

If we do not understand who we are fighting, if we feel that our technology can do things that it really can’t, if we do not understand the threat, and if we do not tell the American people the truth, then we will not win any war in which we engage our military today.

I conclude with the closing paragraphs of the New York Times obituary:

“What makes us omniscient?” he asked in “The Fog of War,” released at the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“We are the strongest nation in the world today,” he said. “I do not believe that we should ever apply that economic, political, and military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn’t have been there. None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can’t persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we’d better re-examine our reasoning.”

“War is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend,” Mr. McNamara concluded. “Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.

———————————

Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

Build It and They Will Come

This is the message that I gave on the 6^th Sunday after Pentecost, 20 July 2003, at Tompkins Corners United Methodist Church, Putnam Valley, NY.  The Scriptures for that Sunday were 2 Samuel 7: 1 – 14, Ephesians 2: 11 – 22, and Mark 6: 30-34, 53 – 56.

————————————————–

It is one of those little bits of trivia that even though I claim Memphis, Tennessee as my home, I have only been to Graceland when forced to go or by accident. If you were to ask me how to get there, I honestly could not tell you. Similarly, even though I have ties to Iowa, I have no idea where the “Field of Dreams” is located. It does exist and it is in Iowa but that is all I know.

The problem with certain locations or certain phrases is that they become a part of our lives whether we want them to or without any encouragement on our part. The phrase “build it and they will come” was the cornerstone of the movie to build a ball field in the cornfields of Iowa so ball players of the past could come back to life and play baseball. It is now a phrase that is used to justify almost any project in which we want people to come.

David wanted to build a temple for God, a place to house the Ark of the Covenant. There is, to some extent, some logic to David’s thoughts and desires. After all, he was living in a fine palace while the Ark was still housed in a tent. And if you are a leader whose position is ordained by God, shouldn’t God’s house be a better place to live than the one you live in?

But God, through Nathan, indicated that He was quite satisfied with the arrangements. After all, over the past years, the Ark had been housed in a tent among the people and nothing had been said then. So why worry about it now? God, again through Nathan, points out that the only house that really matters is the house of David and God promised to insure that house would live for a long time.

God wasn’t so much interested in the physical building as much as He was in those who live there. And I think that is a most important idea. It is not where the message of the Gospel is heard but if the message is heard. We need to know that when the Methodist revival was in its infancy, the Anglican Church barred its leaders, including Wesley, from preaching in the Anglican churches of the time. So they moved to the fields and preached to the people there. And because the laws barred them from meeting in churches, they created meeting houses and had class meetings rather than worship services to get around the law. There is a need to send the presence of God during worship and that comes from within the people, not from within the building.

There is no doubt that we need to have some place to worship. As soon as stable congregations formed, Methodists built houses of worship. These early meeting houses were simple structures, without ornamentation and designed to accommodate as many people as possible. The Book of Discipline from the first conference of 1784 stated, “Let all our chapels be built plain and decent; but not more expensive than is absolutely unavoidable: otherwise the necessity of raising money will make rich men necessary to us. But if so, we must be dependent upon them, yea; and governed by them. And then farewell to the Methodist discipline, if not doctrine too.”

The rationale for this approach was that expensive churches required money that could be used for better purposes. And early Methodists also feared that extravagantly constructed churches would lead to pride and vanity and lower the spiritual tone of the church. In addition, many of the early Methodists were poor and could not afford nor would they feel at home in elaborate buildings.

From my own experience, I know that when a church is more concerned with its appearance and its physical plant, its concern for the people comes second. Now, there is no doubt that we need to have a good building to hold our services in but we need to focus on what transpires in the meeting, not where the meeting is held. I have preached at the Stone Church over in Cragsmoor, near Ellenville, and it is a lovely old stone church built in the late 1800’s. It had fallen on hard times and had begun to fall apart. Even the Episcopal Church had written it off, saying it was not worth the time and effort to assign a pastor to that area. But a number of people felt that its heritage and beauty were too great to let go and have worked diligently over the years to bring it back. And they have succeeded.

Regular services are held with pastors of the local churches providing the worship leadership. And they have opened the church to couples seeking a spot for a wedding. The couples must do everything including providing for the preacher to hold the service. A reasonable fee is charged to hold the service on the grounds of the church. But having the wedding in the Stone Church is no guarantee that the marriage will be successful. The success of a marriage is found not in where the marriage is held but what is in the marriage. Just because a marriage ceremony was performed in a beautiful old church or the expanse of a broad field in a park will not make the marriage work; it will be the desires of those in the marriage who make it work. The setting will make it that much better.

It is not the building that makes a church successful; it is the people inside the church. Paul’s words to the church at Ephesus are meant as a reminder that there was a time when members of the church would not have been welcome in the tabernacle. He wanted people to remember that there was a time of exclusion and discrimination in the church. There was a time when those called the “uncircumcised” were derided and ridiculed.

This was in part because there was a membership requirement to enter the temple or the tabernacle. And that membership requirement separated you from God. But through Jesus, that membership requirement was removed and there was no separation between individuals, no barrier preventing you from coming to Christ.

Unfortunately, despite this message of inclusion, there are many churches in this country today who forget that all who believe in Christ have equal access to Christ and that there is no membership requirement. I have seen too many churches that are more of a country club than a church. Membership is dictated by what you have, not who you are. And the members are quick to remind you, perhaps in unstated ways, that you are not welcome.

People come to a church because they are searching, searching for that something that will bring peace to their lives. They will not come to places were they are not welcome or where barriers are placed in their way.

