Sunday Sermons

The Third Sunday of Easter - April 18, 2010
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

Click here for the Sevice Leaflet

The Second Sunday of Easter - Youth Sunday - April 11, 2010
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

Click here for the Audio of the Sermon for Easter Day

Festival Service of Holy Communion - Easter Sunday - April 4, 2010
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Click here for the Audio of the Children's Sermon
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

Click here for the Audio of the Festival Service of Holy Communion

Click here for the Passion Gospel and Sermon

The Passion of Our Lord - Palm Sunday - March 28, 2010
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

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The Fifth Sunday in Lent - March 21, 2010
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

The Fourth Sunday in Lent - March 14, 2010
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Of the thousands of books that Debby and I own, my favorite by far, is the dictionary. And my favorite of all dictionaries, is the unabridged Oxford Dictionary of the English language. It comes in 26 volumes, but some years ago I was fortunate enough to find and buy a two volume set that contains all the information of the 26 volume set, but in very, very, very small print, so small in fact, that it is virtually illegible without a magnifying glass.

That said, I turned to the dictionary, once again, to look up the word prodigal. The gospel we have before us this morning is one of the most beloved and most well known of all of Jesus parables and therefore one of the most difficult to unwrap because everyone has formed their own opinion about what it means, and that includes me.

And so to look for something new, or something different or some kind of “aha” was my goal for this sermon.

So I went to the dictionary, not because I didn't know what prodigal meant, but because I was certain it meant more than I knew. And I was right.

Of course, I found the words I was looking for and the words I expected to be there: wasteful, squandering, reckless, wanton, profligate, immoderate, improvident, intemperate. These words adequately and accurately describe the son in our story who asks his father for the portion of what would eventually become his inheritance and leaves home.

In my other reading for this sermon, one of those who commented on this text reminded his readers that the action of the younger brother in asking for his inheritance before his father died, did what NO ONE in his day and age would have ever done. For in asking for his share of his father's property, not only would he be putting his own family's wellbeing at risk, but those of the entire village who depended upon the employment and the generosity of the landowner, whose profligate son, just sold his portion to someone who presumably, would not have cared for the land or the tenants who worked it. In our day, it would be as if the largest landowner in beautiful downtown East Aurora, or quaint Orchard Park, gave a third of his property to his son who in turn, promptly sold it to Walmart so that they could build a super Super Wally where the town square once stood. So, in many ways, the son was not the only prodigal one in this story, so too the father, who recklessly gave his sons their inheritance before its time. Note also, that the other brother, the one who later complains, was also given his inheritance early, which changed my opinion of that lad as well.

So Luke tells us that that is what happened. But now out on his own, the younger son blows through his money like a drunken sailor on shore leave and finds himself an indentured servant in a far country, hungry, tired, and angered at himself. The text tells us, “But when he came to himself,” which implies some sort of spiritual awakening, but in reality, I think it was his stomach that spoke to him the loudest, because the text reads, “How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!'

I don't like this kid at all, which is why I can't even give him the benefit of the doubt when the text tells us that he has to “practice” the speech he's going to give to his father, “Father I have sinned against heaven and before you I am no longer worthy to be treated as your son, treat me as one of your hired hands (who still have food to eat and to spare…I think he's only thinking of his stomach, like I said I don't like this kid much.)

So he heads off toward home, and as soon as he comes within eyesight of home, his father spots him, and here is where the true purpose of the parable comes forth, “But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion and ran to him, and puts his arms around him,” and as the King James Version so lovingly portrays, “falls on his neck, kissing him.”

There's the difference between the father in this story and me. I think if my errant child, who just blew a third of my estate on questionable good and services, came crawling home, I suspect there'd be a whole lot more staring and talking and a whole lot less running and hugging.

Which is where the other half of the definition comes into play. I told you before, not only can the son be called prodigal, but so also the father. The son is reckless, profligate, squandering, excessive wanton, and so is the father, especially when he agrees to give his estate away, but here is where the other definition of prodigal comes into play. The OED also defines prodigal with these words: extravagant, lavish, bountiful, unstinting, unsparing. The story talks about the reckless son, but in the end it is a story about an extravagant Father, whose love knows no bounds. His is a lavish, bountiful, unsparing love, that he lavishes on BOTH his children.

I said before I didn't like the young boy, but in a way, I like the elder boy even less. You'll recall, he accepted his inheritance early too, and never said a word. At least he stayed home to help, but his words to his Father are just as disrespectful if not worse, because they reveal how he truly feels, “Listen,” I can just imagine starting off a conversation to my father like that, “Listen here, Daddy O.” it wouldn't have gone well. “Listen,” he says, “I have been your slave all these years, and not once have you thanked me any gesture whatsoever, I didn't expect the fatted calf, but it would have been nice if when my friends came around, you threw me a bone from time to time. But yet when this son of yours comes crawling back with his tail between his legs, you treat him like the best things since sliced bread.”

Talk about your unresolved anger. But here again, the story isn't about the two boys, it's about the Father. And once again, we're given a glimpse of what it means to be prodigal in the good sense. The Father speaks, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life, he was lost, and now is found.”

Like I said, I don't like either boy, and that's the point. The occasion for the parable was because the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling about the fact that Jesus seemed to attract the wrong company, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” It's not right, that an upstanding citizen, no less a learned rabbi, wastes his time and energy on the likes of those.

So Jesus tells the parable.

He tells the parable to illustrate something about God and tells the story in such a way that you can't stand either boy, and yet the Father loves them. And the reason you can't stand either boy, is because there's a little of each in all of us. Our disrespect may not have been so blatant, our selfishness not so obvious, our proclivity to care for ourselves first without consideration for others not as pronounced, but it was there, still is sometimes.

The Pharisees and the scribes were near sighted too. And so the Father has to run to make a point, has to correct the language so that this “son of yours” becomes once again, “your brother,” and puts the best robe on our shoulders, the family signet ring on our hand, opens the vintage Champaign he's been keeping for just such an occasion and allows his most cherished one to be killed so that we might have life and have it abundantly.

That's the kind of Father we have.

Amen.

The Third Sunday in Lent - March 7, 2010
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

When you step into a text like the one we have before us this morning taken from Luke's gospel, you have to be careful about drawing any conclusions about what the author's intent was if you don't look at the text as it appears in its complete context, namely, where does it sit within the whole narrative and what came before it and what follows it.

We see what happens when you don't do this, most clearly and to ill effect, in the political arena of our day. How many times have we been fed a snippet of some opponent's speech from 10 years ago that illustrates how he is out of touch with the contemporary situation. How many political commercials have we been subjected to in election years that take out of context an opponent's words and twist them, or better spin them, so that they appear to say one thing when in fact they may have meant something else entirely?

So it is with the text we have before this morning from St. Luke's gospel. It starts off with an obscure, and some believe, a-historical reference to the accusation that Pontius Pilate, then Roman governor of Judea, in his disdain for those he ruled in Galilee, often had them killed and their blood comingled with the blood of the sacrifices they brought to temple. To make the offense graphically clear, it would be as if Governor Patterson gave the order to have one of you killed out in the parking lot before worship and then take some of the blood spilled in the incident and have it mixed in with the communion wine.

The second example Jesus refers to is the collapse of the tower by the pool of Siloam. The pool of Siloam was a major water source for the people of Jerusalem. Accordingly, it had to be protected from any outside invasion or potential contamination, as invaders knew that if they poisoned or captured a city's water source, they could easily win any militaristic engagement. So the water source at Siloam was fortified not only with a high wall, by also a high tower, some say 30-40 cubits above the height of the city wall upon which it was constructed. This would put the height of tower some 75 to 100 feet above ground level. Well, according to archaeological evidence, the tower at Siloam was poorly constructed and during its construction, collapsed during the time of Jesus, killing 18 workers. Studies show that the concrete came from New Jersey.

Anyway, after giving these two examples, he adds a parable:

A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”

What on earth is all this about?

Well, it's like I said, you have to go back to Luke and see what prompted the story.

If you go back, even 10 verses, you'd see that Jesus was attempting to bring about the awareness that catastrophe was at the doorstep and that the current, and I mean by that, current first century Jewish attitudes toward Rome, would not result in a good ending. If you go back 10 verses, to chapter 12 vs 54, Luke has Jesus saying this, “ When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming' and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,' and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky; but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

Jesus message was not political but it had political implications. Jesus was calling for the Jewish nation to reexamine what it meant to be God's chosen, especially in light of the Roman occupation. Jesus saw the mounting resistance to his movement, the strained relations between Jew and Gentile, the frequent and violent outbreaks of patriotic frenzy, and the growing severity with which these outbreaks were being suppressed and just as in the days of Isaiah, whose warning you read in our first lesson, as the Assyrian threat to Israel mandated a call to repentance, so now the Roman threat to Israel calls for an immediate “turning around” and “change of heart,” if in fact the community was to survive.

