"A Refresher Course in Thanksgiving"

First Congregational Church of Los Angeles ...

Philippians 4.4-14

In my seventy-first year of life …

My forty-eighth year of marriage …

My forty-fifth year of ordination …

My third year of grandparenting …

I’ve learned a few things …

In all likelihood, just a few …

But of those lessons learned … 

If I could go back in time, one thing I’d do is pay a little more attention to the people around me …

The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker …

And Mrs. Blout … she led opening exercises for Sunday School, every Sunday morning, at the Third Presbyterian Church in Altoona, PA … I would spend a little more time with her … to know her story … what made her laugh, what made her cry … her faithfulness … I’d pay a little more attention to Mrs. Blout.

A spiritual exercise I learned years ago …

Walk a street slowly … look at things … small things … sidewalk paving stones … a gum wrapper tossed aside … a pop can in the gutter … ponder the story in each of them … someone designed that pop can … someone slacked their thirst with its contents … someone threw it aside when they were done with it … were they sad, were they glad … in a rush, or going nowhere at all?

Everything has a story, where it began, where it ends … probe the story, play with it, embellish it, let it grow … all the people behind that pop can … the sugar cane and the farmer, the factory and the worker … the trucker who brought it into town, the teen behind the counter who sold it to the thirsty customer.

Whenever my children went anywhere, I’d always say to them: “Use all of your senses … smell the odors, taste the foods, hear the sounds, see the colors, touch the textures … store it all away in your memories.”

From the smallest of things to the largest of stories … in everything, the whole world … in every person, humanity … in every tree, a forest … in every mountain, a mountain range … in every person, God … 

The stuff of life … all around us … joy, terror; smiles and trials … folks on their way to a hospital bedside, maybe on their way to a new job … off to a wedding - maybe their own … on the first leg of a well-deserved vacation … some on their way to a funeral … some on their way to new beginnings; some on their way to bitter endings.

In Graham Green’s novel, The Power and the Glory, a Mexican priest, jailed for observing the Mass, in a time and place when Catholicism was outlawed … behind bars, the priest reflects:

When you visualized a man or woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity … that was a quality of God’s image carried with it, writes Green … when you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination.

Imagination? All of us can use a little imagination now and then … the up-close and personal kind that really sees the eyes of another … to really look at people … and things … and places … to use all of our senses - to really see and truly feel the world around us … 

When I lived in Detroit, I did a lot of bicycling … in two very large cemeteries … great for biking: well-kept roads, little traffic … lovely trees, manicured lawns … 

And acres of tombstones … and all the names … and all the words carved into stone: “devoted mother, loving wife, beloved grandmother.” 

I could always hear the assurance of the dead: “We made it, and you will, too.”

Through thick and thin, sick and sin … from wilderness to Promised land …

The great stories of our faith: a pillar of cloud by day, fire by night … manna in the morning, water from a rock … 

Voices of wisdom: Joshua, Jeremiah … Miriam and Deborah … Matthew, Mark, Luke and John … Paul and Peter … 

Voices to encourage, voices to help … when Pope Francis paid us a visit, he spoke of 20th Century voices, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton …

I could add to that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa …

Writers like John Steinbeck and poets like Robinson Jeffers … 

Artists like Georgia O’Keeffe and David Horsey of the LA Times …

Past political leaders: Teddy Roosevelt and his trust busting … his cousin, FDR with Social Security … Eisenhower and the Interstate Highway system … John F. Kennedy, Ich bin ein Berliner …who was killed this day, 52 years ago in Dallas … Lord, have mercy.

Voices … lots of voices, voices all around us … voices of the dead; voices of the living … voices of hope and voices of healing … voices to challenge our complacencies … point the way ahead … voices to help us take up the work of kindness and mercy … voices to remind us of life’s high ambitions and our great ideals …

Pay attention … and give thanks … for a million small and wonderful things … for big voices and smart people … faith, hope and love; grace, mercy and peace … the gospel of light … folks who believe in you and me … teachers and preachers … and a kajillion other people, and billions of light years and the mystery of space and time.

