Rev. Dr. John Judson
November 19, 2017 Listen Print Version Exodus 20:1-17; Matthew 22:36-40 He lost it. My father just lost it. In order to understand why this matters, you have to understand that my father was, and is, one of the quietest, least volatile and grounded men I have ever known. He never lost his temper. He seldom even got angry. Yet one night at the dinner table he lost it. He lost is because I said something snarky to my mother. I was one of those teens who often spoke before putting the brain in gear. The instant the words left my mouth, my father’s voice rose and he thundered that I would never speak to my mother in that manner and that I would apologize that instant. Though I suppose I had known all along that this was not appropriate behavior, my father made it clear that one of our family rules was that we were not to say hurtful things to our mother. Family rules…how many of you had them growing up? How many of you had the same kind of rule that I had about how you could or could not address your parents? Right, so what I want you to do this morning is to organize your mind around the idea of family rules because that is what we are presented with this morning in this Exodus text; God’s family rules. I realize that for many of us, the Ten Commandments, or as they are sometime referred to, the Ten Words, are laws, not simply family rules. Yet, I would argue that they are family rules and not some set of generic rules like Hammurabi’s Code or even a universal set of religious laws. I say this because they are the rules God gave to Israel, and to no one else, in order that Israel become the kind of family God desired them to be; and by extension that we become the kind of community God desires us to be. The Hebrew people needed these family rules because the only family rules that they had as they entered the wilderness were Egyptian family rules; rules that were based on power, privilege, slavery and oppression. They were rules that had people worshipping multiple gods including Pharaoh himself. God had a different vision for the kind of family God wanted to create and so God gives the people a set of 613 family rules. As Rev. Joanne said a couple of weeks ago, it was going to be impossible for people to keep all of these family rules. So, the question becomes can we find an easy way to sum them up? There is, and it is contained in a single Aretha’s word…R.E.S.P.E.C.T. I realize that using the word respect may seem a bit odd considering that Jesus, when asked to sum up the law does so using the word love. You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And then You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So why I am using respect? I am doing so for three reasons. First, I think that we use love God and neighbor so much that it has become no more than background noise. Oh yeah, we are to love God and neighbor, yawn. Second, I am using it because love carries with it so much baggage that is often hard for us to get at the heart of what it means to love God and neighbor. Does it mean we have to have an emotional attachment; do we have to feel loving? Finally, I am using respect because the word carries within it the essence of what loving God and neighbor is all about, which I hope we will see as we continue. So here goes. First, we are to respect God. Here, I am defining respect as giving honor, reverence and deference. One of the interesting things about the Bible, which we often miss, is that God always gives God’s people reasons to be respectful to God’s own self; to give God honor, reverence and deference. God never says, I am God and you are not, so bow down, and grovel. Instead God always sets the idea of respecting God’s self in the history of the mighty acts of God, with and for God’s people. In this case, all family rules are offered in the context, as noted in verse one, that God is the one who brought the people out of captivity in Egypt. In other words, God’s people are to respect God because God has earned their respect, by setting them free. For us as Christians we are to honor God for the same reason, that God has set us free from the power of sin to corrupt our lives, and freed us to become the people God desires us to be. The gift of giving respect to God then is that it orients us toward the steadfast love, the covenant faithfulness, of God that is continually liberating us to be God’s family of compassion and care. Second, we are to respect others. This is the second half of this section of God’s family rules. Here I am using the definition of respect as having due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others. Again, just as respect for God was based in God’s earning respect through God’s liberating actions, this respect toward others is based in the belief that all human beings are children of God, created equally by God. This is a concept emerging out of the creation story; that God created all people equally. None is greater than the other. We can see this in the way Israel was organized. There was no hierarchy. Though there were priests and leaders, they were not to lord it over others. They simply had different tasks. Even kings were only present to ensure that equality reigned. Thus, all were due respect because all were equal. This respect then leads to people maintaining the integrity of others’ lives, property, relationships and families because no one had the right or position to do otherwise. By giving due regard, appropriate boundaries were created, insuring that the family did not dissolve into chaos. I began by talking about family rules; about how the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Torah are not generic laws, but are family rules, intended to mold God’s people into a particular kind of respectful, loving family. What this means is that the Commandments were never intended to be imposed on others. What that does not mean is that at least a portion of them were intended to be extended toward others. One of the key understandings of God’s family rules is that the respect shown to those within the community, the respect shown to our family members, is also intended to be shown to those outside the family. The Torah makes it clear that respect is to be show to strangers and sojourners. Jesus makes this clear, when he is asked about who our neighbors are, and he responds by the telling the story of the good Samaritan. By which Jesus lets us know that our respect is to be given to all that we encounter. The reason for this is the same reason that we are to give respect to those inside the community; we are all children of God, made in the image of the creator. And our membership in the family does not make us any better than those who are outsiders. Before I close I want to speak to this moment in which we find ourselves. We find ourselves in a moment in which people are finally speaking out about sexual harassment and family violence. This includes verbal, emotional, sexual and physical violence both in the home and in the work place. As children of God, whose family rule is that of respect; respecting the integrity of all other human beings, these actions are unacceptable. They are directly contrary to the rules that God has set before us and of the love that Jesus asks of us all. Therefore I hope all you will work toward making our homes and our communities, zones of R.E.S.P.E.C.T.; zones in which all human beings can discover the respect that they deserve. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. is what we are to give God and to give to all of those around us; attuning our hearts and ears to God and living as God directs; and respecting the rights and integrity of others. My challenge to you then in this week is this, to repeat this phrase, “R.E.S.P.E.C.T. this is what God expects of me.” And then asking yourselves, how am I showing the respect God calls upon me to offer throughout my week. Rev. Dr. John Judson