If nothing changes, if the way you do business with the world remains the same, if the answer to how you are supposed to live rests

• in focusing your attention on how to stick to the Romans,

• in bickering with me over the finer points of Jewish law,

• in proclaiming yourself the chosen and the privileged

instead of focusing on the issues

• of justice and equality

• on peaceable and productive living

• of charity and generosity

• on acts of mercy and kindness

then you can expect the same ending as those you thought “got what they deserved.”

If nothing changes, if the way we do business with the world remains the same, if what we spend most of our time and energy on:

• Are what celebrity lifestyles are comprised of

• How much more we can pay our professional athletes

• What new pill we can take for yet another disorder be it restless legs, insomnia, fibromyalgia, or simply to keep the hospital gurney from following us around on the golf course

• Or how many more devices we can invent to keep us distracted and to keep us from getting bored, or God forbid from doing something productive like reading, or studying or volunteering or spending time with our families

If, as a nation, we spend more money

• on war than education,

• on rebuilding infrastructure in countries we've had a hand in destroying than on our own bridges and highways, hospitals and schools,

• if we pay more attention to sticking it to the other political party than crafting responsible and sustainable legislation,

• if those we elect to positions of responsibility have time enough to have affairs in South America, keep mistresses while on the campaign trail, have their full time paid aides scalping playoff tickets

• if we continue to allow lobbyists to overrule voters

• if those in our prisons have access to better health care than our veterans, larger libraries than our inner city kids, and better access to the legal system and representation than hard working and legal immigrants

If you expect your children to grow up spiritually sound and ethically motivated, to be generous and kind, concerned for others and be morally grounded and yet don't bring them church or expose them to the tenets of the faith, the literature of the ages, or the persons of history who have shaped it.

If you value the next generation, and allow your government to pay for heated seats in football stadiums owned by millionaires, give incentives to private corporations to build and live tax free in your cities, but yet can't seem to find enough money to keep the public parks open, the beaches clean, the water flowing, the nursing homes solvent and one or two more processing lanes open at the Peace Bridge.

If you come to the fig tree year after year, season after season, expecting it to bear fruit and yet do nothing to bring it about, well, the time will come when it no longer makes sense for it to remain in the garden taking up space.

Jesus has a point.

Amen.

The Second Sunday in Lent - February 28, 2010
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our first Thursday evening “Late Night Catechism” was a grand success. Despite the weather, a good number of us gathered for our traditional soup and bread dinner and were treated with four entrees that easily rivaled the finest any restaurant could offer. After dinner we joined our fine choir for a service of evening prayer in the choir chancel, and then adjourned to the Fellowship Room for the first of five in the series we're calling “Late Night Catechism.” There were about forty catechumens that night as we explored that portion of the catechism that deals with the Ten Commandments.

We started off with a commandment puzzle, which I am pleased to report everyone completed and in the proper order with all the commandments spelled out as scripture would have them, and then went on to talk about each of the commandments separately.

I began by reminding those gathered that the commandments were the foundation upon which the Old Testament was built. No doubt you will recall what prompted their issuance: the Hebrew nation, having been freed from slavery under the Egyptian regime and led out into the wilderness by Moses after escaping from the pursuing Egyptian army, which was subsequently destroyed chasing the Israelites into the Red Sea, found itself is disarray and questioning not only its leadership in Moses and Aaron, but in God Himself. Taking all the jewelry they brought with them, some of which they stole from their masters before they left, decided to melt the gold down and cast it into a statue of a local fertility god, in hopes that this god would do a better job of caring for them in the desert than Moses' God did.

Moses, tired of hearing their complaining, tired of hearing them say how good they had it back in Egypt (apparently their memory was short lived)and worried about this idolatry, goes up on the mountain to ask God what to do.

God is quick to remind Moses to remind the people whose short term memory seemed to be a bit impaired, that He had just rescued them from their oppressors and that He had kept His promises, and that now it was time for them to keep theirs.

And so after a time, Moses comes down the mountain with the tablets and reads them to the people.

At first glance they seem to be a list of do's and don'ts, but they are much more than that. The Ten Commandments are the basis of the covenant that God makes with the Israelites. A covenant, as you know is a contract, a deal, an agreement between two parties; some might even say a testament. The Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, the old deal God made with His people. And like modern day covenants, each party in the agreement agrees to certain things.

Last Thursday, I ask those gathered to think on other covenantal agreements to which they were obligated. We spoke of the covenant we are obligated to as citizens, as husband and wife, as lifelong partner. We spoke of the covenant we make with New York when we get our driver's license, of those with our credit card issuer, our mortgage lender, our employer, our landlord, our neighbors and so on. I then returned to the commandments and asked them if the commandments we read and know by heart speak of our do's and don'ts, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shall honor your father and mother, you shall remember the Sabbath Day and so on, but where in the commandments does it state what God promises to do, where is the landlord's portion, where is the creation's lender's obligations.

Which is when one particularly bright student said, “It's right there in the beginning, where it says, I am the Lord you God.” Precisely. We have our end of the bargain, and God's end of the bargain, is to be God. And what is it that a God does? Well, to put it simply, everything else: God creates, God nurtures, God sustains, God redeems. To put it even more succinctly, if in this agreement one of the parties causes the sun to rise and set, the earth to spin on its axis, the stars to remain in their courses, the forces of nature act in order, that certainly wouldn't be me or you, and even though sometimes we act like we are, we know we are not.

I am the Lord your God, states in the briefest and most concise way possible, that it is God who is God and who does what God does, and as a result, or better as a consequence, is justified when God demands what the commandments require. And as I said that night, if you had to weigh who had the more demanding job, once again, it certainly wouldn't be us.

So the commandments are a covenant, in its purest sense, a deal made between two parties, an agreement, a testament.

I tell you all this, first in hopes that you might be persuaded to come to the next Thursday night event but also, to explain our first reading this morning from Genesis.

What's going on there is the same thing, only this time, the covenant is not between God and the people Israel, but God and Abram, and it is a covenant made not only with promises, but also one that is graphically illustrated. God asks Abram to be faithful and be a leader for His people. Abram agrees but turns to God and says that there will be no people to lead if he has no descendants. God promises that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. Abram politely replies he hasn't seen any stars lately. God renews his promise and to seal the deal, tells Abram to go out and collect a young calf, a goat, a ram and some birds. When he does, he proceeds to cut them in half and set them on either side of an imaginary aisle. Shooing the birds of prey away from the fresh road kill, Abram sits and waits for a sign. It comes in the middle of the night when we are told a smoking fire pot and flaming torch pass between the pieces. In many Old Testament stories the presence of God is indicated by smoke and fire. In the Exodus story which we all know so well, what protected the Israelites from the pursuing Egyptians was a pillar by fire at night and a pillar of smoke by day.

In this story, the presence of God symbolized in the smoke and fire, passes through the bisecting animals. What we do now read, but which is typical in this kind of covenantal ceremony, and documented in much literature of this period, are the words that accompanied such a ceremony. As the animals were cut in two, the two parties would pass through the carnage and say to each other as they agreed to the tenets of the agreement, “If either of us breaks this agreement, may what happened to these poor creatures happen to us.” And so, emerging from the gauntlet, the deal was sealed, or “Cut”. You've no doubt heard the phrase “to cut a deal.” Well, it has nothing to do with cards and everything to do with this ceremony, the covenant was cut, as the sacrifice was made and the animals bisected, and the parties walked through, the deal was also cut, the covenant sealed, the agreement secured. And so, our Genesis author reports, “When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates,”

And they've been fighting to keep it for four thousand years.

There are multiple covenants recorded in Scripture. This is the Abrahamic covenant. There is the Noahcic, made with Noah and sealed with the rainbow, the Adamic, and with Adam, the Mosaic made with Moses, the Davidic, made with David, and the one the Old Testament refers to as the “future covenant,” which of course we refer to as the New Testament, the new Covenant, the covenant made between God and the new Adam, Jesus. This new covenant is the one we know, the one that tells us, again, of God's great love for us, made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ, and sealed, with his death on the cross on the one side of the aisle and his resurrection on the other. Someday, we too, will walk between them and secure our eternity.

Amen.

The First Sunday in Lent - February 21, 2010
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

Click here for the Audio of the Sermon

Ash Wednesday - February 17, 2010
The Rev. Charles D. Bang

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

If you have read the newsletter or the church bulletin lately, you must know that this Lent, beginning today and continuing each Thursday in Lent, that the theme for this season is built around what we are calling, “Words of Faith.” In our pre-lenten publications, we told you which words we were going to unwrap but did not intentionally tell you what those words meant. In the news release we told you that the words of faith we chose were:

• Dikaisune

• Shuwb

• Logos

• Agape

• Koinonia

and though not listed, today's words,

• Kairos

• and Chronos.