Paul the Apostle says:

Rejoice in the LORD always … do not worry about anything … but in everything … by prayer … with thanksgiving …

After church today, our Thanksgiving Dinner … later this week, Thanksgiving Day … oh, I know, holidays are sometimes bittersweet … and more the occasion for tears and heartache …

But wherever and however, pay attention to the small things … let your imagination dance … give heed to memories that are good and hopes that are sweet …

And with that, let me close with a poem, of my own writing (LORD, have mercy) an Ode to Mashed Potatoes …

Let me count the ways I love thee …

The common tator … a tuber … from the ground …

Just like you and me …

Maybe we feel something in common with this common ground thing …

They’re not picked, like apples or pears …

They’re dug …

Like good music … or hangin’ out with folks we love …

Lots of different sizes … and colors … in a lot of different places …

We do have a lot in common, don’t we?

With the humble potato …

Peel ‘em … if ya’ want …

But I like to leave the skins on …

Adds texture … as it should be … the whole potato …

As God intended.

Into a pot of water …

Turn on the heat … lots of good things need a little heat …

Cook ‘em not too hard … 

Test ‘em with a fork …

Drain ‘em and put ‘em back into the pot …

And now the good part …

A couple of butter chunks … 

A generous splash of cream … I mean: be generous …

Maybe even some cream cheese …

A little horseradish?

Rosemary?

Thyme?

Salt and pepper …

And a little elbow grease …

Smash and mash these remarkable gifts from God …

Not too much, just enough …

To blend it all together …

Taste to your heart’s content …

That’s what I love about cooking …

We get to sample everything before you do.

Can it get better?

You bet … 

On the plate they go …

A fork-full will satisfy all your desires for comfort …

Just like home … 

But like all good things … these good things go well 

With a chorus of other good things ….

Gravy … 

Giblet gravy …

Corn and slabs of carefully sliced turkey, neat and precise … though I prefer the dark meat … a tad bit unruly …

Cranberry relish on the side …

And how about the country cousin, the sweet potato … with its famous hat, 

The marshmallow … all white on the inside, with golden trim …

And who knows what else … 

Start with potatoes, and who knows where it’ll end.

But start with potatoes … 

A very common thing …

And it will end well …

As all good things do …

Happy Thanksgiving … Amen!

September 6, 2015, "It Will Work"

Mark 4.3-9

Disappointment!

Who hasn't been disappointed?

Family, friends … school, career, health, love … you name it …

Things go south.

Life grows dark.

Hopes drift away.

Disappointment?

The crowds on the Galilee Beach know all about disappointment … 

They live under an oppressive Roman Empire … family farms lost to large agri-corporations under contract to Rome … 

Fishermen in the crowd wonder if the next catch of fish will pay the bills … farmers wonder if the rains might come in time. 

Merchants and artisans … tax collectors and soldiers … widows and orphans … life ain’t easy for any of them.

And religion? 

It’s a big business in Jerusalem …

Temple taxes, expensive lambs, bulls, goats and birds …currency traders, money changers, souvenir merchants …

Temple officials in long robes with fancy phylacteries …

The well-to-do make a show of their offerings …

And the widow is ignored.

Disappointment? You bet!

The crowds on the Galilee Beach know all about it.

And to that crowd, Jesus says: “A sower went out to sow.”

A sack of seed slung around the neck … the sower grabs a fistful, flings that seed far and wide …

Hungry birds … rocky ground, shallow soil … thorns and thistles … hot sun and dry winds, they all have their way … the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.

Says Jesus to his disciples: I’m asking a lot of you … take the message of peace into a troubled and troubling world … what you do will be challenged at every turn of the road … some will welcome you with open arms; others will seek your death … there will be hardship and rejection and frustration and tears … a lot of what you do will seemingly go to waste.