The people came to Jesus no matter where he was. As it stated in Mark, wherever Jesus went, the people brought their sick friends so that they could be healed. Jesus did not establish barriers; He broke them down. He extended God’s mercy to all the people, not just a select few.

The saying goes that if we build it they will come and that is certainly true. But if the people are not made to feel wanted, they will not come a second time. I think that one of the reasons that many of the main-line denominations have shown a loss in membership over the past years is that they no longer make people welcome. They no longer remember the days when they were the ones on the outside looking in. It is not what we did that brought us to Christ but rather what God did for us.

If in building our church, we put up barriers we will most certainly keep people out. And that is not what the church, whether a fancy building or simple shack, is about. It is about bringing the people in, of being able to give the Gospel message to all whom would here it. The barriers may not be that visible; they may be in the way we greet someone or talk with someone. It may be in how we react to what someone says to us.

The people will come but will they stay? The people came to hear Jesus, to be in his presence no matter where He was that day. And God is quite content to be among the people, no matter where that might be. But we should remember what Paul wrote, that once we were the ones on the outside and barred from ever coming in. Shall we put up barriers that keep people away or shall we extend the spirit of Christ, just as it once was extended to us?

On The Road Again

Last summer I preached at ten different churches over a period of eleven weeks (a summary of that travel is at “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”).  After two weeks off in September, I went to four more churches over a five week period.  So it was a busy late summer and early fall for me.

And know, I am on the road again. 

June 7

“In The Beginning”

Dover United Methodist Church, Dover Plains, NY –

Directions View Larger Map

June 14

“The Bottom of the Ninth”

Mountainville United Methodist Church, Mountainville, NY - 

Directions View Larger Map

June 21

“The Storms In Our Lives”

Lake Mahopac United Methodist Church (Mahopac, NY)

Directions – View Larger Map

Upcoming

June 28

“The State of Faith”

Mountainville United Methodist Church, Mountainville, NY - 

Directions View Larger Map

July 5

“By Whose Authority”

Gaylordsville United Methodist Church, Gaylordsville, CT

Directions View Larger Map

July 12

“What We Receive”

Gaylordsville United Methodist Church, Gaylordsville, CT

Directions View Larger Map

July 19

“Where We Gather”

Gaylordsville United Methodist Church, Gaylordsville, CT

Directions View Larger Map

July 26

-open-

August 2

“What Gift Have You Been Given?”

Lake Mahopac United Methodist Church (Mahopac, NY)

Directions – View Larger Map

August 9

-open-

August 16

“Wisdom, Power, and the Way of Life”

Dover United Methodist Church, Dover Plains, NY –

Directions View Larger Map

By Whose Authority?

This is the message that I am presenting at Gaylordsville United Methodist Church on July 5th.  The Scriptures for that Sunday were 2 Samuel 5: 1- 9, 9 – 10, 2 Corinthians 12: 2 – 10, and Mark 6: 1- 13.

I will be at Gaylordsville for the next three weeks; services are at 9:30 and you are welcome to attend.

And on a personal note, this marks the start of my 4th year of blogging; today’s post is my 500th post.

—————————————————————-

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

With these words, Thomas Jefferson began the Declaration of Independence, the singular most important political protest document of all time. While there is no doubt about the political significance of this document, there remains to this day some question about the role that God played in all of this.

To hear some people, these words are equivalent to many passages in the Bible. These people speak of a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles but which has fallen from being the greatest because it has left those principles behind.

But which God are we talking about? Are we talking about a God who would give absolute authority to a monarch, to rule over a people as He would see fit; or are we talking about a God who would empower the people to think and be creative and find a way to bring equality and hope to the world?

At the time of the American Revolution, most monarchs believed that they had been given the power to govern directly from God and that to question that authority was to question God Himself. It is a feeling that many politicians, in this country and in other countries around the world, still feel today. And the people have allowed that, in part because they are more willing to let someone else lead them than bring about questions of why or how.

We live in a world that believes more in the power of the gun and the checkbook than in the power of the mind. We are more willing to consider the color of a person’s skin, their economic status, or their lifestyle than we are with the content of their character. We no longer demand quality in our work and we quite willingly accept mediocrity as quality; we prefer instantaneous response and sound bites over thoughtful consideration.

This is true in the church today. We are told that the Bible is, in effect, the exact words of God and they are not to be questioned. Any words that contradict the Bible are to be considered heretical and banned; any one who thinks in a different manner from the prescribed orthodoxy is to be expelled. But what do you do when the evidence suggest otherwise? Do you continue to own slaves and subjugate individuals because that’s what is written in the Bible? Shall we continue to solve our problems through force and warfare simply because force and warfare are written in the Bible?

If that is the case, where do we find the strength to fight against the sickness and death that stalks the world today? Where do we find the strength to speak out and act against injustice in this world today? Where is the power to change the course of history in the simple good works of people? Where did Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the others in Germany during the 1930’s and 1940’s find the strength to stand up against injustice and oppression when all the other people could not? Where did the young people of Birmingham find the strength they needed to withstand the torrents of water and the dogs when they sought equality some forty years ago?

I do not deny the Bible; I cannot deny the Bible for it tells me the struggle of a people to find their own identity. It tells me of a people who time and time again traveled the world on their own, only to become lost in the wilderness. And it tells me of a God who loved His creation so much that He would send His Son to save it. It tells me of Jesus Christ who would empower His disciples and His followers to go out into the world healing the sick, giving vision to the blind and bringing hope to the oppressed and forgotten.