Seven of these words are Greek in origin, one Hebrew. Each week, one of your pastors (and we added Pastor Kattermann, a member of Holy Trinity and partner with us in our ministry at Parkside each week, we will unwrap our chosen word and, hopefully, do an artful job of linking it to this holy season. I leave it to my faithful colleagues to do that down the line and so for today, I will simply tell you what these words translate into”

• Dikaisune is righteousness

• Shuwb is Hebrew for, “to turn back”

• Logos is Greek for, “The Word”

• Agape - a particular kind of love

• Koinonia – fellowship or community

The words I have chosen to start off this season are two, kairos and chronos , both Greek words that have something to do with time, but while they have that in common, they couldn't be more different.

Chronos , from which we derive our words, chronological, chronometer, chronic, anachronism and chronicle, finds it origin in Greek mythology. In pre-Socratic philosophy, Chronos was the personification of time.

We use the word in reference to time as well, but it is used in reference to a certain KIND of time, chronological time. In chronological time, I am 56 ½ years old, well to be truthful in chronological time I am technically in the second half of my 57 th year, because 0-1 counts, ask any parent of a newborn if that first year counts. So we talk about chronological time, linear time, time from then ‘til now, from now ‘til then. This is the time that marches on, this is the time that marks our days, this is the time between sunrises, the time represented by the dash between the two dates on a tombstone. It is specific, it can be measured. Some get paid by the hour, when you bring your car into the dealer, it's $90 per hour and so you ask, “How long will it take?” When your young child, who cannot tell time asks how long until Christmas or until her birthday, you say, “four more sleeps.”

Chronological time is where we live most of our lives. It is the master we serve. From the time we could tell time, until time no longer matters to us, it rules us. When Peter Fonda threw his watch in the gutter and headed out on his motorcycle, those of us who have been slaves to the same master secretly said, “Someday, I'm gonna do that!”

The word, kairos , has to do with time as well, but it is a different kind of time. When little Johnny says to his Mom, “Mom, Mom, Mommy, Mom, mama, can we go now and she says, “In a minute,” she's not talking chronologically. When Jesus says to the lawyer who answers his question, “what is the greatest commandment in the law and he quotes the Shema, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might,” and tells him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God,” he wasn't speaking spatially. When hanging on the cross Jesus speaks to the thief saying, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise,” he wasn't speaking about that afternoon.

We are trapped in chromos and can't see our way out. Like the crazy house of mirrors that keeps bringing us back to the same door that leads back into the same room, we are bound by our addition to time as chronos , as a straight line, as the day after tomorrow, as yesterday, as in now.

Kairos is a different kind of time. Kairos is time in the sense of the right time, the time to do something. Kairos is time in the sense of

• it's time I grew up

• it's time we got engaged

• it's time we got married

• it's time for us to have children

• it's time own our own home

• it's time we got rid of our college furniture

Kairotic time is time in the sense of when Mom says, “In a minute.” What she means is, when I've done what I have to do and when I have my day planned out so I don't forget something important, when the time is right for us to leave, we'll leave.

It's all that, and then some. Kairotic time is not our time, but God's time. And we have trouble with that.

Take Lent for instance, we say it's forty days, a tithe of the year, a time for repentance and prayer, fasting and works of love, and the first thing we do is count the days and say, “Hey, wait a minute, from now to Easter is not forty days, it's 46. It's not a tithe, a tithe would be 36.5 days. We say it's the same amount of time Jesus spent in the wilderness without food and drink and we say, “no one could last that long.”

We hear that it mimics the number of years Moses and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, and then we read the story and we learn that Moses never makes it into the Promised Land but instead dies on Mt. Nebo and we say, after all that time, it's not fair that he didn't make it, after all, he spent all that time.

We live in the box that time has fashioned for us, that chronos has crafted out of the cycle of our days.

And so we come to Lent, again.

Each year, I try, in my sermons and my writings, to give you a perspective on Lent that you might not have had before. I've told you to stop giving things up and instead, take something worthwhile on. I've told you that Jesus doesn't care if you eat chocolate or not, or that losing the weight we all should lose anyway is not a Lenten discipline and that fish or meat make no difference whatsoever, except of course to the cow or the salmon.

So for this year, I would like to invite you to see Lent as an opportunity for you to enter God's time, for a time. Each day, somewhere in the day, maybe the first thing, perhaps the last, but sometime during the day, stop living chronologically and live kairotically , enter into the place where God is and where there are no set boundaries within which you have to conform. That time could be a time of prayer, or silence. It could be a moment of appreciation and wonder, it could be an extra moment given to a friend or a child or a parent, a moment given without thought of how long it needs to be. And don't confuse this moment with the often touted moment for yourself. This moment is not for yourself, it's for God. It's not the quiet cup of coffee, consumed behind the closed door where you can't hear the children, it's not the evening at the movies or the drive to the waterfront, or the good time had with friends over endless breadsticks and a bottomless tourine of soup. It's not a moment for yourself, but a moment for God, a kairos moment, when you set everything else aside and look for God to fill you, or better, complete you, because without that, we are merely slaves to the to do list of life. In the moments you allow God to become one with you again, there is your redemption, your justification, your sanctification, your resurrection, your new life, your eternal self.

Amen.

Transfiguration Sunday - February 14, 2010
The Rev. John A. Buerk

LOVE AND BIBLICAL RELEVENCE

Sometimes it isn't easy to get inspired when it's time to preach a sermon. Sometimes the lessons don't make much sense - or they do - but I have difficulty figuring out how to talk about them. And there are times when a topical sermon is appropriate, but nothing interesting or provocative is happening.

But today presents the opposite problem – there are too many things one can preach about. For instance, the first lesson from Isaiah is wonderful. It's about Moses meeting God on the mountain and receiving the two tablets on which the Ten Commandments are written. When he appears to the people, his face is glowing with such brilliance that the people are forced to look away.

Interestingly, early translators of the phrase “glowing countenance” mistakenly translated it as Moses “having horns” – the text is easily confused. Freud, unfortunately, only knew the mistranslation and consequently developed some interesting – if ill founded – theories about Moses and Judaism. The jacket on Freud's book about Moses actually depicts Moses with horns because the cover is a photo of Michelangelo's statue of Moses, which also mistakenly has horns.

And then there is the Gospel lesson that tells the story of the Transfiguration. It's a strange story, and it apparently was a way for the author to connect Jesus with Moses.

And when it comes to current events, we have many questions about the disaster in Haiti and how one interprets natural catastrophes.

But we aren't done yet – today is special because today is Valentine's Day – a day on which we celebrate love. And - in one way or the other - we all do. If you are young you do so in anticipation of it. If you are mature, it is a work in progress. And if you are older, there are all of those great memories. There is something for everyone.

Of course, when you are really young you have a perspective on love and marriage that can be a bit distorted. Here are some quotes from children. Eric, who was six was of the opinion that; Marriage is when you get to keep the girl and don't have to give her back to her parents.

Kelly, who was nine had a thought about how you knew whom to marry – she said: You flip a nickel and heads means you stay with him and tails means you try the next one.

Nine-year-old Carolyn was a bit more analytical: My mother says to look for a man who is kind … that's what I'll do … I'll find somebody who is kinda tall, and kinda handsome.

At what age a person marries is important to some children. Carol, who was, 8, suggests , Eighty-four! Because at that age you don't have to work anymore and you can spend your time with each other.

But, on the other extreme there was Bert who said: Once I'm done with kindergarten I'm going to find me a wife!

Some kids are concerned with how couples get together. Martin suggested that: A couple first goes out together; they tell each other lies and usually that gets them interested enough to go out a second time.

Eight-year-old Craig said: Many daters just eat pork chops and French fries and talk about love.

Some children had suggestions about how to go about getting married. Kristen suggested that: You should just ask the people who read COSMOPOLITAN.

Anita said: It's better for girls to be single but not boys; boys need somebody to clean up after them.

But, eight year old Will just got fed up – he said: It gives me a headache to think about that stuff – I'm just a kid – I don't need that kind of trouble!

Well, that's what kids think about marriage – what about grown-ups and marriage? Valentine's day not-with-standing, love is only part of the picture when it comes to marriage – compatibility is also critical.

A friend of mine told me about going to his doctor just before he was getting married. The doctor said he wanted to point out something very important for a successful marriage. He said a marriage consists of 10% sex and 90% compatibility. He said you can get away with 80% compatibility – even 70%, or 60% compatibility. But, you need all of the 10%!