In the Kindergarten Classroom across the hall from my office, a sign on the wall: “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy.”

Pope Francis said: “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”

Bonhoeffer is hanged in a Nazi Prison just months before the end of the war … who knows what he might have accomplished had he lived, but in his death, the seeds of an amazing witness were sown … every seminary student since those terrible, fateful, days has cut her teeth on Bonhoeffer.

Even deeper goes the story … the whole of the Bible is a response to trauma … from Genesis to Malachi … from Matthew to Revelation … from Assyrian defeat of the Northern Kingdom to the Babylonian conquest of the Southern Kingdom … from the crucifixion of Jesus to the the stoning of Stephen … from Paul’s conversion on the Damascus Road to the Fall of Jerusalem … how to make sense of it all … how to find hope in the midst of so much blood and war … and what’s one to do, Give up? grow dour and dark? embrace hedonism: eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die?

The tone is set in the opening verses of Genesis - written during the dark days of the Babylonian Exile, when hope was as rare as rain in Los Angeles … and a Hebrew Poet took up a pen and wrote: the earth a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep … and the wind of God swept over the face of the waters … and God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.

Keep on sowing, says Jesus!

Sun and soil, wind and rain, conspire together, to work their magic … the seed softens, a sprout pushes upward toward the sky, a root reaches downward into the earth.

And then, the harvest … yielding thirty-fold, says Jesus … and that would be a very good harvest … 

And even sixty-fold … farmers in the audience smile and nod at one another … “don’t we wish” … 

And, then, like a good story teller, Jesus offers an exaggeration, “a hundred-fold,” says he … and by then, the audience is clear:

Don’t give up the work of sowing … it will work! 

Don’t count the cost, count the blessing!

Don’t fret about the loss, celebrate the gain.

Don’t grumble about rocky soil, sing a song of joy.

Don’t worry about the birds; they’re hungry, too.

And so the work of God goes on - always a harvest, a harvest of some kind … and sometimes, an incredible harvest, far and beyond what anyone expected …

For all the darkness, there’s light.

For all the loss, there’s gain.

For all the hardship, there’s hope.

For all the sweat, blood and tears, there’s progress.

Joshua fits the battle of Jericho … and down falls the wall.

David slings a well-aimed stone … and down goes Goliath.

Elijah prays to the LORD … and down rains heavenly fire.

Ezekiel prophesies to dry bones … and down comes the breath of God.

Keep on sowing …

Remember 1989? … the Berlin Wall comes down …

More recently, the Supreme Court opens wide the doors of Marriage Equality …

On another note, I’m pulling for the deal with Iran …

Because all of this leads to a perfect world?

A world of peace and joy?

Harmony and flowers?

Shine on harvest moon?

Are you kidding?

No …

More like singing in the rain!

We don’t expect perfection … there is always resistance to the good … always those who choose exclusion rather than welcome, who twist religion into a reason for hatred … and for all of us here, no matter the purity of our commitment, our own foolishness and ineptitude trip us up all the time … but neither do we give up!

The hallmark of all great stories … Harry Potter and Voldemort … Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader … Frodo and Sauron … 

Oh, the price to be paid … the hurt, the tears … the loss of hope when the darkness grows thick …

Yet Harry Potter remains loyal to his friends … Luke Skywalker stays the course … Frodo carries the One Ring to Mount Doom … 

And Jesus says, A sower went out to sow …

Though the land is full of war and rumors of war … sow the seed of peace … 

Though rough weeds choke the harvest … sow the seed of justice …

Though hot blow the winds of hatred … sow the seed of love …

Don’t look for perfection … 

Take some chances …

Be ready for disappointment …

Trust the harvest; it will come …

And so ends our summer sermon series: the parables and stories of Jesus … it’s been a good series, and we’ve learned a lot … and now we move on.

A new season of ministry … First Kids First begins anew next week Sunday … the Cathedral Choir returns well rested and in good voice, our staff is ready go, Steven Colbert is on the Late Show, and Scott is preaching about the hole in the ground and how to put it to good spiritual use … a new season of ministry is upon us.