Robin Meyers, author of “Saving Jesus from the Church”, stated that “It is not the case that faith is more pure when it is uninformed or when it turns away from critical thinking and sound reasoning as threats to the life of the spirit.” He also states that science and faith can work together, not against each other. The two things that most threaten faith today are the fear of what can be known and the fear of searching to know more. (Connections, July 2009)

The American Revolution began because our ancestors could not blindly accept the dictates of a king thousand miles away. In an age when individuals spoke of a God who created the world and gave them the power to think and reason, it no longer made sense to blindly accept the authority of an absent king.

If God gave mankind the ability to think and reason, then He gave mankind the authority to make decisions. In the Old Testament reading for today (2 Samuel 5: 1 – 5) the leaders of Israel, while recognizing that God had chosen David as the one to replace Saul, made a covenant with David to accept his leadership. It was not a blind acceptance of God’s command.

We are not called this day to blindly obey God; rather, we are to make that decision openly and of our own accord. The consequences of such blind obedience are all around us. We see a church that is no longer a church for all the people but only for some. Instead of challenging society to do what is right, it mirrors society and closes its doors to anyone who would challenge its authority in this world.

We have created a vision of the church that is elitist, exclusionary, and condemning and we expect people to accept this vision. The church today claims the power to judge and condemn even when such powers are counter to the thoughts and words of the original church. Society has, in effect, said we do not want the church. And people who were raised in the church all their lives are leaving because the power and the authority of the church are directed inwards and towards the maintenance of the status quo.

In essence, that is what Paul wrote to the people of Corinth. Paul could have clearly boasted of what he had done and how his life had changed but he chose not to do so. He was not the message but the messenger. We are not to look at the church but its message and too many churches today miss that point. Jesus brought the message of the Gospel, the Good News, to the people of Nazareth but they could not hear it because they only saw the son of Joseph and Mary. And because of their vision (or the lack of it), they could not experience what the Gospel truly is.

The church needs to move outward, to again be a place of free and fearless inquiry, a place of radical hospitality and spiritual sustenance. There is no doubt that Jesus gave His disciples some authority but it was the authority to change the world, not control it. He gave them the authority to heal the sick and drive out demons. And when they returned, they rejoiced for they had done things that even they could not have imagined.

They had sensed a power and an authority they never could have imagined. It was something counter to the thoughts and preferences of society; it brought hope to the people, it brought people in rather than cast them aside. It was a power and an authority not to be held over people but a power and authority to share with people in order to bring change.

We have an opportunity today to do the same thing, to bring about change in this world. But we must make a choice? Shall we accept the authority of this world, which believes in the gun and material wealth? We have seen what that authority can do.

Or shall we accept the authority of Jesus Christ, as did His disciples and the seventy-two later on, to take the Gospel message out into the world, not caring about what the world says but caring for the world and bringing hope and freedom to its inhabitants.

On this weekend, when we celebrate our freedom from earthly tyrants, shall we also not celebrate our freedom from the tyranny of sin and death? Whose authority shall we accept?

A Rose By Any Other Name

Here is the 2nd of the Friday Night in the Garden Vespers series.

————————————————-

And Juliet spoke, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” (Romeo and Juliet, Act II, scene ii).

In Shakespeare’s classical tale of star-crossed lovers, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet meet and fall in love. But it is a love doomed from the start as they are members of two warring families. In Act II, scene ii Juliet tells Romeo that a name is an artificial and meaningless convention, and that she loves the person who is called “Montague”, not the Montague name and not the Montague family. Romeo, out of his passion for Juliet, rejects his family name and vows, as Juliet asks, to “deny (his) father” and instead be “new baptized” as Juliet’s lover. This one short line encapsulates the central struggle and tragedy of the play.

In a similar passage, the physicist Richard Feynman tells a story about naming birds.

The next day, Monday, we were playing in the fields and this boy said to me, “See that bird standing on the stump there? What’s the name of it?”

I said, “I haven’t got the slightest idea.”

He said, “It’s a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn’t teach you much about science.”

I smiled to myself, because my father had already taught me that [the name] doesn’t tell me anything about the bird. He taught me “See that bird? It’s a brown-throated thrush, but in Germany it’s called a halsenflugel, and in Chinese they call it a chung ling and even if you know all those names for it, you still know nothing about the bird–you only know something about people; what they call that bird. Now that thrush sings, and teaches its young to fly, and flies so many miles away during the summer across the country, and nobody knows how it finds its way,” and so forth. There is a difference between the name of the thing and what goes on. (from “What is Science?” by Richard Feynman)

We live in a world much like that of the Corinthians two thousand years ago; we want exact names for things, we want a technicolor world but we want it in black-and-white. As the Jews clamored for miraculous demonstrations and the Greeks wanted philosophical wisdom when it came to hearing the Gospel message (1 Corinthians 1: 22), so do we minimalize the impact of the Gospel today.

But where is the power to change the course of history in the simple good works of people? Where did Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the others in Germany during the 1930’s and 1940’s find the strength to stand up against injustice and oppression when all the other people could not? Where did the young people of Birmingham find the strength they needed to withstand the torrents of water and the dogs when they sought equality some forty years ago? Where will we find the strength and power to combat hunger and homelessness in a world that has lost its direction today?

When Jesus first proclaimed the Good News some two thousand years ago, he offered healing to those who society said could not be healed, he offered sight to those who could not see, and hope to those who society had cast aside and rejected. But more importantly, He empowered the disciples to do the same thing.