The bottom line is that marriage needs to be based on friendship. And friendship often depends on common ground. When I was in college – 55 years ago – my sociology professor said that 80% of the couples who got married in the United States lived within 10 blocks of each other.

Half of the kids in my church youth group married within the congregation.

I don't know what those statistics would be today, but I do know that most of the couples I've married in recent years didn't meet each other until they were in their 20's and many even in their 30's.

When a couple grew up within 10 blocks of each other they had a lot in common. They had the same religion, same socio-economic background, same ethnicity – they had extended families with common favorite foods – from pork and sauerkraut, to blintzes, to pigs in the blanket spaghetti and meatballs.

But if you watch television ads today you might think that when couples meet, the kind of beer they drink is their common bond.

Now all this makes for difficulty in marriage. And to add to these issues we have the different ways in which men and women deal with problems like depression.

Elayne Boosler said, When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.

And there is also the phenomenon of an unprecedented number of women in the work force. It was reported a few weeks ago that for the first time in this country there are more employed women than men. There are more women than men in law school these days and almost an equal number of men and women are in our seminaries. And this makes for a struggle when a married professional couple has children. Gloria Steinmen observed, I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.

So here we are with a diverse and volatile cultural milieu in which young people come together from divergent backgrounds and expect that that their common love of Molson's Golden, or LaBatt's lite will be their bond in marriage. It won't work!

And, believe it or not, the Bible speaks to this situation. The biblical stories about “Adam and Eve”, and “Jesus' temptations”, and “Jesus' redemptive work” are about as relevant as you can get to our human condition. Cultural changes not-with-standing.

One little boy noted that the reason Adam and Eve weren't embarrassed about being naked when they were in the Garden was because they didn't have mirrors. But, we do – and we know what we look like – and most of us know that we don't belong in the Garden of Eden.

And remember the story about Jesus being tempted by the devil at the beginning of his ministry? Jesus had been fasting for forty days and he was hungry. The devil tells him to use his authority to turn the stones into bread. He tells Jesus to jump off a high building and have the angels come and save him so that he can show off his power. The devil takes him to a high mountain and says that if Jesus worships him he can have all of creation as his kingdom.

Temptations that confront us all – from a free lunch – to power over others – to using religion for our own self interest and satisfaction.

Our human condition is not something that the Bible ignores. And neither does our religious tradition. That is why our marriage liturgy reads:

The Lord our God, in his goodness, created us male and female and by the gift of marriage founded human community in a joy that begins now and is brought to perfection in the life to come.

Because of sin, our age-old rebellion, the gladness of marriage can be overcast and the gift of the family can become a burden. But, because God, who established marriage, continues to bless it with his abundant and ever-present support, we can be sustained in our weariness and have our joy restored.

And remember the blessing that follows:

The Lord God, who created our first parents and established them in marriage, establish and sustain you, that you may find delight in each other and grow in holy love until life's end.

Amen.

The Fifth Sunday of Epiphany - February 7, 2010
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

Click here to view the Service Leaflet

The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany - Janurary 31, 2010
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

In the United States, census data suggests that 70% of the US population are nominal Christians. Of this 70%, 40% claim to attend church at least once per year outside of Christmas, Easter, a wedding or a funeral. Statistics show that less than 25% of that 40% attend worship on a weekly basis. Now, this is neither a financial update sermon nor a stewardship sermon, but those same statistics show that of those who attend church regularly, only 3% tithe.

These statistics are born out in our own congregation. On our statistical report we claim a little over a thousand members. Our average weekly attendance is about 25% of that. Of our 200 giving units, less than 5 are tithers.

Last week, we were talking in our after church meeting about the viability of this congregation and the need for new members and where are they going to come from and all that. After church, I had a chance to talk with President Bauchle and I shared with him two interesting statistics. First, we average about ten visitors per Sunday. Now some of them are true visitors, friends of members, people in town for a weekend or a wedding or accompanying someone to Roswell or one of our other fine hospitals. But some are looking for a church to call home. I suspect there may even be a few folks here today, because they hope to find a new church home. I said to Paul, if we averaged 10 visitors per week and half of them were “church shopping” to use a crass word, and we could show them that this was a loving, caring, exciting church family to be a part of, our membership would double every four years.

The other interesting statistic I shared with Paul, was that if everyone who claims to be a member of this church came on the same Sunday, they wouldn't fit, unless we held three services of worship here in our main sanctuary.

So, I concluded that what we need to do to insure our viability was twofold:

• Be better at welcoming and showing hospitality to our new friends and genuinely welcome them to and include them in our ministry and….

• Do a better job of being a church family and invite those who are already members to become more active in the life of the congregation.

And beyond that, once they're here, they need to have something to do. Mission both precedes and follows evangelism, because there's no sense joining a church that doesn't do anything and so we need look no further, once again, than to the first words Jesus speaks aloud in the Gospel of Matthew, words I eluded to last week. The first words he speaks are taken from the book of Isaiah and lays out the mission, not only for his life but for the life of the church as a whole:

18"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
To proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free.

How you do that and what actions these words motivate, are up to you and are of infinite possibility, but if you're looking for a mission statement, you won't find a better one than this.

Jumping for a moment from church mission to church statistics, I read an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal this past week about the growth of home churches. Of the 30% who claim to believe in God but who don't go to a traditional church each week, the article stated that the home church movement was approaching 6%. Now, we don't really know what that number means….it could mean that that 6% are actually holding worship, with prayer and song and teaching components, but it could include those who claim to hold church at home when in reality, they're just saying “grace” before meals. But the movement is interesting nonetheless.

Critics of the institutional church say that increasing numbers of people are reverting back to the smaller models that characterized the early church, citing a growing dissatisfaction with the larger Church and the issues that typically face larger institutions, among them the cost of maintaining the institution, its facilities, its administration, its bureaucracy, training costs for leaders, health and pension plans and so on. I not here this morning to debate the pros and cons of the institutional church as much as I want to focus on why people are turning to different alternatives, some of which may be good, like home churches and an emphasis on keeping a Christian home and focusing on morality and ethics. But parts of the movement away from the traditional church and traditional forms of spirituality are not so good, perhaps even dangerous.

I've noted an alarming increase in the general population's attraction to the para-normal, to psychic fairs, tarot, vampires, were wolves. Television programming and large screen cinema seem to focus a lot lately on the interaction being the living and the dead. And you have to ask yourself, “Why?”

I think part of the answer lies in the first statistic I gave you, as people wander away from the historical and traditional sources of wisdom that attempted to answer some of these questions in a way that respected both intelligence, reality and science, the vacuum left by this trend gave room for all sorts of a-traditional and a-historical venues, not to mention a proliferation of attention on celebrity lifestyles and preferences, Dr. Phil, Oprah, and the like.

You know what they say, if parents won't talk to their children about drugs and sex, somebody else will and the information they get from those sources may not be exactly the information you want your child to have. So also, with issues of spirituality, morality, ethics, life, death and God.

Human beings are hard wired to be questioning creatures. Even a quick reading of Genesis and how our first ancestors dealt with ambiguity will attest to that fact. And more than questions of which tree should we eat from or not, are the larger questions of “who we are,” and “what is our purpose in life?”

And these questions are only answered if we look at the larger picture, at the whole of creation and at our relationships with one another, and with God. I cannot answer the question, “Who am I?” apart from the question, “Who am I in relationship to you?” And I will not be satisfied with any answer I receive if it doesn't also address the question, “Who am I in relationship to the one who created me?” I cannot accept the proposal that I am an accident of chemical combination, Descartes solved that equation for me, and I cannot believe that creation and therefore, I, have no purpose or goal. I am more than the DNA that makes me up and I can affect change and therefore history.

How do I know then, if what I do with the freedom that my life affords me, is for good and for God?

Well, believe it or not, the answer to that question is the simplest of all, and St. Paul can be credited with giving it to us. In his most famous passage from his first letter to the people of Corinth, who, by the way, were having all kinds of trouble sorting out for themselves how to treat one another and which philosophy and lifestyle to accept, says this,”

I f I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

If you're looking for a mission statement, remember this:

18"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
To proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free.

And if you want to be certain that your motivation comes from God, let whatever you do, be borne first, and last, of love.

Amen.

The Third Sunday of Epiphany - January 24, 2010
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

The Second Sunday of Epiphany - January 17, 2010
The Rev. John A. Buerk

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

GETTING AND GIVING

I once had a conversation with a young, bright Presbyterian minister on the subject of stewardship. I told him that my congregation wanted me to preach a stewardship sermon. The kind of a sermon that I don't really like to preach.