Keep up your good work First Church, and work all the harder - to make everything all the better … 

Keep on sowing … the harvest is good!

Amen and Amen!

August 30, 2015 - "The Lost Are Found"

Luke 15

Optimism … 

The very sound of it feels good to me.

Optimism … it’ll be okay … we’ve got hard work ahead of us, but we’ll make … just wait and see … we’ll make it … things will work out.

Who are the most optimistic people in the world?

Mystery Writers …

The crime is always solved … 

The miscreant is punished … 

Things get put back together …

New love is found … 

Life goes on … 

All is right, once again!

Until the next book, of course, and the next crime, and then we’ll start all over again … 

Mystery Writers are optimistic to the core.

So are Duct Tape users … think of it … get that role of tape, and there’s nothin’ that can’t be fixed with Duct Tape - falling plaster, cracked fenders, broken cupboards, and leaking pipes.

Another class of optimistic people - rodeo clowns … they can take it, no matter the bull …

And before this gets any worse, let’s press on …

When it comes to optimism, the Gospel Writers are on top of my list … Matthew, Mark, Luke and John … so are Paul and Peter and James and even the odd-ball writer of the Book of Revelation … 

The lost are found … God wins … love prevails … thick and thin, sick and sin … the world is never easy, but God’s grace is greater … stones are rolled away … life begins anew.

The three parables this morning define the work of Jesus, and define the God whom Jesus serves … God in search of the lost … a shepherd, a widow, and the waiting father.

I love these stories … they give me hope …

The first two parables are wonderfully Presbyterian … if I may  say so … a God who doesn’t wait around for the lost sheep to find its way back to the flock, or the lost coin to suddenly appear.

And please note the sliding scale of value in these three parables … Luke arranges the materially carefully … one sheep out of a hundred - a loss that could be written off … one silver coin out of ten - a wee bit more serious … and a son who abandons his family for bad living - and suddenly the audience grows quiet; a level of pain and loss that breaks the heart.

The point is clear: nothing is written off by God … nothing … and no one! 

And note the strategy … how does God work? For the sheep, for the coin, God is the seeker … with the boy, God wait, to let time run its course.

As for the shepherd, pushing through the brambles, climbing into dark canyons, skinning knees, bruising knuckles, until the lost sheep is found, and even then, the sheep is too tired to walk beside the shepherd, so the shepherd shoulders the sheep … tired the shepherd was by this time - bone tired, tired to the core … but with the last ounce of strength, shoulders the sheep and carries it back to the flock … 

Psalm 23 …

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

      He makes me lie down in green pastures;

      he leads me beside still waters; 

      he restores my soul. 

      He leads me in right paths 

      for his name’s sake.

      

A few weeks back, Scott reminded us that it doesn’t depend upon us entirely … this business of life and salvation and hope … 

Psalm 23 makes it clear: the shepherd does the heavy lifting … in the great mystery of life … when darkness comes upon us … when hope takes flight … when all seems lost, the hand of God, the voice of the Good Shepherd … “be not afraid” … “I am with you” … “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

One of the great spiritual teachers of the 16th Century, St. John of the Cross, wrote his famous work, The Dark Night of the Soul, for young monks who entered the monastery in the flush of spiritual joy, only to find their joy disappearing after a year or two … sort of like the new car, or new job, we got last year.

St. John of the Cross speaks not of defeat or loss, but getting ready for something better …

He reminds the young monk that the early phases of spirituality are mostly immature and sensual … all about experience … the quiver of the heart, the overwhelming sense of God’s presence, spiritual gifts, easy prayer, simple platitudes … but all of this is just the beginning … and needs to replaced with deeper realities, higher truths … stuff a bit tougher, more durable.

In the transition, the young monk wonders what has gone wrong.