It is the power of the Gospel, the Good News, that enabled first the twelve disciples and the seventy-two to take that message of healing and empowerment through the Galilee. And when they had returned, they told of all that they had done, healing and bringing hope to the people. It was a message that had not been told nor heard for many years. It is a message that we have forgotten as well.

Somewhere in the course of time, we have come to think that power comes from either the barrel of a gun or the size of one’s checkbook. We seek rational and logical explanations. But the power of the Gospel is not found in such things.

The power of the Gospel comes in its message of hope and healing, of justice and freedom. It is found in the ability to change people’s lives. It is certainly not logical or rational because it offers the same for all, no matter who they are, in a society that says who you are, where you were born, the color of your skin, the amount of money in your wallet are what matter.

We are challenged today to see beyond the words, to see the meaning and the Spirit. Remember what Paul told the Corinthians,

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.” (1 Corinthians 1: 26 – 31)

We are challenged to not hear the Gospel message but to lead the life that comes when one accepts the Gospel message.

Three Kings

This is the message that I gave on the 5^th Sunday after Pentecost, 13 July 2003, at Tompkins Corners United Methodist Church, Putnam Valley, NY.  The Scriptures for that Sunday were 2 Samuel 6: 1 – 5, 12 – 19, Ephesians 1: 3 – 14, and Mark 6: 14 – 29

————————————————–

One of my favorite hymns is “We Gather Together”. I am not sure what it is that causes me to like it, though it might just be the tune and the rhythm. But it expresses the thought of why we are here this morning and why we gather together each Sunday morning at 10 o’clock.

UMH #131

So I have to ask you this morning, “Why are you here this Sunday morning?” Is it because you are supposed to be here? Is there some requirement in your life that makes you be here? Or, is it out of habit that you are here? You know how it is, you get so used to doing something each day that it becomes a habit.

Or perhaps it is because you find those moments on Sunday morning in the sanctuary, singing the hymns, reading the Scriptures, and hearing the message to give you a chance to reconnect with God through Christ. Is it possible that on days like today when we celebrate Holy Communion, you join with Christ as others do and have done over the years since Calvary?

I hope and trust that your reasons for being here are more of the latter rather than because it is the thing to do or because it is a habit that you have picked up over the years. But I have observed over the years those for whom attendance in church was more of a social obligation rather than a call from the soul. I have seen churches where the decisions by the members have been dictated, not by the spiritual reasons, but rather by political and social reasons in the community. Those are not reasons for going to church.

But even if the reasons for coming to church are mundane and superficial, the people are in church, they are singing the hymns, they are hearing the scriptures and there remains the distinct possibility that the Holy Spirit will crack the shell protecting their soul and they will change. We have seen it work in the past and we know that it will work in the future.

But there are still those who do not come to church on Sunday. For some, especially those who are not members of any church or denomination, Sunday is a day to do the things that didn’t get done during the week. Sunday is a day to relax and get away from things. Sunday is a day to do things other than go to church. And unfortunately, society is quick to catch on to the fact that Sundays are days of freedom for many and things are scheduled to involve everyone. I would be remiss in saying that I don’t like that concept but I realize that it is another thing that churches must compete with in this highly secular society.

But among those who do not come to church are those who should be here. They have, by public profession of their faith at least once in their life, stated that they will support a church through their prayers, their presence, their gifts and their service. Yet, as soon as those words have been said, they have been quickly forgotten.

Now, before anyone or everyone gets all riled up, let me say that I am aware that not everyone who is a member of this church and is not here falls into this general category. There are those who simply cannot physically be here; their ailments and well being prevent them from coming. And, when I know about such individuals and such individuals let me know, I make sure that communion is a part of their life and that they are a part of this community. Those individuals are a part of the church community and should never be considered otherwise.

But there are members who live elsewhere in this country and cannot by the nature of where they live come here on Sunday mornings. For those, membership in this church is convenient, simply a way to meet the obligations of society without any responsibility and obligation.

Membership in a church is not a matter of convenience or an obligation; it is a commitment. When it becomes a convenience, when it becomes simply a social statement, it quickly loses all of its meaning.

We read that the Ark of the Covenant was placed on a new cart and brought out of the house of Abinadab. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab drove the cart and Ahio walked in front. (2 Samuel 6: 3)

But this, while a logical method of transport, was against the rules for transporting the Ark. The law, in Exodus 25: 14, Numbers 3: 30 & 31, specifically stated that the Ark was to be carried by the sons of Kohath, not by a cart or any other vehicle. The Philistines had transported the Ark this way when they had captured it in battle and so for the Israelites to do so showed both ignorance of their own laws and disrespect for God.

What is interesting about the Old Testament reading for today are not the verses that we read but rather the verses that were skipped. In verses 6 through 12a, we read,

And when they came to Nachon’s threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the Ark of God and took hold of it, the oxen stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the Ark of God. And David became angry because of the Lord’s outbreak against Uzzah; and he called the name of the place Perez Uzzah to this day.

David was afraid of the Lord that day; and he said, “How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?” So David would not move the Ark of the Lord with him into the City of David; but David took it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Hittite. The Ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Hittite three months. And the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household.

The commentary for this section indicates that though Uzzah’s violation (touching the Ark) was unintentional, it cost him his life. God had warned the Israelites in Numbers 4: 15 that no one, not even the Levites, could touch the holy objects of the tabernacle and that death was the penalty for violation. Now David was angry at this death but his anger was directed at God rather than at the carelessness of Uzzah or himself for allowing it to happen. Because of this, it was necessary to store the Ark for a period of time before it could be moved to Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant was stored in the house of a Levite for three months and then, as we read, transported to Jerusalem in the proper manner.