He said that he had to come up with a stewardship sermon as well but he was going to point out to his congregation that he really wasn't especially worried about what they contributed to the church. But as a pastor he was really more worried about they were going to do with the rest of their money – the other ninety per cent or more. He said he knew what was going to happen to the money they gave to the church, but it was the rest of the money people earned that reflected their values.

I realized that he was right. Somehow, what we consider valuable in our lives is not only a reflection of the value place on our soul, but it also reflects what we consider to be of spiritual significance in life. I think that is why poor people, statistically and proportionately, tend to be far more generous with what they have than those who are wealthy.

On Thursday a doctor who was working in Haiti for a non-profit group when the earthquake struck wrote a letter to the New York Times saying how destitute the country was, but that the people still had a generosity and kindliness about them. He said he had just gone to the home of an old woman who needed medical care. When he was leaving she insisted on giving him two grapefruits as a gift – it was all that she could give him.

Values are relative. Some of you will remember that wonderful poem by Shel Silverstein from his children's book, Where the Sidewalk Ends.

My dad gave me a one-dollar bill
‘cause I'm his smartest son,
and I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘cause two is more than one!

And then I took the quarters
and traded them to Lou for three dimes.
I guess he didn't know that three is more than two!

Just then, along came old blind Bates
and just ‘cause he can't see
he gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
and four is more than three!

And I took the nickels to Hiram Coons
down at the seed-feed store,
and the fool gave me five pennies for them,
and five is more than four!

And then I went and showed my dad,
and he got red in the cheeks
and closed his eyes and shook his head –
too proud of me to speak!

The father knew the value of a dollar, but the boy valued what he had in hand, and he knew that five was more than one. Now of course, we all know that for one dollar you can get one hundred pennies – so many that they won't all fit in one little hand. But, in the end, the father is exasperated, but the little boy is content.

In First Timothy we read:

There is great gain in godliness with constraint; for we brought nothing into this world and it is certain that we cannot take anything out of this world. Those who desire to be rich fall into the temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evil. (6:6.7.9.10)

Please note – the text does not say that money is the root of all evil – but as we know it is the love of money that is the root of an awful lot of evil.

Of late we have seen this in the news all too often. Investors taking advantage of those who trust them - they take their savings, and then they take off with them.

We have seen telemarketers literally robbing people of their money.

We see television evangelists living lives of luxury – living in mansions – while people living on a pittance send in their few dollars every week.

Or people supporting the likes of Pat Robertson who claimed that the earthquake in Haiti was because a long time ago Haitian slaves made a bargain with the devil if he could rid them of the French.

And the greed, of course, is on both sides. Those who take, and those who think that they can make 20% a year on their investments and don't ask any questions.

Although there are passages in the Bible that are hard to understand, the passage we just heard from Timothy is very straight forward. And, Timothy's first epistle ends with the words:

As for the rich in this world, charge them not to be haughty, not to set their hopes on uncertain riches, but on the God who richly furnishes us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in deeds, liberal and generous, thus laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life which is life indeed. (6:17-19)

So, here we are with one life to live, and one life to share, and one life to bring to a close. And what does it all mean? Well, I hope that it means we have an appreciation for the good things in life.

A wise bishop once told his people, You were not created for pleasure – you were created for joy!

At the wedding in Canna, Jesus didn't turn water into table wine. He turned it into the best wine they had at the wedding! The kind you serve at the beginning of a celebration.

Now, of course, this story of Jesus turning water into wine is a metaphor – but like any good metaphor, it makes reality even more real. This first of Jesus' signs – according to John's gospel – recognized that good wine is better than bad wine. And I hope that an appreciation for life includes preferring music that is on pitch rather than being merely loud. And, I hope that it means an appreciation for that which is beautiful, and for that which is well crafted.

But life must also reach down deep into the soul to find what there is in life for which we are spiritually grateful. And if we can do that then I think we will find that caring for others, and being cared for, are of extreme value. So valuable that we would be willing to sacrifice for them.

Parents do that for their children. The righteous do that for the poor. The sensitive do that for the hungry. The people of God do that for the people of the world.

The theologian, Joseph Sittler once noted that, No place is holy, but the holy must present itself in some place! This place is not intrinsically holy, but this is the place where we come to sing our songs, and pray our prayers, and to break bread together, and to say to God, thank you God for all that has been, and for all that there is, and all that will be. (Dag Hammarskjold)

The Baptism of our Lord - January 10, 2010
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

The Second Sunday of Christmas - January 3. 2010
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

Click here for the Audio of the Festival Service of Holy Communion

The First Sunday of Christmas - December 27, 2009 - The Feast of St. John
The Rev. John A. Buerk

ST. JOHN, Et. Al.

Many of the days between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day are designated as Holy Days. December 25 is the Nativity of our Lord. December 26 is St. Stephen's Day – the first Christian Martyr. December 27 is St. John's Day. December 28 is Holy Innocents' Day. And, January 1 is The Name of Jesus Day

Bach's Christmas Oratorio is made up of the music he composed to commemorate each of these days.

This year it happens that St. John's Day, December 27, falls on a Sunday, which it does every seven years or so – depending on leap years. The fact that it is also my birthday and that my name is John, is purely coincidental. My mother was pretty serious about her faith, but I think she knew from the beginning that I would not be up to having the name of a saint.

The problem with the feast of St. John is that we don't quite know who the John was who got credit for all those wonderful books in the New Testament. There is reference in the gospel to a disciple named John whom Jesus loved. According to tradition, it was this John who wrote the Gospel of John, and it was he who wrote the three Epistles of John.

But there is much speculation as to how accurate these attributions are. The Book of Revelation was written by John the Elder, whom no scholar considers to be the disciple John. And if he or she does, they are no scholar.

In case you are wondering how the name of John got attached to these writings, you have to know that in antiquity you had the reverse of what happens today. Today we have scandals relating to reporters, columnists and authors using other people's material and calling it their own – they plagiarize. In those old days it was different. In those days if you wanted something you wrote circulated, you claimed that it was written by someone important. And you put his name down as the author.

That still works to a certain degree. Somebody carried out a bit of embarrassing research in which he had a well-know writer submit items for publication under a false name. When he used this pseudonym, all of his material was rejected. He then resubmitted the material using his own name, and it was readily accepted.

Well, the scholarly way of handling the issue of authorship is to say that there was probably a Johanine school – or a group of men closely connected to John who wrote the material. This gives an aura of validity to the authorship – even if it does beg the question.

And we also have to remember that the reason the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John have been revered is because it was assumed that they were written by the disciples of Jesus. Luke, however, admits that what he had written about Jesus was the result of what he had heard and read. In the first few verses of Luke's gospel he wrote:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and minister of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you . (Luke 1:1-3)

And at the end of his gospel John wrote:

…there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world could not contain the books that would be written. (21:25)

Which, of course, raises the question about the validity of other writings that tell about Jesus but which are not part of the kosher Bible. There were stories about Jesus that circulated for centuries, and there are also the writings that surfaced in Egypt not many ears ago.

So how do we know which of these writings concerning Jesus are valid? Well, it would seem that some are and some are not. Some are so fanciful that they are obviously not true. Stories about Jesus as a little boy playing with some other children and making birds out of clay and telling them to fly away – and they come alive and fly away. Medieval lore about Jesus got to be pretty bazaar. In one song from that period, Jesus gets annoyed with some children when they tease him, so he causes them all to fall into well where they drown.

On the other hand, some very provocative material from the first century has surfaced in Egypt which scholars find useful and informative.

So, the question is, “Do we know all there is to know about what Jesus said and did?” And the answer is obviously, “NO”.

But there is a second question, “Is what we do know, enough?” Do we need more writings from the past to fill in the gaps and to help explain things that are confusing? Well, I always liked what Mark Twain said about the good book – he said, “It isn't the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that trouble me; it's the parts that I do understand.”

The gospel stories may not be consistent in telling us about Jesus' last words from the cross. But the gospels are very consistent in telling us to be concerned for the poor, and the homeless, and the hungry, and for those who have none to care for them.

The gospel message is consistent when it tells us to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.

The story of Jesus in the Bible is well summed up by words from John's First Epistle:

Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love…Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another . No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides is us and his love is perfected in us. (4:7,8,11,12)

The Eve of Christmas - December 24, 2009
The Rev. Charles D. Bang

The Fourth Sunday in Advent - December 20, 2009
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

The Third Sunday in Advent - December 13, 2009
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Experts cannot seem to agree on the origin of the term, but most recognize that it first appeared in print in the early 1900's. Some trace it a little further back into the 1880's but the reference is suspect. The Bang family uses is often. Whenever someone sticks their nose into someone else's business, or comes snooping around when it is obvious that they have no business being there, we use the phrase nosey-parker, meaning, someone who parks their nose where it doesn't belong. In searching the Internet for its origins, the most likely explanation was that the phrase was originally nose poker, someone who pokes their nose where it doesn't belong; nose poker to be differentiated from the phrase often used to describe a less than intelligent, less than fastidious, less than sociable nose picker.

