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!

July 19, 2015 - The Rich Man and Lazarus

Luke 16.19 - 31 ...

Gather around boys and girls.

Set yourself down.

I’ve story to tell you.

And so begins many a fun time for families and children, with all the appropriate moans and groans - “Oh no, Grampa’s at it again; we’ve heard this story ten thousand times” … at the dinner table, by a campfire, before bedtime … and just about every time a minister steps into a pulpit to share the love of God, with all the appropriate moans and groans - “Oh no, we’ve heard this story ten thousand times.”

There is no finer tradition, in any culture, than that of story-telling … whether it be Garrison Keillor from Prairie Home Companion or Mark Twain a century ago, or Grampa at the dinner table … story tellers have a way of revealing the nooks and crannies of life, inviting us to think and rethink who we are and what life is all about, what it means to be a family, what it means to be a human being.

Jesus is a story-teller.

Someone raises a question, Jesus might well respond with a stroke of his chin, maybe even a wink, and then unwind a tale … sheep and shepherds, pearls and merchants, wayward children, anxious parents, clever managers who hoodwink the boss … and bosses who play rough with their workers.

All the stories our LORD tells are gracious with much love … yet grace can be hard-edged and disturbing, too … like today’s story.

Only recently have I learned something about it … it’s often called, “The Rich Man and Lazarus,” but there are two rich men here, men of great wealth … the man without a name, and Abraham, the Father of all the nations.

I long thought that it was a story that puts a hard press on wealth … and it does, no doubt … Jesus warns us so many times about the perils of wealth … but it’s not wealth per se, but the attitudes one can buy with it … and as a preacher once said: “Attitude is everything!”

In this parable, it’s the story of two rich men, and one man, very, very, poor.

As Jesus tells it, the Rich Man in Hades recognizes Lazarus … perhaps Lazarus worked for him at some point in time … a tenant farmer maybe … or a household servant … and then something happened to Lazarus - an injury, a chronic illness … Lazarus can no longer work, but now can only beg from the hand that once employed him.

I’ve played around a bit with the story … let’s see how it goes … a night-time tale told by a village elder around an evening campfire.

Gather around boys and girls, I’ve a story to tell you:

Once upon a time, there was a Rich Man … 

Well dressed and well fed.

Had everything, and then some.

He was a Rich Man.

By his gate, a poor man.

Lazarus by name.

Hungry all the time.

Sick much of the time.

Good to the dogs in the neighborhood, and the dogs licked his sores … oooh, kinda icky, right … but that’s what dogs do.

And then one day, Lazarus died.

And off he went.

To be with Father Abraham.

Goodness, boys and girls, don’t we all want to be with Father Abraham?

And then one day, the Rich Man died, too.

And off he went.

To a very unpleasant place.

Have you noticed something odd here?

What’s the Rich Man’s name?

That’s right.

He doesn’t have a name in our story.

Everyone has a name, except …

The Rich Man.

Oh, he has name, I’m sure!

Lots of folks knew it, no doubt.

Folks would walk by his big house and say, “Do you know who lives there in that great big house? Mr. so-and-so lives there. He’s important!”

Everyone knows his name.

But in our story, the Rich Man has no name.

His name isn’t in the Book of Life boys and girls.

He didn’t have time for that.

He was too busy writing his name every where else.

Except in the Book of Life.

And the nameless poor man at his gate, we find has a name after all.

Lazarus.

In Hebrew, it’s Elazar.

And, boys and girls, do you know what Elazar means?

It means: “God has helped.”

The poor man at the gate has a beautiful name.

And so does Father Abraham; Abraham means: “Father of a multitude” … the Father of many peoples all around the world … Father Abraham is everyone’s Father.

Anyway, boys and girls, the Rich Man sees Father Abraham.

And he sees Lazarus, too.

And what do you suppose Lazarus is doing?

Well, boys and girls, he’s sitting on Father Abraham’s lap.

Can you imagine that, boys and girls?

