11.10.24 "Tale of Two Cities" - Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Ruth 3.1-5, 4.13-17; Mark 12.38-44

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …

So writes Charles Dickens in the opening lines of his famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities … for Dickens, it was Paris, it was London … the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror … Madame Defarge with her knitting needles and Dr. Manette in prison …

For us today, it’s Jerusalem, it’s Bethlehem … in both stories, the central figure, a widow … a widow with two small coins … a widow with her widowed daughter-in-law.

A tale of two cities … 

We begin in the Holy City … the fabled city of David … where the Temple is center … the First Temple, built by Solomon, David’s son … destroyed by the Babylonians 6 centuries before Jesus … partially rebuilt 50 years later … and centuries later, when Jesus is born, lavishly restored and completed, under Herod the Great, a friend of Caesar and a violent man who orders the death of all the children in Bethlehem, when he learns of a “royal birth” from the Wise Men of the East.

Judeans from around the world dream of Jerusalem … as long as the Temple stands, God is with us … we’re a people with a purpose, we have a story to tell to the nations, we have the promises on which we stand, and the Commandments by which we live.

You shall have no other gods before me … honor your heritage, your mothers and fathers … don’t misuse my name for unholy deeds … keep the Sabbath … take time to worship and pray … don’t take life away from others … don’t tell lies … and beware of envy … it destroys the soul.

On any given day, and on High Holy Days, especially … 

Judeans make the trek to Jerusalem… from the steppes of Russia to the sands of the Sahara, from Spain to India and North Africa …

Gentile believers, too, who affiliate with local synagogues, who follow the teachings of Moses and the prophets … 

The local trades - the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker … shepherds with their flocks, cattle dealers, doves in their cages … money changers to exchange foreign currency for the local coin …  

The financial and religious center of the city …  

Accountants and attorneys, 

musicians and priests, 

teachers and tool makers, 

carpenters and sculptors, 

the high and the mighty, 

the rich and the powerful, 

working hand-in-glove with the mighty Roman Empire.

Jesus grows up with the Temple …

In the Gospel of Luke, Mary and Joseph take Jesus to Jerusalem - he’s their firstborn, so he’s dedicated with a small sacrifice … as stipulated in the Law: a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.

Mary and Joseph go to Jerusalem for Passover, their 12-year-old son with them … with a hometown group … on their return, they assume Jesus to be with some friends, but at the end of the first day’s journey, Jesus is nowhere to be found. 

Mary and Joseph rush back to the city, and what do they find?

Jesus sitting with the teachers, listening to them, asking them questions. 

Mary and Joseph scold him for frightening them.

Jesus replies: What do you expect of me? I must be in my Father’s house.

Years later, Jesus and the disciples are back in the city … 

One of the disciples exclaims, Look Teacher, what large stones, what large buildings … 

Wealth and power are intoxicating, are they not?

Donna and I took an exchange student to New York City, to Manhattan, to Wall Street … taxies and subways, sidewalks jammed, everyone in a hurry, skyscraper next to skyscraper, mountains of stone and steel … I said to him, Here in these buildings, decisions are made that affect the whole world.

Think of any great city: London, Rome, Sao Paulo … Amsterdam, Cape Town, Cairo … Tokyo, Seoul, New Delhi … Washington, Moscow, Beijing.

Jesus watches the treasury … the parade of wealth …

And then, comes a widow … she gives two copper coins, a penny’s worth …

I wonder: did anyone else see her that day? … her two little coins … her simple clothing … meager possessions … yet in some corner of her heart, a great love … it isn’t much what she gives, but what she gives is all she has.

God sees the heart.

This woman, says Jesus, has given more than all the rest … what they’ve given, costs them nothing … she has given everything.

It’s a heartwarming story, isn't it … a poor widow gives her all for the things of God … isn’t that precious!

But there’s more to the story:

Jesus moves from sentiment to society … from religion to politics … Jesus is no one’s fool … he understands the flow of money … and how it works.

Beware of the scribes, says Jesus, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! 

Marketplaces, religious gatherings, big-deal banquets … sound familiar?

Jesus goes on:

They take widows’ houses  … and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.

“Long prayers” … to cover up ill deeds and malicious intent!

It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, says Jesus, than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.

A tale of two cities …

Jerusalem and Bethlehem …

And three widows …

The widow and her two little coins.

Naomi and her daughter-in-law, Ruth.

A famine in the land drove Naomi and the family to Moab in the first place … within ten years, Naomi’s husband is dead, and her sons die, as well … leaving two more widows … you know some of the story … Naomi decides to return home, to Bethlehem … of her daughters-in-law, Orpah decides to remain in Moab … Ruth vows to go with Naomi, with some of the most famous words ever spoken:

Where you go, I will go;

where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people, 

and your God my God.

To an uncertain future … who will provide for us? … Naomi’s been gone 10 years … things change.

What’s Naomi to do?

She tells Ruth … catch the eye of Boaz, a man of wealth, and a kinsman on my husband’s side … 

It’s a whimsical story, for sure … we smile and we wink … let’s have some fun, says the story teller - clever women and a kindly man … with a little perfume to work the magic.

In the end of our story,

Boaz welcomes Ruth, a Moabite stranger, and the widow Naomi … 

he provides for their needs, 

he offers his protection, 

he honors the kinship laws of the land … 

he gives them a future … 

and unknown to all of them, 

they give a future to Israel.

Boaz marries Ruth … they have a son named Obed … and Obed has a son named Jesse … and Jesse has eight sons, one of whom is named … David! 

David? you say!

How about King David … 

Many centuries later, Jesus is born … where? … in David’s town, Bethlehem … Jesus is called …  The Son of David …  

A tale of two cities … Jerusalem and Bethlehem … it was the best of times; it was the worst of times …  

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Amen and Amen!