St. John suggests that the Dark Night of the Soul is when God is doing God’s best work … God has to obscure the work from us, like a sculptor might shroud a statue … until it’s finished.

St. John reminds the young monk that if God were to make plain to us what God was doing, we’d rush in and muck it all up with our many suggestions, guidelines, needs and wants … God could never finish the great work, because we’d be meddling and fussing and fixing everything all the time.

So when God goes to work in the deep places of life, it’s out of sight for a while … maybe a long time … even years … until the time is right, and the work is done … the shroud is pulled back … we exclaim with surprise:

Oh my God … that’s what you were up to!

I had no idea.

I thought I was alone.

That you had left me.

That I was lost and gone, forever.

But you found me before I knew it.

You loved me before I loved you.

You have always cared for me.

No matter what.

And have always been my companion.

Even when I knew not.

“The good work that God began God will finish” says Paul the Apostle … and if ever there were anyone well-qualified to speak of God finishing the work, it was Paul.

A self-righteous man, full of himself, bent on weeding out the Christian heresy … willing to put others to death in order to protect his personal vision of what faith and god and religion were all about.

And then on that fateful Damascus Road, boom!

Light.

Paul is blinded by the light … a metaphor of his spiritual life … blind as bat, blinded by his own pride and power … blind to the truth of love … blind to what God is really doing … 

This man, who was willing and eager to lead others off in chains, now has to be led away by the hands of others … 

And when Paul finally grew up a little bit, he understood the power and the glory of God finishing the great work of grace

“Yes,” says Paul, “ask me about grace.”

“Ask me how God finishes the great work.”

God is no quitter … God is relentless … when things get lost, God goes to work … 

The second parable:

A lady of means … ten silver coins … no small amount … one is missing … somewhere in the house … she pulls back the carpet, moves the furniture … lights a lamp, sweeps the floor, searching, searching … where is it? … I’ll not give up, I’ll not write it off … I’ll keep on looking until I find it …

And find it she does … and calls her friends and neighbors, throws a party … spends the lost coin on food and drink, and probably spends a few more coins, to boot … 

And, then, one of the greatest of all stories …

The father of two sons … the younger says, “Dad, I gotta get out of here, and I want my inheritance now.” Some commentators have suggested that the boy was saying, “Dad, I wish you were dead, so I can get my share of the estate now.”

I don’t think so … I think the boy just didn’t want to be a farmer, and he probably didn’t like his older brother, and the older brother probably didn’t like him either.

The father consents - maybe he’s tired of all the squabbling and bickering … we might call him foolish for that, I don’t know … perhaps he should have put his foot down, or simply turned the boy out … but the father consents, and gives the boy what he whats … so the boy goes off to a far country, something he’s dreamed about, I’m sure … adventure, strange food, wild nights (maybe I’ll be discovered in Hollywood and given a starring role), and there in that far country, the boy spends everything he has, until he’s flat out broke and hungry, his “friends” gone … so he does the only thing he knows, he goes back to farming, raising pigs … so hungry, he eats their slop.

Does the boy repent?

No, he’s just hungry, and his clothes are falling apart …

So, he says to himself, What am I doing here?

He heads back home, rehearsing his apology, and still a long way off, the father sees him, because the father went out most every day, to scan the road for travelers … hoping, waiting, wondering, Will I see my boy again?

And one day, there’s the boy - the father can recognize the cast of the body, the way the boy walks, a mile away - ragged and smelling of pigs … and before the boy can finish his apology, the father is shouting for fresh clothes, “Bring me a ring and some sandals … and get him some food … get us all some food … butcher the fatted calf … no sense saving it for another day; now’s the day, now’s the time … m’boy is home; I thought he was gone, gone forever, but he came home, and I don’t care how or why … we’re gonna throw a party.”

Well, there ya’ have it … three stories … a trinity of hope … the lost sheep, a missing coin, and a foolish young man.

Love wins … God wins … and so do we.

God behind it, God within it … at work in all things for good … 

The lost are found.

Amen and Amen!