November 12, 2017 Listen Print Version Exodus 16:1-8; Matthew 8:18-22 So, what is America’s greatest pastime? Is it baseball? Is it football? Is it Wheel of Fortune? Well if you voted for any of those, or some other, I want to offer and alternative. And the alternative is the “If Only” game. What is the If Only game? It is the game we all play when we say, “If only I…” and then you fill in the blank. If only I had bought Amazon ten years ago? If only I had learned Spanish? If only I had studied a little harder. If only I was a little taller, faster, smarter, better looking…you get my point. The wonderful thing about the If Only game is that everybody can play it. You don’t need any special equipment. You don’t even need lessons. You can just play it. In fact, how many of you have ever played the If Only game? And for those of you who haven’t, you can do it now. If only I had played the If Only game. So why does this game matter this morning. It matters because it was the game the Israelites were playing when they came out of Egypt. To be sure that we are all on the same page, let’s recap. The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. Things got so bad that they cried out for help. God heard their cry and sent Moses and Aaron to work for their release. Pharaoh was not so keen on letting them go so God, through Moses, brought on the Egyptians a series of plagues, the last one being so terrible that the people were set free. As we heard last week, Pharaoh changed his mind and sent his troops after God’s people. With a mighty hand God defeated the Egyptians and the Israelites traveled into the wilderness to a nice oasis, where they camped for a while. Everyone still with me? Good. We pick up the story this morning with the Israelites leaving the oasis and traveling into a food desert…literally, a food desert. They assume that they will starve to death, and it is in that moment when they begin to play the If Only game. “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” If only…it is an ancient game. Again, you may still be wondering why it matters that they were playing the If Only game. The answer is that the If Only game can cause people to take their lives out of drive and put them in another gear. I know that sounds cryptic, but bear with me. When God set the people free from slavery, God did not do so because these people were nicer, kinder or better looking than any other people, but because God had something for them to do. God had a task for them to accomplish. And that task was to bless the world; something which God wanted them to do from the Land of Promise. It was to be the base from which this blessing would flow. For that to happen however, the Israelites needed to avoid getting stuck in the wilderness and instead proceed directly to the Land of Promise. The problem with the If Only game, as I said, is that it could cause them to either reverse their direction or to simply hunker down and not move at all. Either of which would be disastrous for God’s world-wide plan of blessing. First, the If Only game can cause people to put themselves into reverse. This is what is happening in the story this morning. “If only you had left us to die in Egypt.” This type of If Only game is one that breeds nostalgia. If only things were like they once were. If only we could go back to the way life once was, then everything would be wonderful. All they could remember were non-existent pots filled with meat and the goodies of life. They had forgotten that things had been so terrible that they had cried out for deliverance. On a deeper level though, the problem with this kind of If Only game for the Israelites was that if they went back to Egypt, then the blessing would not flow out into the world. It would once again be trapped in slavery. Unfortunately, the church has often played this If Only game; if only we could go back to the way things were life would be perfect. We can see this in the Nashville Statement, where a group of conservative pastors got together and issued a statement declaring that any church that accepted LGBTQ persons into membership was not a Christian Church. What they were doing was telling those of us who are fully inclusive congregations, if only you went back to excluding people, back to taking back the blessing, then we will include you in our community. If only you put yourself in reverse, then everything will be fine; except for the fact that the blessing, would no longer flow to all. Second, the If Only game can put us in neutral. This is what the Israelites were about to do. Returning to our story, the Israelites were going to be fed. God would give them manna in the morning and quail in the afternoons. They would also be given clothing that never wore out. Suddenly life was not going to be so bad. However, the problem here was that when they reached the edge of the Land of Promise and were told there were giants and powerful nations ahead, they said, “If only we could stay here we would be safe. If only you didn’t make us go any farther we will be just fine.” They were happy to stay where they were. Again, this is what white churches said to Dr. Martin Luther King in Birmingham. If only you will let things stay as they are, we will all be fine. Sure, we know that blacks are not treated well, but if only you just stop here, then one day, someday, we will do something about it, but just let things stay as they are. If only you put yourself in neutral, then everything will be fine; except for the fact that the blessing, would no longer flow to all. These last couple of weeks show us why we need to be in drive. We watched as one more time a man with mental illness accessed and used a weapon to kill innocent men, women and children. We watched once again as twenty-six young women trying to escape from Africa to Europe drown in the Mediterranean. We watched once again as people used hate speech to demonize “the other.” We watched at Alcott as dedicated teachers struggled with overcrowded classrooms and often hungry children. In other words, watched a world still in need of the blessing of God. Still in need knowing the love of God as poured out in Jesus. Still in need of compassion and support. Still in need. In the face of all of this, I want to let you know that you, that we, are a congregation in drive. We are a launching pad for blessing here and around the world. We are a launching pad because we teach our children and youth about the love of God and help them become kind and compassionate followers of Jesus. We are a launching pad for blessing through our support of Alcott, children in Foster Care and the Ruth Ellis Center. We are a launching pad because we offer our building without cost to a counseling center and an organization that supports children and adults with special needs. We are a launching pad because we serve the homeless and the hungry. We are a launching pad because we support missionaries who work to prevent human trafficking and child marriage. We are a church in drive that is making a difference in the world. Even so we are still susceptible to the If Only game. As we look at the needs of the world we could still say, if only someone else would feed the families at Alcott. If only the government would solve all our problems. If only someone else would show compassion and care for the homeless. If only we had more people, more resources, more…maybe we should just shift into neutral and coast. Yet God may be leading you to show us the next place where we need to be in drive. Yet God may be opening your eyes to a need that we might meet. So, don’t play the If Only game. If God is leading you, come and see me and say, here is where we need to be in drive, and we will see what we can do about it. Keeping it in drive. This is our challenge. And my challenge to you is this, to ask yourselves, how am I helping to keep this community in drive, that we might keep launching God’s blessings out into the world. Rev. Joanne Blair
November 5, 2017 Listen Print Version Exodus 14; Matthew 23:1-12 Most of us here are familiar with the movie “The Ten Commandments” in which Charlton Heston plays Moses. And if you are like me (before the days of streaming, and cable, and DVD’s), you couldn’t wait until it came around on TV each year. The entire story of Moses is a “crowd favorite” … rich with drama, action and miracles. In the “Crossing of the Sea”, we cheer when the Israelites escape from the Egyptians, and we group these two peoples into the “good guys and bad guys.” But in so doing, we often miss the point of the real battle. The real battle is between competing sovereignties- Pharaoh and Yahweh. The real issue is not the rescue or liberation of Israel, but the triumph of Yahweh over Pharaoh. When things get tough and we can’t see the outcome, we often revert back to the familiar, even though it is damaging or leads us away from trusting God. This is what happened to the Israelites in verse 12, when they say: “Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” Although the Israelites were challenging Moses and not Yahweh in this statement, Moses needed to remind them that Yahweh was surely active and pivotal in this crisis. Yahweh is always active and pivotal… we just might not understand how. The entire story of chapter 14 in the book of Exodus is really a spectacular reversal of the means of power. It stands not only as a witness to the power of Yahweh, … it is also a call to faith. Scripture is all about turning the tables of unjust power, and acknowledging that God is, ultimately, in charge. And Jesus calls us… all of us… to live out our faith in such a way. When Jesus challenges the scribes and the Pharisees