Lazarus, sitting on Abraham’s lap?

Father Abraham has a big comfy lap.

The Rich Man thinks to himself:

“Abraham will understand me.”

He’s rich, and he’ll know what I need.

We’re two of the same kind; cut from the same bolt of cloth.

So the Rich Man calls out to Father Abraham.

“Father Abraham,” 

I think the Rich Man tried to sound important.

“Father Abraham, send Lazarus, with a little water for me.”

He used to be my servant; he’ll know what to do.

Father Abraham said: “Can’t do that son.”

“And why not?” asked the Rich Man.

All blustery and none too pleased.

“Because you’re there, and we’re here … and that’s that!”

“Besides, you had your chance.”

Well, the Rich Man didn’t like that for an answer.

So, he said, “Father Abraham, look, we understand one another, don’t we? We’re of the same stuff, you and me. We’ve made our way through life, we did all right.”

“If you won’t send Lazarus to me, the least you can do is send him to my five brothers, to warn them, tell them they’d better pay attention. I don’t want them to end up like me.”

Father Abraham was getting a little tired with the Rich Man telling him what to do all the time … so Father Abraham said, “Your brothers already have what they need to figure things out. They have Moses and the Prophets - it’s all there, clear and clean. Your brothers should listen to them.”

“But my brothers need a big deal, some kind of smash hit, something really big - some hoohah and kaboom. Okay, Father Abraham? I’m sure we understand one another. Send them someone from the dead; that’ll get their attention.”

“I could do that,” said Father Abraham, “but truth be told, son, your brothers are just about as stubborn as you are, and they’re not interested in such things. If they don’t believe what Moses and the Prophets teach, someone rising from the dead and standing right in front of them won’t convince them either.”

Boys and girls … we have Moses and the Prophets, and we have Father Abraham … they tell us how to live a good and godly life. Let’s pay attention to them, okay? Good Night boys and girls. Sleep well boys and girls; the love of God give you rest; the wisdom of Father Abraham guide your dreams.

Amen and Amen!

July 5, 2015, "New Wine, New Skins"

First Congregational Church of Los Angeles

July 5, 2015

Mark 2.21-22

Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem …

Can you be more than you are?

And so begins a new sermon series today …

A sermon series Dr. Colglazier and I will be working on for the next two months … we’re excited about the series and grateful to share with all of you in the Parables of Jesus.

Because parables are the way Jesus taught … and why did he teach this way? 

Parables provoke, raise questions, startle us with unexpected images … 

A dishonest steward who knows what he’s doing with money … a shepherd unwilling to lose even one sheep … a pearl merchant making a deal … a father who never gives up hope for a wayward son.

Parables offer a different way of thinking about the tried and the true … maybe the tried and the true can tell us more than we expect … maybe the tried and true ain’t so true anymore, and it’s time to try something new.

Which reminds me - last week, I put a dollar into a change machine, and nothing changed! 

Shall we move on?

Today’s parable: new wine, new skins … a parable understood by everyone, growers and consumers alike … the last of the old, and soon the new … hip hip hooray, a new vintage comes our way.

And who knows, the new wine might surpass the old in flavor and quality!

Wine is one thing … but religion another …

Religion tends to settle down and settle in … hard and fast … decades worth, centuries worth … smells, bells and doodahs … this is the way it’s done because this is the way we’ve always done it, and by golly, no one’s gonna change our mind.

And here comes Jesus … pushing hard to make some changes … and lot of folks didn’t like it one bit.

Scribes question his “table manners” - eating with “sinners and tax collectors.”

People wonder about his fidelity to the rules of fasting.

Pharisees question his commitment to Sabbath restrictions.

The prim and the proper are offended by the woman who anoints his feet with her tears.

Jesus speaks to all of them of new times and new ways.

The old is good, but it’s time has passed.

Nothing lasts forever.