I do not wish to suggest that those who let their membership become a matter of convenience will die like Uzzah. But when you let your membership slide, when you no longer work to keep it active, the church is ultimately forced to remove you from the list of members and then when you need the church it will not be there. In one sense, to not have the church there when you need it most is the same as dying.

Some of those who fall into this category live in other states or at a distance too far away to make coming here possible. For those, the options are to find a church closer and become members there. It is a choice that they must make, not the church and certainly not I.

But it is those who do live within a reasonable distance of this place but still do not come that bother me most. It is possible that they cannot come on Sunday mornings. I know personally that many of the people at Fishkill United Methodist Church do not fully comprehend the lack of my presence on Sundays. On more than one occasion, when someone has called, I have to point out that I work on Sundays and cannot attend. I, of course, then tell them where I am working and what I am doing.

But there are those who do not come to the church for other reasons. Either someone once said something to them and caused their feelings to be hurt or there is an atmosphere in the church that doesn’t seem quite holy. Worship must be a time when people sense God’s presence. If there are reasons for God’s presence to not be there, people should be worried.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is about unity, of being a community of believers, united in common belief. But though united in common belief, it is still a community of individuals and it is the diversity of members that provides the success of the community. But if the diversity of members is to be the measure of success, then there must also be respect among all members for the uniqueness and capabilities of all members. No one member has more than any other member and no member should ever feel less because his or her contribution doesn’t match someone else.

I think that is what we are to gain from the Gospel reading for today. Now, most commentaries point out that Mark put the story about the death of John the Baptist in his Gospel at this point to let everyone know that Jesus’ own ministry was not going to be easy and that Jesus was going to meet a violent death as well. But it is also a story about what happens when you start doing things solely for yourself.

Herod had spent most of his political life trying to please others. Since John the Baptist had publicly rebuked Herod for his present marriage, Herod was probably looking for ways to please his wife. In the Gospel for today we read how Herod threw a birthday party for himself. It was at this party that his daughter danced in such a way that everyone was pleased and Herod said that he would give her anything she wanted, even up to half the kingdom. When the daughter asked her mother what she should ask for, the mother suggested the head of John the Baptist. It was the daughter that added the part about having it on a platter.

But the key point is that Herod was forced through his own pride into doing something that he really didn’t want to do. But if he refused, he would have lost face and thus he could not refuse the request. As was noted in verse 26, the king was exceedingly sorry. It does not say what happened to Herod or how he dealt with the issue following the beheading but you know that he must have regretted that a man died because of his own pride.

Pride can be our downfall if we are not careful. It was David’s pride that prevented the Ark of the Covenant from being moved into Jerusalem. It was Herod’s pride that got John the Baptist killed. Now we can take pride in the fact that we are members of a particular church but we can never let that pride dictate how we feel or how we act. I will admit that I have seen people come to the table that I felt should not have come; people whose actions were more for their own self-interests rather than to benefit the church. But I also realize that whatever I think, it doesn’t count, let alone matter.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, especially the first part, is a celebration of the fact that all the members of the church are united in the belief. The last part of the Old Testament reading for today is also a celebration, a celebration of the establishment of God in our hearts.

And the Gospel reading for today serves as a reminder that the tasks that we, as members of this church, are asked to do are not always easy tasks. But we know also know that we do not do those tasks alone. As we come to the table this day, we are reminded that Jesus’ death was for us, so that we would be united together in belief and in purpose.

This table is open to all that confess their sins and accept Christ as their savior. We do not, in the United Methodist Church, qualify admission to the table. And when we leave this table having spent a few moments with Christ and reuniting with the presence of the Holy Spirit, we should also spend a few moments acknowledging to others that they are a part of this community of believers. This can mean that you simply say hello to someone whom you have spoken to or seen in some time; it may mean reaching out to the neighbor across the street or down the road and inviting them to come on Sunday morning. The challenge is to see that what you do tells others where the Holy Spirit is in your life.

There were three kings in the Scriptures this day. One king let his own pride and self-centeredness bring about his downfall. One king first found fault with God for what were his errors but eventually acknowledged his own errors and was able to celebrate the presence of God in his life. The third King died on a cross so that we could live today. My challenge to you today is to find the king in your life.

---

Getting What You Asked For

This is the message that I gave on the 5^th Sunday after Pentecost, 16 July 2000, at Walker Valley United Methodist Church, Walker Valley, NY.  The Scriptures for that Sunday were 2 Samuel 6: 1 – 5, 12 – 19, Ephesians 1: 3 – 14, and Mark 6: 14 – 29

————————————————–

Earlier on in her life, my youngest daughter learned quickly not to ask her father, “Daddy, do you know what?” For as often as not, I would reply, “Yes, he plays second base for the Cubs.” Now, after the service last week several people told me that I said that Mark McGwire plays second base. Believe me, I know who’s on first.

If you are like me, you enjoy hearing the performance of Abbott and Costello’s routine of “Who’s On First?” which is surely one of the greatest comedy sketches ever created. For those that are not familiar, this piece revolves around the matter of understanding what the question was and what the answer is. If you are going to get the answer that you want, you have the right question.