in our reading from Matthew, he is not challenging the root of the teachings. Rather, he is challenging their inconsistent practice of such teachings. It is important to understand the role that the scribes and the Pharisees played. The scribes (although not officially a sect) were a professional class that acted somewhat as lawyers. They were highly educated … schooled in the Jewish tradition and how to apply it to current day issues. The Pharisees were mostly educated laypersons whose original intent was to make the “every day” holy… and they sought to do this by applying Jewish law to everything. While their original goal was to increase faithfulness to the law in the living of everyday life, they did this by pulling out 613 laws from the Old Testament and viewing them as personal requirements for all Jews. Among the Sadducees, the Essenes, the Zealots, and the Pharisees, the Pharisees were the only sect that survived after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. They were the primary challengers against Matthew’s community by demanding fidelity to the Torah. The Pharisees applied the priestly purity laws to all Jews as markers of identity … those things necessary to live the life of a good Jew. But in telling people that they must fulfill the 613 laws in order to live lives pleasing to God, they set an unrealistic burden upon the shoulders of those who sought to follow the faith. An unrealistic burden that they themselves did not fulfill. Moreover, their focus on the 613 rules often neglected the more important issues of love and justice, which were paramount to Jesus’ message. Of course, I am not deriding rules and regulations. We have often spoken here of the importance of rules in our lives to bring order out of chaos, and ensure safety and well-being. But these were 613 rules and regulations one supposedly needed to follow to guarantee living a life pleasing to God. And Jesus was certainly not against rules and regulations. He reminded his followers more than once of the importance of the law. But the scribes and Pharisees provided such rich fodder for Jesus by repeatedly falling so very short of the ideals they preached. Their human nature prevented them from consistently practicing what they preached. And we have the same human nature. Do we also provide rich fodder for Jesus’ critiques? As a pastor, I am considered to be a church leader. And as we close in on the beginning of Advent, I find myself drooling over the ministry catalogs … wondering if I dare treat myself to a new stole for the liturgical season. But do my robe and stole make me a better Christian? Do they make any of my words more meaningful or more authentic? I like wearing a robe on Sunday, as it takes the pressure off what I’m wearing. And I’ve told you before that I like the stoles. I enjoy reflecting the liturgical season. But more important … crucial in fact … is that I am called to remember that they are not decorations… nor are they status symbols. Rather these stoles represent the yoke that Jesus calls us to put on. His yoke. And I am called… we are all called… to put on his yoke and remember that we are to serve Christ (and therefore others) with a humble heart. Our robes and stoles and titles, our phylacteries and fringes- they all have their place. Jesus’ concern, was and is, how these things can get out of perspective. Jesus’ concern, was and is, when anything becomes a substitute for that which we are truly called to: living as disciples and glorifying God. Our culture sends very mixed messages. The pages of fashion magazines tell us what we should be wearing to fit in with the crowd. Yet at the same time, we are constantly encouraged to stand out, to be individuals, to show what makes us special. What makes us special is that we are God’s. We not only belong to God… we are loved by God. It’s as simple as that. And we live out that love by sharing it with others. We are called by Jesus to be brothers and sisters who do not need other humans to decide whether or not we are worthy. The point of this passage is the true nature of discipleship. And of whom we are disciples. We all have a part in this. As Jesus challenges the Pharisees whose self-importance got in the way, so he challenges us. But Jesus also challenges the weak and the oppressed, who sometimes withdraw from God and neighbor as if they have nothing to offer. In her book Transforming Grace: Christian Tradition and Women’s Experience, Anne E. Carr writes: “Sin is… the breaking of relationship both with God and with human beings that can take the form of weakness as well as pride in its denial of human responsibility.” We are all called - weak and strong, rich and poor. We are all called to lead our lives in honor of the one true God … humbly and gratefully obedient to the one ultimate power. The final, pivotal intention in our story from Exodus is not freedom for the Israelites. It is Yahweh’s glory. The final, pivotal intention in our story from Matthew is not to unravel the Pharisees. It is to remind us that God is the one ultimate authority. And we glorify God not by following 613 rules, but by following two: Love God and love your neighbor. “There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:31) All of us have leadership roles in one capacity or another. Whether the leader in a corporation, a team, a family, a workgroup… we all have, or will have, leadership roles in our lives. But there is only one supreme leader. There is only one ultimate power. And so my question for this week is, “How is my ‘everyday life’ a reflection of following the leader?” Let us pray: Almighty and Gracious God, We give thanks for your steadfast love of us. Help us, guide us to be servant-leaders. Amen. Rev. Dr. John Judson
October 29, 2017 Listen Print Version Ephesians 2:1-10 A real buried treasure. It’s out there. A small box full of gold nuggets and jewels. I know it’s out there north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. I know it’s out there because no one has found it yet. Yes, you heard me correctly there is indeed a buried treasure worth a small fortune. It was buried out in the desert by Forrest Fenn, an art collector, who wanted to get people up off the couch and get them hiking and exploring. It was buried out there to once again give people a sense of adventure. And how, might you ask, can you find this real-life treasure? You can find it by looking for clues in a twenty-four line poem that Fenn wrote. He said that no one will find it by accident, but that if they look closely enough at the clues and do some exploring then the treasure will be theirs. So, how many of you ever dreamed of buried treasure? Maybe it was pirate treasure. Maybe it was a copy of the US Constitution that someone found in an old picture frame…true story. Or maybe the guy who found one of the 47 remaining Tucker 48 automobiles in a barn in Ohio. Well if you have, I have a treat for you this morning because buried right here, in this sanctuary, are treasure boxes, complete with clues, that will lead us to the greatest treasure in the world. Let’s begin with the treasure boxes. They look like this (hold up one of the pew Bibles). Now, before you grab one out of the pew racks, let me tell you why I call these Bibles buried treasure. They were buried treasure because for almost a thousand years, no one was allowed to open them or read them. They were kept locked away so that only authorized persons could discover what was in them. Priests and church scholars were allowed in to them. But people like us, ordinary people, we were not allowed to read them. And not only that, but it was not allowed to translate the Bible into the language of the people. To do so brought death. Yes, you heard me correctly. To translate the Bible was done on the penalty of death, because those who held the treasure chest did not want anyone else to have it. With that in mind, I would like all of you to take out the treasure box and hold it. You may have to share, but I hope everyone will have one that they can look in. Now. Let’s go looking for the clues. Just like Fenn did with his twenty-four-line poem, the scriptures are filled with clues as to the location of the treasure. This morning we will look at three of them and they can all be found in the passage we read this morning, Ephesians 2:1-10. Specifically, we are looking at verses 8-10. The first clue then is the word “grace”; “For by grace you have been saved.” Grace is one of those words that lots of people try to define. But if we are to take hold of how it acts as a clue, I want to offer an illustration of grace. This illustration comes from Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son. The son, if you remember, disrespects his father, leaves home, wastes his money and then decides to go home