Nosy parker is a great phrase and it seems appropriate for many people at many times. We are, after all, an inquisitive species. When I looked up at the ceiling at the beginning of the sermon, at least half of you, perhaps even more, looked up as well. That's because we're nosy, and we share this trait with many other of God's creatures. If you have a dog, go home and go into the kitchen and stoop down to look in the cabinet under the sink. If your dog is on the loose, it's only a matter of time until he/she sticks his/her nose into your business. Right? Forget the dog, try it with your spouse, or better still, with your children. I'd be willing to bet there are as many nosey parkers in your family as there are in mine.

Then drive down the Thruway, and watch what happens if two cars pull off the road at the same time, or if a cop pulls some over, or worse, if there's an accident. We all complain when we get to that point where the accident happens, and we ALL say, is THAT what caused all that traffic, all the while staring out the side window ourselves. And the amount of traffic the incident creates is in direct proportion to the number of vehicles involved in the affair. Six car pile-up, six times the amount of traffic.

And God forbid if one of the cars is mangled, or rolled over, well that's an afternoon. And we all slow down to look, why is that, is it because we thought the first 400 car's worth of people didn't call it in or get out to help? NO, it's because we are by nature, say it with me, nosy parkers .

John the Baptist was by the River Jordan baptizing and the townsfolk, in the absence of any other kind of entertainment, came out to see what all the commotion was about. John was baptizing, preaching and calling for repentance; and the folk came sniffing around, hoping to hear something new, or see something spectacular; or, if it was a good day, both.

And seeing them, he turned to them and asked them why they were there. Now, presumably the ones who came to be baptized in the first place were there because they heard and came to believe what John was preaching about; namely, calling for repentance and a change of heart, if not a change of lifestyle, if not a change of attitude.

But then, there were these nosey parkers. Those who came, not to be baptized, not to hear about their need for repentance, not because they wanted to help, but merely to see, perhaps even because there MIGHT be something to his preaching and “we thought we'd come, just in case.” In much the same way some people have their child “christened” but have no connection, before or after, with the church, with the Word, or with the promises they made that day. It's insurance, just in case there's something to it: so also those who came to the water's edge, just in case. John turns on them and says, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”

And then, in anticipation of their reply to his initial challenge by saying: “We don't need your kind of religion. After all, we're the chosen ones, not you. We come from a long line of the covenanted faithful, whose pedigree is certainly better than yours. As a matter of fact, if we trace our ancestry back, eventually we'll get to Abraham, that's Father Abraham to you, and you can't get a better pedigree than that! (Unless, of course, you're related to Martin Luther, Ralph Loew, or John Buerk”)

John replied, “Don't tell me that you are children of Abraham, because the God I know, the God YOU claim to be your God, this God, if he wanted to, he could make children of Abraham out of any rock you find by the road. So don‘t go off thinking how special you are!”

Now he has their attention and so, deducing that perhaps he might have something to say that's worth hearing, they ask, “What then should we do?”

Looking at the way he was dressed, looking at what was the evidence of a life lived in the wilderness, perhaps even looking into those eyes, full of passion and perhaps even a little crazy, they were expecting something radical. They were expecting something shocking. They were expecting, at least, something new; something different, something “out of the box” as they say. But, instead he said this:

If you have two coats, give one away.

If you have enough food and some to spare, share some.

If you're tax collector, and tax collectors were notorious for raising the assessment and collecting more than city hall or the emperor required, because anything they could squeeze out of a client over what Rome demanded they collect, was theirs to keep. If you're a tax collector, John said, collect only what the state allows. And if you're a soldier, or anyone in a position of power over someone else for that matter, don't abuse that power. If John were so speak to us today, he might say,

“If you're a successful professional athlete, maybe even a golfer, and people, especially children look up to you and want to grow up to be like you and pin their aspirations on the fact that if you can make it so can I, then you have an obligation to keep your nose clean, to live a decent life, to care for people, to keep your promises.

If you're a senator in our Congress, or the governor of a large State, like New York or Massachusetts, there are standards of behavior that you should observe, and you shouldn't abuse your privilege to ship prostitutes across state lines, or try to sell a Senate seat, or disappear from your family and your duties to go have a little tryst off in South America.

He says to us,

• Don't cheat on your taxes,

• Drive less and when you do drive a more efficient car

• Give more money away

• Read more, watch television less and demand the truth from your sources.

• Pay more attention to your children

And wait for and look to God.

Those who came to hear him that day hoped for something else. What they got they already knew, but were reluctant to implement.

All I can do, John said, is point you in the right direction. You'll have to do the rest by yourselves. But it's worth doing, because the day will come, most likely at the end of your days, when before the throne of your Lord, or at the very least, in the privacy of your conscience, you'll have to account for what you've done, where you've been and what your motivation for living was. I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; and I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Amen

The Second Sunday in Advent - December 6, 2009
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius.

Just as popes choose an historical name by which they wish to be known, so the Caesars of Rome did as well. Tiberius was Claudius Caesar Augustus. His father, was Octavian, the grandnephew and adopted heir of Julius Caesar. He was simply known as the Great One or in Latin, Augustus.

When Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea…

Pilate was the fifth governor of the province and the second longest to hold the post. Judea then, was like Judea now, a difficult place to govern. He served in that capacity from 26 AD until 36 AD. His proper title was prefect.

And Herod was ruler of Galilee…

We do not have enough time and I enough space to give you a proper biography of Herod, but suffice it to say he was called Herod the Great for many reasons, not the least of which included his wealth, his conquests, his penchant for spending money, taxing the populace, building magnificent buildings and amassing many wives and concubines. He died when Jesus was a young boy. Upon his death, Caesar Augustus, the Great One, divided his kingdom amongst his three sons, Archelaus, Philip, and Antipas. Antipas is the Herod of Jesus adult years, the one who ordered the head of John the Baptist on a platter. When Jesus called called to appear before Herod after Pilate tried to wash his hands of the whole affair, this is the Herod Luke speaks of in this passage.

And his brother, Philip, ruler of the region of Iturea and Trachonitiis…

Iturea was the region just north of the Sea of Galilee and Trachonitis, that 370 square mile tract of land located northeast between Galilee and Damascus. A rocky yet fertile lava plain known in the Old Testament as the Land of Bashan.

And Lysanias ruler of Abilene…

Abilene was a small district 20 miles north of Damascus in modern day Syria, Lysanias never made it into any history book save the bible.

During the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas…

Annas was high priest when Jesus was born and held the post, whivh was appointed by the Emperor, until Ad 15. He was wealthy, one of the prerequisites for holding office, then as now, and five of his sons, as well as his son in law, Caiaphas, attainted the office of high priest during their lifetimes.

The word of God came to John, son of Zechariah in the wilderness…

Like Abraham and Sarah, Zechariah and Elizabeth did not have a child until their old age. John the Baptist was their only son, and second cousin to Jesus on their mothers' side.

John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and quoted Isaiah, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee…

when the seat of power was Rome and the center of the Jewish world was Jerusalem, when the Caesar ruled the world as a self proclaimed god and his nearly divine representative, the prefect told his subjects when to jump and how high, when the priests held the keys to the kingdom of God and the power over forgiveness and redemption…

a new message came from God, first out of the mouth of the Baptist and then with the life and time, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Luke includes in his gospel account this information because he wants us to know that Jesus came in the midst of time, that Jesus came in the midst of life, that Jesus was born into an era, an epoch, a century, a decade, a time, a reality and that his story was not just a story by and by, but a story of a specific time and with specific people, real people. For those of us living in this time, this story of Jesus was not Peter Pan, set in some make believe never-never land, this story of Jesus was not a made up character to assist parents with child rearing, this story of Jesus was neither fairy tale nor legend.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius he writes to place Jesus firmly in our time and in our lives.

2000 years aside, very little has changed from that first Advent season to this one, and the call to repentance and to preparation remain a challenge to those of us who think ourselves either too far gone to be saved or too far come to be in need of salvation.

And the words that were cried in the wilderness are the same, “prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” The wilderness today may look different from the wilderness that faced John but it is a wilderness none the less. In his day, John faced a world where Christ was unknown, where the hope of a Messiah merely a distant link to a past that recorded 700 years of persecution, exile, famine, slavery, death.

In our day, Christianity is now a minority religion, with denominational Christianity waning with each passing year. Christmas is a retail opportunity and Black Friday is better known than Good Friday, and the only press we get is when someone tries to post the Ten Commandments or put a manger up in a public place. Clerics are the buffoons of sit com weddings, and church is only for the naïve.