For the people of Jesus’ time, the question was “Who was Jesus?” In the opening part of the Gospel reading for today, the people are saying that Jesus is really John the Baptist, raised from the dead. He might also have been Elijah or another prophet. The people don’t really know who Jesus is and it clearly shows that the expectations Israel had for its coming Messiah where in sharp contrast to the divine mission that Jesus was fulfilling.

And Herod is worried because he had ordered the execution of John by beheading because of a promise he had made to his wife’s daughter. Salome had danced to please Herod and his court and in return, as noted in Mark 6: 22 – 25., Herod promised anything that she might ask for. Because her mother, Herod’s wife, hated John the Baptist for publicly denouncing their marriage as sinful and a violation of Jewish law, Salome asked for John’s head on a platter. The nature of the way the promise was made meant that Herod could not refuse her. No wonder he was afraid when he heard of Jesus and what people were saying. He certainly must have thought that if it were John the Baptist who was preaching, it was a ghost and he would suffer for held to his promise.

Thought the Old Testament reading for today is mostly about celebration, there is also a hidden undercurrent of resentment present.

David has brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem and established that city as the capital of Israel. There is a great celebration, complete with dancing and shouting and music and good food. And David, in his celebration, extended that joy to all the people. In the last verse, after David had finished the burnt offering, he shared the offering with all the people who had shared in the celebration, something ordinarily not done.

But contrasted with this celebration is the anger of Michal, David’s wife and the daughter of the former king Saul. Michal felt that David’s actions and dress were inappropriate for a king. She was also angry that her father and brother had died in battle. To say that she despised David in her heart, as verse 16 indicates, was perhaps an understatement. If you read verse 20 of this same chapter, you see her anger in all its fury.

Against this anger, David reminded her that it was God who had chosen him to be king in place of her father and that he would gladly be more undignified and humble if that would honor God. David asked only to serve the Lord and he was rewarded. Unlike her brother Jonathan, who had accepted what God had given him, Michal could not accept what God was giving her and did not trust in God for future happiness. Instead, she became angry with both David and God and, as the last verse of chapter of chapter 6 notes, she died childless, the result of her estrangement from David and perhaps divine punishment because of her refusal to join in the celebration of God’s name.

If you ask for God’s help, you will receive it. The grace of God is open to all those who seek it. The people of Israel wanted a Messiah and God willingly sent His Son to fulfill that request. But what the people wanted was an earthly king, someone who would lift out of the bonds of slavery.

But the slavery that Jesus would lift the people out of was not the slavery to Rome or other earthly kings, it was the slavery of sin and death. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, God does not guarantee health, wealth, and prosperity to the New Testament believer. Rather, belief in Christ offers the promise of a life with Christ. Throughout this entire letter, Paul tries to explain what God’s grace means and what we must do in order to gain that grace.

Knowing what question to ask is sometimes the most difficult task. For if we do not know what we want, we cannot ask the right question. To many of the Ephesians, God’s grace was a mystery, a puzzle that only a few or the initiated could solve. But that was religion was viewed as a mystery. Paul told the Ephesians that God’s will, once hidden and obscure, was now revealed by the presence of Jesus Christ, the Savior.

As we come to the Communion Table today, remember that you are only asked one question. Do you come with a open heart, repenting of your sins, knowing that Christ died for you? If you have that question in your heart, then you will receive the promise of eternal life, you will get what you asked for.

The State of Faith

I will be at Mountainville United Methodist Church (Mountainville, NY) on Sunday, June 14th; the service starts at 10 and everyone is welcome. 

The Scriptures are 1 Samuel 17: 1, 17 – 27, 2 Corinthians 8: 7 – 15, and Mark 5: 21 – 43.

——————————————

I wrote the following a couple of years ago:

I have decided to start my own church. I am going to start on the Internet and after the contributions and donations start to roll in, I will begin televising the services. Maybe we will pull in enough to even buy an old auditorium or arena and turn into a worship center.

The name of my church is going to be the “1^st Internet Worship Center of the Gospel of Prosperity.” We aren’t going to call it a church because that will scare away the customers (oops, sorry; I meant to say congregants). I probably will decorate the web site and the church with a dove and, since this will be a world-wide ministry, most definitely a globe. Don’t go looking for a cross or any references to Jesus; market research has indicated those things tend to make people uncomfortable.

Since it is an Internet site, you can come anytime; we will be open 24/7 and the attire is informal. That’s good because it seems that the dress code for preachers today is blue jeans and Hawaiian shirts. For right now, I will settle for t-shirts and sport shirts. Maybe when we start televising the services, I will have enough money to buy a few Armani suits.

Ours will be a Biblical ministry but each sermon will be decided by input from focus groups. People want their churches to be biblical in nature but they want their pastors to avoid mentioning the Bible. By using focus groups, we can accommodate the wishes of the people.

Most certainly, since this is a church of the gospel of prosperity, we are going to focus on how one can use God to become wealthy and prosperous. We believe that poverty is a product of sin and wealth is a sign of a righteous life.

Ours will be a church (oops, sorry – meant to say worship center) that celebrates life. Ours will be a celebration of family values, so if you are not part of a traditional family you will have to go some place else.

If by now you haven’t figured it out, the above paragraphs were written with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. They come from impressions of many of the churches that are on television and the Internet today. They are what people are looking for because it gives them what they are looking for. But is that what a church (and I mean church) is supposed to do? (From “What Are We Supposed To Do?”)

If the church today is more what the people want it to be than it is what it should be, then those who profess its demise will be prophets after the fact. For many people today, the church is a period of time on Sunday morning and only Sunday morning. It is a time that is protected from the outside world and the problems of the world can be ignored.