where he expexts to be a slave to his father. Instead, when his father sees him, the father runs to him with arms wide open and embraces him. This is grace. It is God’s attitude of arms of love wide open for all people, ready to embrace them in love. The second clue, is the word “faith”: “You have been saved by grace through faith.” Again, people have argued at length about what faith means. So, again, rather than trying to define it, I want to illustrate it. Faith, is what the son demonstrated when he fell into his father’s arms, knowing he did not deserve to be embraced. Remember, the son expected to be treated like a slave. He expected to have to earn his way back into his father’s love, if that were even possible. But when the father celebrated the son’s return with a party, the son accepted his father’s embrace, trusting that this was not a dream, but that his father’s love was real. This is faith, that we are willing to fall into the arms of a loving God, even when we have not been the perfect children. The third and final clue can be found in verse 10, in the words ‘Christ Jesus”; “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” There are many ways to think about Jesus. There are lots of theological propositions we could make. But again, let me use an image rather than words. After the father embraces the son, the father calls for the robe and the ring. These are placed on the son and in so doing the son is once again part of the family. He is no longer an outsider or a servant, he is family. This is what Jesus Christ does for us. Christ not only embraces us, but makes us part of God’s world-wide inclusive family. Thus, we become part of the church, not through our “goodness” but through the actions of Jesus Christ on the cross. Those are our clues. What then is the treasure? The treasure is that each of us is loved unconditionally by a gracious, faithful and inclusive God. It is that regardless of who we are or what we have done, God is rushing toward us with open arms, ready to embrace us; ready to make us part of God’s one-world family. Some may ask, why is this a treasure? Let me ask a question in response. How many of you have ever had a B.B. King day? What I mean by that comes from the title of one of my favorite songs of his, “Nobody Loves Me but My Mother, and She Could be Jiving Too.” In other words, to have a B.B. King day is to have one of those days when the people you trust the most, your closest friends, the people you think you can count on, suddenly act as if you don’t exist. Or, like you feel when you have done something you regret and have hurt someone and you wonder if anyone loves you. You wonder if you are worth being loved. It is on those days that this book becomes a treasure, reminding you that there is always someone who loves you; that there is a God who loves you completely and unconditionally and has made you part of a family. This is the treasure of the Reformation; that we live in the love of God always believing that God is for us. My challenge for you then is this, to ask yourselves, how am I allowing God to embrace me that I might embrace all of those I meet. Rev. Dr. John Judson
October 22, 2017 Listen Print Version Exodus 13:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22 My wife Cindy is a proud graduate of the Doris Seiler School for Fine Finished Young Ladies. If you have never heard of this exclusive academy, that is ok because only those who were daughters, granddaughters and great granddaughters of Doris Seiler were ever admitted. As a granddaughter of Doris Seiler, Cindy was taught such things as, “You can always tell a lady by her hands.” She was also taught the mortal obligation of thank-you notes. What I mean by that is that perhaps one’s soul was at risk if you did not write notes. I had watched Cindy perfect this art prior to our marriage. At her wedding showers, she would be sure that meticulous notes were kept as to who gave what so she could write a personal thank you to each giver. But I did not discover how far this extended until our honeymoon. The day after our wedding before we headed out we stopped by Cindy’s mom’s house to finish opening wedding gifts and completing the list. That night when we stopped for the evening and it was time for bed. I snuggled in with my new bride. She smiled at me. Then she handed me five thank you notes to write with these words. “You write to your friends and family. I will write to mine and if we do five thank you notes a night we will be finished before our honeymoon is over.” Sexier words had never been spoken. I want to stop here for a moment and take a poll. How many of you have ever written a thank-you note? A thank-you email? A thank-you text or tweet? Or, simply said thank you to someone who has done something for you? Great, then we all have this sense that even though there are different ways of saying thank you, we all know that we are supposed to do so, even though we were not graduates of the Doris Seiler School for Fine Finished Young Ladies. And in fact, I would guess there are times when gratitude simply flows out of us because we are so thankful. I would guess in some way the Israelites felt the same way. They had become slaves, had cried out to God, God heard them and then had set them free. God had even destroyed the Egyptian army in the process. Not a bad job. Their problem then was, how to say thank you? Fortunately, they did not have to think too hard about this because God told them. They would become graduates of the I Am who I Am, school for fine, finished God followers. And here is how they were to say thank you. First, they were to give; to give their best. God tells them that they were to consecrate the first to open the womb among the Hebrews, of human beings and animals, as belonging to God. For many cultures around the Hebrews to dedicate something meant to literally sacrifice it in order to “feed the gods.” This was not the intent of dedication in the Israelite culture. Though the Hebrews would develop a sacrificial system, it was not because God was hungry, but by offering their best, they would orient themselves appropriately to God. As Jesus would later say, our hearts are where our treasures are. Thus, when the people gave their best to God, their hearts were turned toward God. And by being turned toward God their lives would be blest by all that God was offering to them and to the world. This part of the thank you was as much for the people as it was for God. Second, they were to remember. They were to remember by acting out the story of deliverance. “Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt…seven days you shall eat unleavened bread and on the seventh there will be a festival to the Lord.” In other words, this saying thank-you to God was not to be a one-time event. It was instead to be a continuing remembrance of what God had done. On the surface, this may appear to be God saying, “I’m not ever satisfied with one thank you and I need you to keep on stroking my ego.” But it is not. This act of thanksgiving was intended to remind the people of the kind of God that they worshipped. The kind of God they followed. This God was a loving, liberating God who would be present when they were in need. This was the God who would continue to set them free from the forces that bound them. This was a God they could count on. This part of the thank you was for the people as much as it was for God. Finally, they were to tell. They were to tell this story to their children. “You shall tell your child on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.” One of the problems with human beings is that we forget. We forget what others have done for us. We forget that there have been those who helped us. And so when we find ourselves in difficult circumstances we wonder if there is anyone to help us; anyone to whom we can turn? And the Hebrews had been no different. When they were in Egypt they had slowly forgotten the God who had saved them in the past; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. By telling the story to their children they would insure that people would remember God’s saving love from generation to generation. This is why, at the Passover Seder, it is the children who ask the four great questions, beginning with “Why is this night different from all other nights?” By passing down their story, the Hebrews would remember the one to whom they could turn. We are only here this morning because for the last 2,500 years men and women have been giving thanks to God in the manner laid out in this text. We are here because men and women have been consecrating their best to the service of God’s people; to their synagogues and rabbis, to their churches and pastors. We are here because men and women have been remembering the wonderful