Several months ago, a Sunday morning, getting ready for church, I put my Bible on the trunk of the car, brought a bag of garbage to the trash bin … went back upstairs … returned a few moments later, walked around the front of the car, got in and drove off to church: you know what happened.

My Bible was gone.

A hour later, my wife and son followed my route to church, looking for it, but to no avail - it was gone. 25 years worth notes, cross-references and comments. 

Gone!

Jesus my LORD.

I ordered a new Bible … and here it is … clean and fresh … and it feels great …

Would I have willingly set aside the old one?

I don’t know. Nostalgia and familiarity are powerful resistors to change.

Let me say that again: Nostalgia and familiarity are powerful resistors to change.

I miss that old Bible sometimes, just the thought of it - wondering where it is, what happened to it, but I’m glad the LORD took it from my hand … new wine, new skins.

On another note:

The Santa Monica Art Museum is moving out of Bergamot Station … the Executive Director said:

I want it to be very clear that we are not closing. We are moving. Our museum is all about agility and experimentation and being a collection of ideas, not being a permanent collection of art. Although this is not something we had planned, we realize we have to take the mission, vision and purpose to a next stage.”

Sometimes by choice, sometimes by chance, sometimes by necessity, the next stage … time doesn’t stand still … and God moves on … new wine, new skins.

As for Jesus, he’s no iconoclast … though he does overturn a few tables.

Jesus honors the traditions … and then plays with them.

Like Christoph on the organ, and Peter Fennema today.

Take what is, and play with it.

Bring out new insights.

Raise questions:

Maybe we can go this way.

Or that way.

Let’s see what happens.

Like a potter with clay.

An artist with paint.

A dancer with form and movement.

An actor with a script.

And Jesus with his stories.

“You have heard it said thus and so, but I say unto you, here’s another take on it.”

New wine, new skins.

Last year’s vintage is done.

It was good.

We drank it all.

The skins are depleted now.

And what we didn’t drink, turned to vinegar.

“Fear not,” says God.

Never ever, ever, ever, be afraid.

A new season is upon us.

Grape clusters hang heavy on the vine, ready for harvest.

God is never done with us.

And we are never done with God.

The nature of faith is dynamic … moving, shifting, dancing.

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

      they shall run and not be weary,

      they shall walk and not faint.

The nature of faith prompts us to change:

Change of heart.

Change of mind.

And who doesn’t need a change of mind now and then?

Moses said, “I can’t do that,” and then changed his mind.

King David said, “I didn’t do anything wrong,” and then changed his mind.

Jesus said to God, “Get me outta here,” and then changed his mind.

Saul, on the Damascus Road, said, “I know everything about God,” and then God showed up in a bright light, and Saul changed his mind real fast, and God changed Saul’s name to Paul.

And in our time and place … changed minds have made for a better world … school desegregation, voting rights and lunch-counter integration, women’s ordination … and these days Marriage Equality and the Confederate Flag … changed minds, changed hearts … new wine, new skins …

Jerusalem, Jerusalem.

Can you be more than you are?

Some turned away and said, “No thank you.”

We’re satisfied with the way things are.

And, by the way, Mr. Jesus, don’t press your luck with us.

Others heard the invitation and said, “Of course, tell us more.”

Jesus said, “It won’t be easy, but it’ll be good.”

And people still said yes!

Peter, Andrew, James and John left their nets to follow him.

Mary and Martha opened their hearts and home to him. 

Joanna and Susanna, women of means, provided for him.

Matthew set aside his stacks of coins to join him on the way.

One-by-one, two-by-two, they heard the call and followed him.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem …

Can you be more than you are?

New wine, new skins.

Because we’re not done with God.

And God isn’t done with us.

From the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock 

To the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles.

You and me, right here, right now!

For this world, and for the glory of God.

What else can we do?

But follow Christ anew.

“Come and follow me,” says he.

I’ve places to go and people to see.

Lives to change and a world to set free.

New wine, new skins!

Dear People of God.

Are we ready?

I know that we are! Amen and Amen!