I have jokingly said but with some degree of seriousness that the measure of a United Methodist pastor in the Memphis, Tennessee area (my hometown) is his or her ability to get the service over in time for the congregation to get to the Shoney’s before the Baptists get out. And pity the pastor, no matter where they might be, who calls the congregation to task for their failure to lead a Christian life.

The church two thousand years ago was a community of believers, bound together in common belief and for a common goal. It was a community that was open to all. Somewhere along the line we stopped being such a community.

The Gospel reading for today is reminder of the problems that many people had with the church in Jesus’ time and the problem they have today. The woman in the passage has been bleeding for twelve years and none of the physicians she went to were able to help her. What you have to keep in mind is that in her condition, she was considered ritually unclean and thus denied access to the temple. And anyone who might come into contact with her would also be considered unclean and denied access to the temple until they could be “cleansed.” Even today, we find reasons to tell people that they are not welcome in our churches, deeming them to be “unclean” in the eyes of society.

And while we may speak of Jesus as welcoming all and denying no one, our history as a church, written and unwritten, suggests that we still use the Bible justify separation and repression.

In 2002, Susan Pace Hamill, a professor of law at the University of Alabama law school and a member of the Trinity United Methodist Church in Tuscaloosa, was on sabbatical at Samford University to complete her master’s degree in theology. Her thesis was entitled “An Argument for Tax Reform Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics” and stated that the Alabama tax code placed an unfair burden on the poor while benefiting the middle- and upper-income taxpayers. For Dr. Hamill, to say one is Christian is to accept a moral obligation to support tax reform. Furthermore, as a Christian, one has a higher calling to seek justice for the poor and the oppressed. (http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=2424)

Yet, the loudest opposition to this interesting attempt at tax reform (and I use the term attempt because it failed) came from the Alabama Christian Coalition. First, they tried to say that it was not the responsibility of individuals to take care of the people in the state but that of the church. When that didn’t work, they tried to slander Dr. Hamill. (http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0404&article=040410) They made the argument that low taxes are good for families but when you see how much food and similar items are taxed you have to wonder whose families benefit from such low taxes.

The problem in reading the passage from 2^nd Corinthians for today is that we read only part of the story. There are those within the Corinthian church who are challenging Paul’s personal integrity and his authority as an apostle. They have accused him of taking the money raised for the church in Jerusalem for his own benefit. The collection for the Jerusalem church had begun the year before and it was intended not only to address the economic problems of the Jerusalem church but also to stress the unity of the believers that formed the early church.

Paul advocates the ideals of self-sufficiency and fair balance, of having enough for one’s own needs while sharing the excess with others. And it should be noted that those who have received are obligated to reciprocate when the time and opportunity present themselves. The last part of what we read this morning reminds us of the people during the Exodus where the aged and weak might have collected less manna while others collected more, yet there was an equal distribution so that the excess of some ministered to the deficiency of others.

In today’s society, such words are revolutionary, radical, and to some, down right dangerous. That we should share the wealth that we worked so hard to get is, if nothing else, a dangerous thought. But, as I pointed out, this distribution came with the codicil that the recipients would some day be the donor and the donors would be the recipients. What was happening was happening to a community but the sense of community that is present in these writings and in what was the early church is missing in today’s discussion.

Now, I am not calling, as some might say, for a redistribution of wealth. But I am saying that we need to consider the growing differences in wealth, a long documented statistics. And it should be remembered that John Wesley had no qualms with persons earning a large salary; he was, of course, one of the highest paid people in England. But he had also determined what it would take to live in his world and society and everything above that amount was given away.

John Wesley encouraged people to earn as much as they could but not to do it on the backs of the working class. And having earned all one could, he encouraged everyone to save as much as they could (something society in America is loathe to do) and to give as much as they could. It is interesting to note that on a per capita basis, those with incomes below $20,000 give a higher percentage of their earnings than any other income group (http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/02/19/Poor-Give-More-to-Charity and http://www.mcclatchydc.com/328/story/68456.html). Is it because it is an expression of how a community bands together, a reflection of what we once were?

We no longer have the concept of community that Paul was writing to the Corinthians about and any discussion of community often evolves into an “us versus them” mentality and there is very little discussion about equal opportunities. And unless we begin thinking about the community that we say we belong to, the community of Christians, we are headed for trouble.

The Old Testament reading for today is David’s lament on the loss of Saul and Jonathan. It is not only a personal loss of a friend, but a loss for the community. It also contains a warning; David tells the nation of Israel not to give Israel’s enemies reason to rejoice. We have been given a warning as well. We see it in the health of the church and there are many today who see the church in the same state as the young daughter of Jairus. They said that she was dead and there was no hope. Yet Jesus told him to believe and have faith.

Too many people today, both in the church and outside the church, will laugh at such a pronouncement. There is no hope in this world and even if it is there, it cannot be found in the church of today. Perhaps such skeptics are correct but I see a church that once spoke for all the people that bandied together so that all would have the opportunity to live and succeed and can do so again.

I had an opportunity two weeks ago to attend our Annual Conference and a seminar on Evangelism led by Kwasi Kena, Director of Evangelism for the General Board of Discipleship. It was an interesting seminar in that it ran counter to the current thoughts on the subject of evangelism and it gave me hope that the church as an institution, as a denomination, and individually can be saved.