things that God has done. We are here because men and women have been celebrating Passover and the Eucharist; remembering God’s saving love in Egypt and in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We are here because men and women have been telling their children the stories of God’s love and faithfulness; because men and women have been giving thanks to God in ways that pass faith from generation to generation. As Jesus’ followers, we are called to do the same. We are called to give our best to God. We are not simply to offer our left-overs, but to give the best of our time, talents and treasures to the God who loves and guides us. We are to reenact the Jesus’ story on a regular basis through communion as a reminder that Jesus loved us enough to give up his life for us and for the world. We are to tell these things to our children, through bedtime prayers, home rituals, Sunday school and by inviting them at the 10am service to ask the questions that shape our story. In this way, our children as they grow will remember that God is always present in their lives. The challenge for us this Sunday then is to remember the lessons we have learned from the “I Am who I Am” school for fine finished followers, and to ask ourselves, how am giving thanks to God in such a way as to ensure that these thanks will continue to be offered by generations to come. Rev. Dr. John Judson
October 15, 2017 Listen Print Version Exodus 5:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14 It was the path to adultery, divorce, murder and little children left orphaned. It was the devil’s work and it had to be outlawed. And so in 1933, Anson, Texas outlawed dancing. I was made aware of this fact back in the late sixties when my family was making our annual pilgrimage from the heat of Houston to the cool of Estes Park, Colorado. Somewhere in deep west Texas we must have passed s sign for Anson, and my father said, Yep, no “dancin” in Anson.” Wanting to know more I asked and he explained that years before the city council had outlawed all public dances. So from then on, whenever we would drive past the turnoff to Anson, we would all say, no “dancin” in Anson. You may be asking yourselves this morning, what does no “dancin” in Anson have to do with Pharaoh and a parable about a party. The answer is that in each of our stories there was someone wanting to throw a party and someone trying to stop it. The person in both the stories wanting to throw the party is God. As the Grateful Dead put it, “Then God way up in heaven, for whatever it was worth, thought he’d throw a big old party. Thought he call it planet earth.” That sentiment, that God was throwing a big old party is at the heart of the scriptures. It is a party of freedom, love, abundance and peace. The Old Testament describes it as the ability of persons to live freely under their own vine and fig tree, eating the produce of their hands. It is the ability of people to live in peace where the lion lays down with the lamb and swords are turned into plowshares. In the New Testament, we hear stories of a messianic banquet and of a new heaven and earth in which everyone will have enough and peace will reign. We see this in our Exodus text, where the people want to go to the wilderness to have a festival of celebration to their God; and to do so in freedom and peace. In Jesus’ parable, it is the king who is throwing the party of abundance, desiring that everyone attend and share in all that the king offers. In our stories as well, as I said, are those who want to keep the party from happening. In the Exodus story, it is Pharaoh who wants to keep the party from happening. And he does so not only by refusing to allow the Hebrews to go a day’s journey to worship, but he makes their lives harder so that they will not ask again for freedom, abundance, love and community. In our parable it is, interestingly enough, those who are invited to the party who want it stopped. We see this in that rather than simply saying no to the invitation, they seize the slaves, mistreat and murder them. God wants a party of freedom, love, abundance and peace…and there are those who do not want anyone to attend. At this juncture, we have two choices as to where we go from here. We could focus on attempting to figure out why some people don’t want to get the party started and focus on “those people.” Or we could focus on our response to the invitation to the party; because we have been invited. For those of you who have been here a while, you know where we are going…we are going to see what should be our response to the invitation to the messianic party. First, we are to show up. I have heard it said that half of being successful is simply showing up. And what showing up here means is showing up in the community in which the party is taking place. It is showing up in a community of freedom, love and abundance. I say this because, while we can encounter God on our own, you can’t really have a party of one. A party is a community event in which together people experience and share the abundance of love that God offers to the world. It is that banquet to which people are invited by the king. There is no ordering out and home delivery. Granted, I know that I am, and I have always wanted to say this, preaching to the choir, because you all are here this morning. But it is a reminder that each of us adds to the party and the party adds something to us. So we are to show up to the party each and every week. The second response is that we are to show up with arms wide open. Again, if we follow Jesus parable, we see that when those who ought to want to go to the party refuse, the King invites everyone from the highways and byways…and here is the kicker, both good and bad. In other words, everyone is invited. For first century Jews, this concept of inviting good and bad would have been shocking. It would have been shocking because the concept of God was that God only wanted to party with the good people; the proper people. But Jesus says otherwise. One of the realities of humanity is that we are tribal. By that I mean that we naturally gravitate toward people like ourselves. We have tribes based on the color of our skin. We have tribes based on our educational level. We have tribes based on how we felt about the outcome of last week’s MSU-Michigan game. The party that God is throwing is to be an “un-tribe” party. It is one in which our arms are wide open inviting in everyone…and I mean everyone. We are called to help all people discover the joy of freedom, love, abundance and peace. We are to be a radically inclusive community. The third and final response to the invitation is that we show up with arms wide open and appropriately dressed. Over the years as I have taught this parable, it is the end of the parable that causes much consternation. After all, why should someone who has accepted the invitation to the party be cast out simply because they are not appropriately dressed? First, let me be clear that this has nothing to do with what one wears to church. Second, what this does have to do with is the attitude one wears when one comes to the party. This idea would have been clearly understood within first century Judaism. When one came into the synagogue or the Temple, one went through a ritual bath, symbolizing that one was leaving the old behind and putting on the new so one was ready to be transformed by God. Wearing the appropriate attire here means that we come ready to be changed by the party and its host. We come ready to be new people capable of living into and offer up freedom, love abundance and peace. Next week is pledge Sunday. On that day, we are asking all the members and friends of Everybody’s Church, to make a financial commitment, not simply to keep the institution running, but to the party. For you see, when we make a financial commitment to First Church, we are making a commitment to keeping the party going. A party in which people find the freedom to become the people God wants them to be. A party where people find God’s overwhelming love. A party where people share our abundance with others. A party where people find the peace of God in Jesus Christ. By pledging we participate in the great party of God’s kingdom and keep it going for all who need to find the joy God offers. So, what happened in Anson? Did they ever get to dance? The answer is yes. In 1987 the city council, against the wishes of the two largest churches in town, voted to allow dancing to return to the community. The first night, about 700 of the town’s 2,600 residents turned out. The crowd included people in their 80s, parents with children in strollers, teens and everyone in between. Together they experienced the joy of the Texas twostep, the Cotton Eye Joe and the schottische. And the proceeds from their dances have gone to fund a new youth community center in the town. The challenge for us is this, to ask ourselves, how am I helping to keep the party alive so that all people can discover the joy of freedom, love, abundance and peace that God has to offer? Rev. Joanne Blair