In a popular catalog that arrived at our house the other day, was a section of T-Shirts for atheists, some of whose slogans read, “At least we've never stoned anyone for what they believe or not,” another read, “I won't pray in your church, please don't think in my world.” While another read, “It seems to me that the world's religions are just fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.”

I was offended, of course, at first, until I started to think about what those sayings said about the current state of affairs within the church. What they say is that we have allowed ourselves and the message of the gospel to become trivialized. Where we spend much of our attention, and where we get attention; where we spend our money, what we fight about, at least in this generation, misses the boat with regards to what's important.

If John the Baptist were here, if Jesus could speak to a new generation, I think they would both ask,

• “Where are the crooked paths and what have you done to straighten them?

• Have all the valleys been filled, are all the mountains of despair and the hills of hardship been made low so that those who have been walking uphill all their lives, will find the way a little easier?

• War abounds and where is the church's message of hope and peace?

• Is repentance passé, and have we no need for refo rm, individually or corporately? Are we who we need to be, are we who we cou ld be, are we who we wish to be and are we doing for one another what needs to be done so that every person is given the chance to reach their full potential without prejudice and without pity?

Until the Church addresses these issues it will continue to be relegated to the fringe of influence and true power, which only grows from true love and compassion for one another.

As a church we have been fiddling while Rome has burned and John and Jesus and our heavenly Father would have us do otherwise. There are more important things in the world

• than Tiger Wood's car accident,

• whether or not Donny Osmond deserved to win Dancing with the Stars

• or that some publicity seeking celebrity wanabees snuck into a White House party, because while this was happening,

• 34,000 more troops were committed to be sent into harm's way,

• people are going bankrupt trying to pay for the health care expenses,

• 13 year olds are sending provocative emails to their 8 th grade classmates,

• Our state and states like California are near bankruptcy

and the church has spent the last ten years debating the sexual orientation of its pastors and whether or not a bishop from the apostolic tradition needs to be present to make an ordination valid.

Advent is the season for preparing a new way for the Lord, let us then, be about our Father's business, and soon. Amen.

The First Sunday in Advent - November 29, 2009
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

Click here for the Audio of the Service of Holy Communion

Click to view the Service Leaflet

The First Sunday in Advent - November 29, 2009
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang
Sermon, Parkside Lutheran Church

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I am the younger of the two sons born to Gertrud and Hans Bang. My older brother, Raimond, R_A_I_M_O_N_D, lives near Poughkeepsie, NY with his wife Linda and their 9 remaining children, 3 having already flown the nest and 10 other foster children have moved on in their lives.

I have said it on many occasions and I say it again this morning, my brother is a saint. I say this, not because of the many things he has accomplished in his life, not because of the many children whose lives he and Linda have snatched from the abyss of neglect and abuse and circumstance, not because he assumed the role of head of household after my father left and our grandfather died. I say this because he had to endure ME as his younger brother. Let me give you but one example.

We were still fairly young and living at home. It was Christmas. For some reason that Christmas, all we wanted were clock radios. I guess we were getting older and wanted to a) assume some responsibility for getting ourselves up in the morning and not relying on our grandmother to come in, rub our backs for fifteen minutes until we slowly came around to consciousness. (Why we wanted to abandon that practice remains a mystery now that I would give my eye teeth to wake up that nicely each morning.) But we were teenagers and you know how teenagers are. And B) were at that age when we wanted to listen to our own kind of music and not necessarily or always want Mom wanted to have on the radio. So we asked for clock radios. I remember the patience with which my Mom took us around to the electronics stores to see which models had what we wanted and feel within her price range.

We also SWORE we would not get the same one. But after much searching and much negotiation, we did, finally, settle on the model we wanted. When Christmas came around and we opened our “big” present, lo and behold, my brother and I discovered that we had, in fact, picked out the same radio.

They were made by GE, perhaps the last model made in the United States. There were AM AND FM radios, and though not stereo, they had a red stereo indicator light that lit up if the station was one of the lucky few to broadcast in stereo…yes I am that old.

The other thing the clock radios had, were those little clear plastic knobs, that had the one indicator protrusion on one side with which you set your clock radio to off, on or alarm. It also had the new technology of snooze, which was another little plastic knob that actually was a little click timer that gave you another 5 minutes before the alarm or radio came on again. They also had a phone jack for headphones, if we wanted to listen covertly after we were supposed to be asleep. The headphone jack, sadly, did not accept stereo headphones, but only the one old fashioned type single ear jack like the old hearing aid kind.

We loved our radios and because we got the same one, neither of us could “one-Up” the other with the great choice that we made. Instead, we took pride in the fact that great minds thought alike…

Anyway…suffice it to say, that we knew how the other's radio worked. Which brings me to why my brother is a saint. All through his life, he has had to endure his younger brother playing tricks on him, booby-trapping doors, short sheeting his bed, hiding his stuff. Well, this new radio provided me perfect the medium with which to continue my lifelong pursuit of driving my brother crazy.

What I would do, was, before he went to bed, sneak into his room, and crank the volume up on the radio knob to the ear splitting cosmically loud setting. This would accomplish one of two things: if he happened to listen the radio before he went to bed, or if he changed the station and wanted to tune it in clearly, when he did that, the volume would shake him up. Or, if the gods were on my side, he would simply click the little setting knob to alarm and not listen to the radio at all, knowing that the last time he listened to it, it was both tuned to the station he liked and set at an appropriate level to wake him up gently.

I would then go to sleep, confident in the knowledge that I had done my part to uphold the unwritten law of the brotherhood of younger brother's of America, which was, to drive your sibling out of his mind.

In the morning, I would try to set MY alarm, so as to be awake when HIS alarm went off and to be prepared for the punishment I so justly deserved.

Why do I tell you this. Well, I'm sure you can imagine that, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, well I won't be fooled again…after the first incident, I never really ever slept soundly again either. Each morning after the first assault, you would be sound asleep, and you would hear the clock radio click on, and if you were watching, you'd see the little plastic knob move over to on….Then there would be that short pause, that nanosecond between the click of the machine and the sound you either loved or feared. Would it be the gentle sounds of your favorite radio station, coming on to slowly rouse you from slumber, OR WOULD IT BE THE APOCALYPTIC, EAR SHATTERING, I HATE MY BROTHER volume you so justly deserved.

Which would it be?

The reason why I've taken so much time to describe this scenario to you, is because that nanosecond is where we are, every time we get to the first Sunday in Advent. Advent, as the beginning of the liturgical year, serves two functions. It sets the stage for the telling of the whole story of the life of Christ, from the visit of the angel to Elizabeth, then to Mary, to the preaching of John as the forerunner to Christ, to the census in Bethlehem, the journey of Mary and Joseph, to the no room in the Inn, the angels in the heavens, the shepherds in the field and all that. It also sets the stage for the eventual return of this Christ, when he returns in glory to inaugurate God's rule on earth, to change the city of man into the city of God, to overcome evil and sin and death, to restore the relationship we had with God, to the glory it had when it all started, so very long ago.

All the readings, in every year, focus on this theme, for us to both remember and prepare. Well, we've got the remember part down pretty well, even though Black Friday gets more up front time than Good Friday. But if you watch how much effort goes into the remembrance part, I think it's a pretty safe bet that MOST of the world knows that Christmas is coming.

On the other hand, the prepare for his coming again part, is not so well hatched. We don't think about that part all too much. What if this Advent was the Advent when Christ came to us again. What would he find? Would he find the faithfully with their lamps lighted and their reservoirs full? Will we be found to be paying attention to that which God deems is most important, or would he find a frenziedness dedicated to something much different?

So, here we are, the first Sunday in Advent, and we're sound asleep. The click of the radio has just happened, and we are in that never-never land, that instant in time between the click and the music. What music will we hear and at what volume will it come on? Will this Advent be like all the other Advents we've experienced or will this one be different? Will we merely sing the Christmas carols and talk of love and peace or will we actually do something to bring it about? Will the promise of Christ rest and remain in the manger relegated to the past and to our memories, or will the promise that God will once again rule in our hearts and change the way we do business with one another? Which will it be? Which will it be?

Click….

Amen.

The Day of Thanksgiving - November 26, 2009
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

It's hard for me to believe that next May I will celebrate the 30 th anniversary of my ordination. For all those 30 years, the gospel reading on Thanksgiving was the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers and the report that after having been healed, only one returned to give thanks. It seemed an appropriate reading for the National Day of Thanksgiving where more than 10,000 run in the Annual Turkey Trot and we have one of our lowest attended worship services in the calendar year. Add to that the fact that we are only one of a handful of churches that even hold a worship service on Thanksgiving and you can see why this text was chosen.