September 2, 2012, "Careful Listening, Deep Loving"

First in a series of messages from the Book of James.

James 1.19-27

I have come to the Book of James late in my life.

I’ve quoted from the Book of James throughout my ministry - the famous line, faith without works is dead, but it’s only in the last 5 or 6 years that I’ve come to read and love the whole Book of James; to spend time with it … to appreciate the fullness, the breadth and depth, of the message of James …

It’s a small book with big ideas.

Wisdom - ask God for it, and God will give it to us.

Never doubt God’s good intentions.

Wealth - wealth is dangerous.

And to the wealthy, some of the toughest words in all the Bible.

Prayer is powerful.

Patience in hard times.

Be honest with ourselves and honest with one another.

Do not let anger take hold.

Watch the tongue … it’s small, and it’s mighty … like a tiny rudder on a large ship … or a small flame and a forest fire.

Be quick to listen, slow to speak.

Pure and undefiled religion: caring for widows and orphans.

My son tells the story of a 16-year old orphan boy - parents dead from AIDS … no one to pay for his schooling; schooling in Swaziland isn’t free. And he lives where he can.

He took art lessons as part of my son’s last project … the young man learned how to mix colors and use brushes, so he could do mural work on a social center.

Part of the training was to encourage artistic talent in a culture where art is largely missing; to encourage them use art as a profession, that it’s possible to make a living from art, and these lessons were given by professional artists.

Students were also given bristol board with supplies to take home for practice.

My son gave the young man a GI Joe comic book, and the young man did a large rendition of the cover - he had to mix his own colors, but he did it … Josh will show it to you now.

And, by the way, Josh will have a chance to chat with you after the service … and at a later date, will give a report on his Peace Corps work in Swaziland - many thanks to Calvary on the Boulevard and your generous assistance for my son’s work.

But for now, an orphan boy with talent.

And a reminder from James: pure religion, the religion God desires, the love God wants us to share - to care for orphans and widows in the their difficulty … 

Who are the orphans and widows in our world here and now … in Los Angeles … Southern California … the Southwest … or Chicago, Miami or Baltimore, and a thousand other places around the world?

In Los Angeles, how many children live on the streets?

How many widows live on a small Social Security check … eking by, day-by-day?

Some Christians say: Preacher, tell me how to get to heaven. That’s what I need to know. What will it take for me to get to heaven? What must I know? What must I believe?

James tells us:

We get to heaven by loving what God loves here and now … and doing what God does.

James knows full well that we CAN love what God loves … and we CAN do what God does.

Martin Luther, the great Reformer of the 16^th Century, called James, an epistle of straw.

Luther doubted the book of James because James reminds us that good works are a reflection of real faith.

Faith in the LORD Jesus Christ, if it’s real, rolls up its sleeves and gets to work.

We have to be kind to Luther.

Luther suspected James because Luther saw what Medieval Christianity had become - a religion of works-anxiety - have I done enough to go to heaven when I die?

Medieval religion was all about going to heaven, and if you didn’t do things rights, you would go to hell, and if you didn’t go to hell, you would at least spend millions of years in purgatory, because even the really good weren’t that good, and fire-time in Purgatory was necessary to purify the soul so that some day the soul could get to heaven.

Life in the Middles Ages was short, dark and damp … so getting to heaven was everything … 

The church used this to manipulate people with fear.

Luther knew this firsthand.

His early spiritual life was filled with anxiety.

Have I done enough to merit god’s favor?

Have I confessed my sins, all of them?

Will I ever know peace with God?

Luther could see no way out … until he read the Book of Romans and learned that those who are right in the eyes of God live by faith … faith alone … faith in what Jesus has done … to cover our sin, and pave the way for our entrance into heaven, free and clear.

When Luther read the Book of James, Luther was suspicious of anything that smacked of law … anything that would compromise the power of faith.

We might well learn from Luther what troubled him about “good works.”

Luther saw folks trying to be good … not for the sake of being good, but in order to save their own necks!

Luther rightly understood - a deed done for another human being to further our own spiritual standing isn’t a good a deed at all.

The hungry may be fed, and that’s good.

The naked might be clothed, and that’s good, too.

But the giver is damned, for there is no love in such deeds … for the giver loves only herself … the hungry and the cold are used to further the spiritual status of the giver.

We can read James and grow in our faith-understanding … and realize, full and clear: Faith gives birth to works.

Faith in God is our love for what God loves.

Faith in God is our effort to do what God does.

To live a life pleasing in the sight of God!

Quick to listen, writes James.

Slow to anger.

Because anger cannot produce God’s righteousness.

Put away evil, says James.

And what is the evil we’re invited to put away?

Moral filth, as the Common English Bible says.

When it comes to filth, don’t be misled by the last 150 years of fundamentalist preaching.

It’s not about sex and alcohol or card-playing and dancing, or swearing and cussing - as some have preached.

It’s a failure to listen to one another.

A failure to care for one another regardless of social status.

It’s playing favorites with social status - give the wealthy man the best seat in the house, and tell the poor man to stand against the wall or sit at the feet of the wealthy.

It’s the adulation of wealth and the condemnation of the poor … a spirit of carelessness and selfishness.

To counter this moral filth … to resist the contamination of our spirit, James writes: Welcome the word deep inside of you.

And what is that word?

The royal law, says James: Love your neighbor as yourself.

James takes us to Jesus.

And it’s Jesus who takes us to the Father.

And it’s the Father who says to us, This is my son, the chosen one, listen to him.

James has listened well to Jesus.

And it does us well to listen to James.

For in James, we see Jesus.

In the words of James, we hear the Word of God.

Amen and Amen!