October 8, 2017 Listen Print Version Exodus 3:13-22; Matthew 21:23-32 What’s in a name? Do you know what your name means? After reading today’s passage from Exodus, I started to wonder about my own name. I know that some form of “Ann” follows back through the females on my mother’s side, but we have so little family history that I don’t know why, or where it began. My given name is “Joanne Lynne” and I know that my dad wanted the “e” on the end of both names because he thought it was pretty and more feminine, but that’s about all I know. When I looked up the meaning of my name, I learned that Joanne means “God is gracious”, and that Lynne means “from the lake, or beautiful waterfall.” I like those definitions, and their meanings are poetic and lyrical, but I also know that is not why I was named as I was. My parents just liked the names, and it worked “Ann” into the picture. In the ancient world, names were given with great intention, thought and meaning. Moses meaning “drawn out of the water” is a perfect example. (Just as a side note, notice that Jesus was named before he was born, and Jesus means “God is salvation.”) Someone’s name said something about the nature of the person who bore the name. And so it is no wonder that Moses asks God what God’s name is, for he wants to learn something about this God, just like the names of Egypt’s gods said something about them. Moses not only needed a name to give to others, he needed a name to express by whose power, qualifications and authority he was acting. Moses is essentially asking, “Who are you to send me before Pharaoh? Who are you to be promising deliverance? Who are you to set Israel free from Pharaoh?” And so, God tells him. Verse 14 from the 3rd chapter of Exodus is one of the most puzzled over verses in the whole Hebrew Bible. You cannot translate it exactly. Most common is “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” God continues to reveal God’s name in verse 15, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord [Yahweh], the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.” As God recruits and directs Moses, God is laying out God’s plans for the Israelites. God will not only take them to freedom, God will give them a future and the prospect of land… which leads to security. This is the future God promised to Abraham so long ago. And God keeps God’s promises, as a redistribution of wealth and of power is projected. Just as God challenged the power (and the misuse of it!) with Pharaoh, so Jesus challenged the power (and the misuse of it!) with the religious leaders of his day. The parable of the Wicked Tenants is not exactly one of the most beloved parables, and it has several faces. One face of this parable speaks to Jesus’ controversy with the chief priests and Pharisees… and hence, to all who abuse and misuse their power. It speaks to all those who have harmed or been harmed by the socially, religiously, and economically powerful. It reminds all of us of the promise of eventual divine justice and righteousness. But this parable can also leave us with a feeling of impatience and frustration. Why would God allow a bunch of tenants to partake in such violence? Why didn’t God do something? And why doesn’t God do something about all of the violence and suffering in the world today? You pick any news source and there are so many examples of people suffering. The events of the past couple of months certainly demonstrate this point in a myriad of ways. Natural disasters and a plethora of human-made tragedies. So many, and so big. At times we feel helpless and hopeless. The image of the vineyard in today’s parable which comes from Isaiah 5 was meant to be a symbol for Israel. Today, that same symbol represents the world, and we are now the tenants. And we need to be good tenants. We have been given a responsibility to care for this world and all that is in it, but sometimes we confuse this responsibility with power. Too often we forget to whom the vineyard belongs, and we try to keep it for ourselves. Sometimes it is intentional as we try to grab and hold on to all we can for our own elevation and use. But often it is unintentional. We’re good people. We provide and care for ourselves and those close to us… those in each of our own “personal circles.” Yet we are called to go beyond that. We are called to love and provide and care for those outside of “our circle” as well. We often forget that the world belongs to God, and not to us. It’s easy to do. I want to share something I came across. I have abbreviated it and I apologize that I cannot cite the author. “If we believe that we are the new tenants, then how are we doing? Are we harvesting the fruit of witness and compassion, mission and transformation? When the owner backs up the trucks to load the harvest, what will we have to load? Is the landowner pleased with us, the new keepers of the vineyard, or should we feel his judgement too? Whatever has happened in the past, the landowner still likes his fruit. Are we producing the kingdom harvest that the owner was hoping for?” This quote makes me wonder what my own personal harvest looks like. What can I do to make it more abundant? And what do the harvests of this community look like? Both of our Scripture readings today are about justice, and the usurping of unjust power. God continuously desires to be in relationship with us, and to have us be part of God’s team. But we must never forget to whom the ultimate power belongs. “I am who I am. I will be who I will be.” Israel had to wait for her deliverance, but it did come. Such is the pledge, the sureness, and the hope of all who know the Lord and trust in God’s active presence in the world. We cannot chart the workings of God on a computer or with a slide rule. We cannot know what God will do next, but we can freely choose to submit ourselves to align with God’s will. “I am who I am”… “I will be who I will be” … God is unchangeable in that God is always planning for justice. Our parents named us with or without much intention… yet God calls each and every one of us by name with great intention to be a part of God’s plan for the restoration of God’s Kingdom. And so the question this week is: What has God called me to do in restoring justice in this world? And how am I answering that call? Rev. Dr. John Judson
October 1, 2017 Listen Print Version Exodus 3:1-14 It was one of those creepy moments you never forget. I was a senior in college and I had gone out to visit a friend of mine and her husband who lived in Salt Lake City. As a good Mormon she wanted me to visit the Temple Visitor Center. I was part of a group of about twenty or thirty people and we had a wonderful guide. She took us through the center and gave us a great look at Mormon history and beliefs. As we were finishing and the crowd was breaking up, the guide walked over to me, stuck her finger in my chest and said, “God has something special for you to do.” Then she walked away. My first inner response was, “Who me?” And it was, who me, because not only were God and I not in regular communication but I barely believed in God at all. So why would this God have something special for me to do? I have occasionally wondered if this is the way that Moses must have felt on the day he encountered God at the physics defying burning bush. Most of us probably know the story but let’s just do a quick recap. Moses is hanging out with his sheep. As per usual, nothing much is happening. Suddenly he sees a bush that is on fire but is not being consumed. Thinking that this is an interesting sight, he saunters over to check it out. As he does, a voice speaks to him and calls his name. The voice warns Moses that he is only holy ground and so he ought to take off his shoes. The voice goes on to tell Moses that the speaker is none other than the God of his ancestors. This is enough to frighten Moses. But where it seems to get a bit creepy for him is when this God, whom Moses did not know, essentially says, “I have something special for you to do. I want you to go and set my people free.” This statement is enough to get Moses to respond as I did. Who me? Are you talking to me? This response from Moses makes more sense than most of us might imagine. If you look at his resume he hardly seems like the right guy for the job. Sure, he is all about justice as we discussed two weeks ago. But he is a wanted man in Egypt. He has no followers. He has no power. He has a family. He has a good job and makes a comfortable living. He is in fact a bit confused as to whether