Now, for too many people today, evangelism is getting people to proclaim Christ as their Savior and it is almost a forced process; either you follow Christ as we have described Him or you are doomed to a life outside the gates of Heaven. But as Dr. Kena pointed out, evangelism is more than just getting people to follow Christ; it is also teaching people about Christ and living the life that you preach and that Christ taught us to live. If the church (be it the institution, the denomination, or any particular individual church) continues as it has been for the past few years, believing more in the letter of the law rather than the Spirit of the law; as long as the church today reflects the behavior of the church two thousand years ago when Jesus walked the back roads of the Galilee, then this will be a dying church.

But, if we begin doing what was done some two thousand years ago, as members of a community of the local level and expanding outwards, then there can be and will be hope. Individually and collectively, we must say that now is the time to rise up from the dead and to begin once again to speak and act the word of God.

It is not enough to get people to follow Christ if they do not know who Christ is; they must be shown by word, thought, deed and action that Christ is alive and living in each of us. The question for you today is very simple, “What state is your faith in? Are you sleeping like the young girl? Or are you seeking Christ?”

You Came — Now What Will You Do?

This is the first in the Friday Night in the Garden Vespers series.

—————————–

“I Come To The Garden”

The theme for tonight’s vesper service is “The Cost of Servanthood.” But what does a garden have to do with servanthood or the cost of being a servant for God?

A garden is not supposed to be a place where one even thinks about servanthood or what it means to be a servant for Christ. A garden is a place of memory and contemplation, a place to pause during a busy day and to be able to hide from the problems of the world. The last place we want to see or hear the world is when we are in the garden.

Too many times, people want their gardens to be closed off from the world. There were many people who wondered if these two gardens would not somehow be filled with trash. Surprisingly, for those people, that hasn’t happened. There are no signs around but the word is out that these are places of prayer and peace, of remembrance and contemplation. You are invited to come and sit, to enjoy the flowers and the smells and sounds. Sometimes in the morning, when the dew is still on the roses and the birds are singing, it is quite clear that God is in this place.

We need our time in the garden. What Paul wrote to the Corinthians still holds true today. We must constantly check on ourselves to see if we are still Christians; we have to take an inventory to see if who we are and what we do are evidence that Christ is within us. We cannot do that unless we have a place apart from the world around us. We need our gardens and we need the time we spend in them.

Even Christ found it necessary to seek time away from the world. On more than one occasion, the writers of the Gospels noted that He went away to pray. So He had to have gone to a garden or somewhere secluded to pray and recharge spiritually. But we are reminded that it was in the garden that Christ was arrested and, no matter how secluded the garden may have been, there was still a real world outside its boundaries.

And the time will come, when all is said and done, for us to return to the world outside the boundaries of the garden, to the problems of the world. We cannot stay in the garden forever, for we came to be with Christ and now that He is with us, we need to take Him back into the world. Having come to this place and recharged our batteries, we know have the strength that is needed to work for peace and justice, for hope and possibility in this world.

If we do not come to garden every now and then, then the cost of being Christ’s follower, of being His servant, is that we will become like the people of Christ’s time, unable to feel the Spirit or truly be God’s people. But, as Christ did so many times when the pressure of the world began to burden Him, we can come to the garden and become recharged and renewed, able to face the tests that the world places in front of us.

So we have come to the garden; now we leave, refreshed and recharged, able to be Christ’s disciple and servant.

Family Values

Now, this isn’t a blog about Governor Sanford and his problems, though we are reminded that when one “preaches” about one set of values and then lives and entirely different set of values, it is very difficult for people to hear the truth.

And while I am saddened by the death of Michael Jackson, it isn’t that high on my list of concerns. But, depending on what the autopsy finds and what that means for each one of us, I think that Farrah Fawcett’s death was more important (even if it did get pushed back because of Michael Jackson’s death). I say that her death was more important because she died of cancer.

But instead of hearing about research on cancer treatment and what needs to be done, we are going to be (and are being bombarded) with reports about Michael Jackson and his problems. It makes me wonder what our values truly are.

Why are we not more concerned about the state of health care in this country today? Why are we not pushing for active research in curing disease and removing the curse and scourge of cancer from our lives? Why are we not fighting for a more equitable health care program that reduces the cost of healthcare?

Now, I know one of the arguments being made today about healthcare and the efforts of the present administration to reform healthcare is that we don’t want the government telling us who we can see and what can be done? I agree with the concept of not having some bureaucrat telling me how my healthcare should be managed but tell me how having a bureaucratic insurance company is better than the government? Besides, Medicare is a government-run program and a very successful one at that.

To tell me that insurance companies, which are only interested in profits for themselves, is a better alternative than the government is really stretching the point. Insurance companies in the healthcare business are getting rich at the expense of individuals and I would not be surprised if the number of uninsured individuals in this country is not on the rise.

I always find it interesting how we bandy about the term “Christian nation”, especially when it is used by individuals who are not willing to lead Christian lives. It is no wonder that the Christianity is threatened today but the threat comes from those who use the label without using its meaning.

Consider what happened to Jesus. At the end of the 3^rd chapter of Mark, Jesus’ mother, brothers, and sisters came looking for him.

Just then his mother and brothers showed up. Standing outside, they relayed a message that they wanted a word with him. He was surrounded by the crowd when he was given the message, “Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside looking for you.”

Jesus responded, “Who do you think are my mother and brothers?” Looking around, taking in everyone seated around him, he said, “Right here, right in front of you—my mother and my brothers. Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3: 31 – 35)

Jesus redefined the family; if we are part of that family, then isn’t time that we started caring for the family. Isn’t time we put some value to the term “family values”?

————————————-

This is cross-posted to RedBlueChristian