he is an Egyptian or a Hebrew. You put these things together and his response of, “who me?”, certainly seems like the right one. I would guess that at one time or another in all our lives, someone has come to us and told us that they have something special for us to do. And these requests are generally divided into two categories. The first category includes those special things that we had hoped someone would ask us to do. Maybe it is when our teacher comes up to us and says, I have something special for you to do, can you lead the class to lunch today. Or maybe it is doing the announcements. As we grow older it might be being asked to be a starter on a sports team, or the lead in a play, or to move up a chair in the band. Once we hit the working world we hope that our bosses or HR will come to us and say, we have something special for you to do, we want you to take this promotion and this new task. We love these kinds of special things that people ask us to do. The other kind of, I have something special for you do offers are those that come from God. And often these are not the kind of I have something special for you to do things, to which our usual response is, who me? Are you talking to me? When we get these requests, such as, “I want you to believe in and follow me.” “I want you to forgive those people who hurt you.” I want you to take some of your hard-earned money and give it to a ministry that helps the hungry or might impact those in Puerto Rico. I want you to show compassion for those people you have always looked down upon.” It is these kinds of, I have something special for you to do, requests that catch us off guard and become a bit creepy because they are often out of the normal scope of personal operations and we are not sure that we can do them. Like Moses, we think that these are things for which someone else might be better suited. And it is at those moments that our morning’s story offers us a gift. And that gift is that God stops Moses and says, “It’s not, who me? It’s us.” God’s response to Moses is not to give him some sort of pregame pep-talk, but it is to say very simply, “I will be with you.” The me, has turned into an us. Moses learns that this God who hears the cries of God’s children, is not a God who sends people out on solo-heroic quests. This is the God who will walk with Moses and then with the Hebrew people through thick and thin, good times and bad. And this is what you and I can count on when we feel God telling us that God has something special for us to do. Whether it is forgiving, serving, sacrificing or praying, we will not do it alone. God, through the presence of the Spirit, will be in our midst. It will be an “us” and not a “me.” The challenge for us then is to ask ourselves, what is that special thing that God wants us to do, and then to step out in faith and do it, believing that it is us who do it, and not me alone. Rev. Dr. John Judson
September 24, 2017 Listen Print Version Exodus 2:23-25; Matthew 20:1-16 They were everywhere. Everywhere we looked, there were piles of trash. Cindy I were in Houston this past week for my father’s 90th birthday. On our way to his house from the airport we passed rows and rows of houses with massive piles of trash out front. The piles were filled with wall-board, two-by-four studs, cabinets, mattresses and even kitchen sinks. As close as two blocks from my father’s house people were cleaning out all that had been damaged by Hurricane Harvey and the more than fifty inches of rain it had dropped on the Houston area. If there was a bright spot in all of this destruction, other than that many homes were not damaged, was the FEMA was present almost immediately after the rains stopped. While this may appear to be something that ought to happen, it did not always happen. It was in fact a lesson learned from Hurricane Katrina, where FEMA was caught flat-footed and unprepared to respond to that kind of a disaster. This time however FEMA had personnel and equipment in place to respond immediately. If you have that image of preparedness in your mind, I want you to transfer it to God, because this is the kind of God described in our Exodus lesson; one who is ready to respond when the need is present. Though the language of the Exodus story appears to say otherwise, the original Hebrew tells us that God had everything in place, ready to go whenever the Hebrew people cried out. What I mean by that is that God has everything in place to act when people cry out. Let’s take a quick tour of this text. First, the language of forgetfulness and waiting, is in fact the language of being actively interested and engaged. God “hears their groaning”, should be translated God hears and responds. It is a hearing that leads to action. God “remembers” is not simply that God forgot but that God is motivated to act by the covenant promise. To remember is to set in motion what was promised in the covenant. God “looked upon” the Israelites, means that God is in motion moving toward them. God “took notice of” them means that God is willing to get into the muck of ordinary life with the people. These are all action words based on God’s long term commitments, or covenants, toward the Hebrew people. Even so, it still begs the questions of, why did God and why does God sometimes appear to wait? I will answer that with a couple of questions to all of you. First, how many of you have ever given unasked for advice? How did that go for you? If your experience of that is similar to mine, the answer is not very well. Though we may have wonderful advice to offer, it is often not received well when someone has not asked for it. And in addition, it might not be well received even when people do ask for it, if it is not what they want to hear. Here is my second question. How many of you have been given advice for which you did not ask? The advice might have been about a bad financial decision, or brewing bad relationship. How did you respond to that? Probably not well. One of the ways to understand this dynamic comes from my favorite rabbi psychotherapist, the late Edwin Freedman. He once said that people can only hear you when they are coming toward you. What he means by this is, that only when someone is actively seeking our input, advice, and help will they at all be able to hear it and receive it. Only when we decide we need assistance will we take it. This is where God was with the Hebrews. They had not been turned toward God. They were not interested in having God act before this moment. Unlike the slaves that were brought to the new world, who had been ripped from their homes and families, and so were constantly seeking God’s help to survive and escape, the Hebrews had slowly evolved from being free people to slaves that were oppressed. Meaning that though they had been in slavery for hundreds of years, it had only become incrementally worse and worse, such that that they were never quite ready to cry out. It was only with a change in administration and the ensuing oppression that the people were ready to seek help. In a sense then, rather than God being on vacation from them, it was as if they had taken a vacation from God. And so only in this moment, this moment of desperation, were they ready to turn toward God and be open to the life-changing plan that God had in store for them. And they had to be ready not only to hear, but they had to be ready because what God in store for them was not going to be easy to do. It was not going to be easy because the first thing that God had in store for them was that they would not be liberated in place. They were going to have to be uprooted from everything that had known and experienced for the last four-hundred years. It would require them to move from the only home they had every known to a new and unfamiliar land. As we will soon discover this was not an easy transition. In the wilderness, they would complain and ask Moses to take them back home…to slavery because it was more predictable way of life. To hear this, the people had to be ready. They had to be turned to God. It was not going to be easy because the second thing that God had in store for them was that they were to become a new kind of people, living a new kind of life with a new set of laws and rules. This was because God had an assignment for them. God was not only going to bless them with freedom, with life and blessing if you will. But God was going to ask them to once again be the agents of life and blessings to the world. In other words, it could not be all about them. They were to be part of a larger world-transforming plan which would require them to do some hard work. To hear this, the people had to be ready. They had to be turned to God. This story comes with a gift and a challenge. The gift of this story is the knowledge that God is always ready to act when God’s power is required. The challenge of this story is that when we open ourselves to this seeking God, we better be ready because God will act not only on others, but God will ask a great deal of us. What about us then? Are we open to God? Are we open to the God who is constantly prepared to bless us that we might be a blessing to the world? Are we willing to have God turn our lives upside down? Are we willing to have God call us to do things that we would not otherwise think ourselves capable of doing? Are we willing to leave the comfortableness of our lives and strike out in new directions? For you see this is what God is about. God is not in the fairy-God mother business of tossing about some pixie-dust so that everything magically becomes OK. God is about the life-changing, world-changing work of blessing; of kingdom building; of resurrection. My challenge to you then is this, to ask yourselves, how am I opening myself to God in such a way that God can not only bless me, but use me as a blessing to the world? Rev. Dr. John Judson
September 17, 2017 Listen Print Version Exodus 2:11-22, Matthew 18:21-22 It was overwhelming. More than fifty inches of rain had fallen. Streets, homes were filled with water and bayous were overflowing. Across Houston men, women and children were trapped. Many of their lives were in danger not only because of the water that inundated their homes, but because they needed dialysis, or insulin or lifesaving medical procedures. Into this disaster stepped hundreds of Houstonians including Jose Contreras who worked six straight days as a paramedic rescuing the trapped. Into this disaster stepped Karla Perez and Oscar Hernandez who set up phone hotlines and dispatched volunteers with trucks to help people in flooded areas. Into this disaster stepped Sisters Karen and Paola Ramirez who made food for their stranded neighbors and ripped up rotting floorboards, then went to the George R. Brown Convention Center to help elderly people move their belongings. They are like so many Houstonians who helped, but with one difference. They are all dreamers, brought to this country illegally when they were children. They were able to come out of the shadows and become productive members of Houston society because of D.A.C.A., the Differed Action for Childhood Arrivals Program. But now with the end of D.A.C.A. six months away, I believe we ought to ask ourselves what would be the just thing for this nation to do for these heroes and the other 800,000 dreamers who are here? I ask the question in that way, what would the just thing be because justice is a word that people on both sides of the issue have been throwing around in their comments on how these Dreamers are to be dealt with. On the one side are those who want to expel these children turned adults from our country. The proponents of this action use justice in this way. Justice means obeying and enforcing laws that Congress makes and since they have not authorized this program, then justice means deporting all of the Dreamers. On the other side are those who believe that the Dreamers did not choose to come here, contribute to our nation, and ought to be treated with compassion and welcomed in. Two very different views of justice. And so this morning I am not going to choose one side of this debate or the other because it is a complex and multifaceted issue. What I will do however is help us to understand what justice in the Biblical sense is all about. I say this because justice is one of the key virtues of the God-following community. It is used more than 170 times in the Old and New Testaments. It is in fact considered to be an attribute of God, that God is just, and so is to be one of our attributes as well. The question again is, what does it mean and how ought it to be applied? Fortunately for us this morning we have a story in which three different aspects of justice are presented to us. In our Moses story we have three vignettes, each of which offers us a different, yet connected image of justice. I say this because Moses will become the great lawgiver, the one who shows the Hebrew people what justice looks like…and the justice in these three vignettes will become the basis for much of God’s law. So we will walk through them, allowing them to help us gain some insight into this Biblical understanding of justice. And as an aside, chances are I will irritate almost everyone in here with one of these vignettes, so let’s begin… Our first vignette: On the surface this story hardly seems to depict justice. Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Looking around and seeing no one, Moses kills the Egyptian. There you go, first degree murder, hardly justice. In order to find the justice here, we need to dig a little deeper however. Where we find the justice is in the Hebrew word beating, which does not describe a spanking or even a severe thrashing, but describes beating someone to death. What Moses was witnessing was a powerful Egyptian overseer killing a powerless slave. Justice in that moment became taking one life to preserve the life of another. This is not the only justice we see in the Apostle Paul’s statement that the government has the right to use the sword to defend itself and its people against those who would take life, but it is also the justice behind the Just War Theory. To flip this around, it would be unjust to let the powerful take the lives of the innocent when such an act could be prevented. Our second vignette: Again, this story hardly seems like a justice story. Moses is once again hanging out and sees two Hebrews fighting amongst themselves. Moses evidently knows the reason for their fight and addresses the one who is in the wrong asking, “Why are you hitting your brother?” The response is not what he is looking for. The Hebrew who was in the wrong refuses to allow Moses to be the judge (how ironic) and then threatens to expose Moses to the authorities for his murder of the Egyptian. So where is the justice here? Justice is in attempting to reconcile the two men by having the one at fault acknowledge his sin, thus allowing for restoration of the relationship. In a sense justice is bringing the truth to light and in so doing restoring relationships. The Apostle Paul in fact tells the church at Corinth that it has been called to the ministry of reconciliation. And if you want to know more about what that looks like, check out pastor Joanne’s sermon from last week. Our third Vignette: Of the three, this is the story that probably looks more like the way the word justice is normally used. Moses has fled into the wilderness and comes upon a group of male shepherds who had driven the seven daughters of a priest of Midian away from the well and its water, to which the daughters had rightful claim. The image here is of the daughters and their sheep dying of thirst. Moses however comes to their rescue, driving off the other shepherds. Sort of like an Egyptian-Hebrew Superman. Justice here is not only insuring that all people have access to the water, but that one’s right to life is maintained. And, by the way, notice, that Moses doesn’t kill these men, but simply drives them off. Justice was brought about without the loss of life, which is only to be used in extreme circumstances. What then is Biblical justice? I believe we can sum it up with the words I used in my last sermon; life and blessing. Justice is the effort to ensure that all human beings have access to life and blessing. If this sounds familiar, all we have to do is look to our nation’s Declaration of Independence where it is noted that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Justice is therefore neither rigid legalism nor unthinking compassion. It is the intentional work of people to insure that all human beings have access to life in its fullness and blessing such that they can experience the wholeness of the lives they have been given. At the beginning of this sermon I told you that I would not be choosing one side or the other in the DACA debate because the issue of immigration is so complex. I will also not be taking sides because justice has not only to do with immigration but with what happens to foster children. It has to do with education. It has to do with access to clean water. It has to do with access to affordable housing. It has to do with adequate transportation. Justice is a Biblical mandate…that we do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God. My challenge to you for this week then is this, to choose one issue our society faces and bring justice to bear upon it. To ask how are the people affected by this issue experiencing the fullness of life and the blessings of God; then do something about it as God’s people of justice. |
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