But lo and behold, when I looked at what the reading for this Thanksgiving was, it had changed. Thirty years of hearing Jesus speak in amazement that after having healed these ten life long suffering unfortunates, only one out of the ten who were cured of their leprosy saw fit to stop and return thanks to God for his miracle.

Thirty years of trying to craft a sermon that at one and the same time encourages the gathered congregation to give thanks, all the while realizing that the ones who needed to hear the message weren't there.

Thirty years of trying to reach a creative balance between guilt and gratitude and the text is finally gone. Praise God.

But be careful for what you wish. The text they gave us, which by the way is my favorite in all of Scripture, seems to be, at first glance, at odds with what the day has become. On a day when all we do is worry, the advice to stop worrying seems counter cultural. On a day that is the culmination of days if not weeks of preparation, thinking and concern, to hear Jesus tell us to chill out, is surprising.

In the Bang household this year, we are blessed to have 15 gathered at our table. Our two girls are home, my Mom is with us, our best friends have come in from out of town, Sarah's sweetheart, Pete and his parents will be with us and as always, our neighbors will join us at table this afternoon. Debby and I have been working on the house to get it ready for our guests and only yesterday did the furniture upon which they will sleep tonight arrive, that's cutting it pretty close. And only the day before the furniture arrived did the carpet get installed. Debby worked at school until late on Tuesday and was lucky to find the right sized turkey just yesterday afternoon. She cleaned the house, did the laundry, changed all the linens, set the table, went shopping, hid all the “stuff” I had laying around, and probably accomplished a hundred things I never even thought of. And she comes to church this morning, and her husband, who worked all day yesterday and didn't show up to help until dinner time, reads this, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?' or ‘What will we drink?' or ‘What will we wear?” It's a good thing I'm hiding up here in my brass encircled fortress.

But you know as well as I that the point that Jesus was trying to get across to his disciples and followers had nothing to do with preparing for a major holiday and everything to do with the attitude with which one approaches all of life. It's unfortunate that those who chose this particular passage of Scripture started the passage a little late and ended it a bit too early. The paragraph that precedes it reads,” No one can serve two masters, for a person will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” This sets the stage for the paragraph we heard read just a minute ago and removes the context from one of hospitality to one of orientation. What is important in your life, and which master do you chose to serve? While we spend a lot of time and energy making sure those with whom we celebrate the holiday are cared for and know, by our gestures of hospitality, that they are loved, it's not our life's work. But the warning exists to make sure that we do not get carried away in anything that pulls us away from God and what God tells us is important.

The passage also tells us to have faith in God and in God's goodness and love for us, and to rest in that knowledge and relinquish control to the One who takes care of all the things we hardly even think of. But we're not good about relinquishing control, are we? It's not easy to admit that we cannot control everything in our lives. We try to, we often think we can, until we can't, or something we can't control tell us otherwise. After all, it's somewhat humiliating to think that something as small as a microbial virus can put us out of business for two weeks, or worse, forever. That try as we might to take care of ourselves, sometimes illness finds us, or age sneaks up on us, or nature gangs up on us, or gravity wins.

The passage says, trust in God, no matter what the day brings.

The passage also ends too early. The short paragraph that follows it contains these words, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.” I believe one of the sayings we inherited from AA says, “Let go and let God.” That doesn't mean you stop paddling, it doesn't mean you don't keep your powder dry, it doesn't mean you stop working with God, it just means you stop thinking that you're in charge and that God works for you.

Sometimes in the midst of all our striving and doing, we lose sight of whose creation it is. I heard just this past week from one of my pastor colleagues here in town. He recalled that the Archbishop of Canterbury had a sign above the exit to his study that he looked at each night as he left the building. It read, “Goodnight Lord, it's Your Church now.” A good motto for any workaholic and a good reminder as to Who rules all of life. But it would have been better had the good archbishop posted the sign on the way IN to his study, in a place where he could have read it before he started the day, before he came into work and tried to save the world all by himself, before he had the opportunity to think himself important and that the fate of the world, or at least his portion of it, was up to him.

We gather this day, this special day, to remind ourselves of this, and to stop in our relentless pursuit of trying fool ourselves into thinking that we control anything and to turn our attitude of self importance into an attitude of gratitude, because none of it is ours, all of it is God's and God gifts it to us for our use and to our care. Lord knows we could do a better job at both, let this be the first day in a string of many to come where we start the day and end the day with words of thanksgiving on our lips and in our hearts.

Amen.

Christ the King Sunday - November 22, 2009
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Bishops are a recent invention in the Lutheran Church. We never used to have them. Instead, we used to have Presidents. The whole Church, the larger Church, the national Church had a president and each synod, each diocese, for those of you who are not well versed in either the history or nomenclature of the Lutheran Church, had its own president. When I entered the ordained ministry in the Lutheran Church in America, which was what one of the three branches that formed the ELCA, or Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was called back then, the President of this diocese, this synod, was The Rev. Dr. Edward K Perry.

President Perry, better known as Ed, which is what we called him, was an interesting person. He suffered no fools, was egotistical and strong willed, he ruled the synod with an iron hand, tolerated no incompetence, no laziness, no excuses for screwing up. He told us, at the first pastors' meeting I ever attended, “Listen, I can understand if somewhere along the way in your ministry, you make a mistake. I can tolerate mistakes. What I can't tolerate is stupidity.”

He also knew his parish; he knew each and every one of his pastors, and the history, personality, pros and cons of each parish and congregation within his Synod. He ran a balanced budget, and he knew what each congregation contributed and what each pastor's salary was.

When our church became the ELCA as a result of the consolidation of three smaller Lutheran Church bodies, as a way of communicating to the world what a Presiding or Synodical President did, we voted to start calling them bishops. At their core, they were still the same as they ever were, but many felt at the time that it was a cosmic shift in the church toward a more Episcopal and less congregational based model. The more conservative and somewhat reactionary Missouri Synod Lutheran Church still has Presidents.

Ed was the only President/Bishop the Upper New York State Synod ever had, serving from its creation out of the old ULCA and United Lutheran Church in the 60's. When it came time for Ed to retire, his long time faithful assistant, Dr. Lee Miller was elected Bishop to succeed him. I still remember what Bishop Perry told his successor on the day of his election. He said, “Congratulations, Lee, from this time onward, you'll never have a bad meal…..but you'll never hear the truth again.”

What he meant by that was, that as Bishop, when you came to call on a Pastor or a Congregation, they'll try to do right by you by having something a little nicer than your traditional potluck dinner, but, when it comes to hearing from pastors and congregations what's really going on with them and their communities, the real story, the truth, will always be forever skewed or clouded, or perhaps, even hidden. When the Bishop calls and asks how're you doing, most times only the positive is accentuated with the somehow darker issues kept hidden. Rarely will the bishop hear, “Boy I really screwed this up here, Ed. Nothing's going right, our numbers are down, our budgets in the toilet, I can't find the energy to even put in a full day's work and it's having a terrible effect on things.” No, most likely the bishop will hear, “Things are great.”

That's when the bishop has to go and find the truth. And truth be told, oftentimes the truth finds him, or as in our case, her.

You'll never have a bad meal and you'll never hear the truth again.

The truth is elusive, isn't it? We tell our children, “Just tell the truth…Honesty is the best policy…If you had only told me the truth from the start.” Husbands and wives would be better off if they always told the truth to each other, so much heartache and misunderstanding could be avoided. In dealing with our aging parents, in our schools and in our jobs, with our government and on the global stage, the truth would be refreshing, but more often than not the truth gets lost somewhere along the way.

Sometimes it gets lost in our best intentions, we say the truth is too painful, or we underestimate another's ability to hear it or take it, we think sometimes it's best to protect someone from the truth, or that a little white lie is the best course of action.

Sometimes, it gets hidden, because we believe the truth is not in our best interests. Better to stay the truth, and win the battle, because the end will justify the means, it doesn't really matter if there were weapons of mass destruction or not…it doesn't matter if the intelligence was skewed…it doesn't matter if we broke the law to get what we needed to indict…it doesn't matter if I lie as long as I get the job…it'll stop the domino effect…it'll create jobs…we need to do it to save the economy…

Other times, it's not to be found at all. On these occasions, only the lesser of two less than truthful options is our only choice…we can't let this large a company fail…if we don't give them the bonuses they leave the company and we need them at this critical time…we never thought they'd do that….they're too big to fail…

The problem then, the problem now, is, what is, where is, the truth? I could get behind a health care bill if I believed I was being told the truth. I think the world would be more supportive of green initiatives if they believed firmly in their hearts that the oil companies and the oil producing nations were telling us the truth. How many of you trust Wall Street, or Capitol Hill, or Albany? What is the truth regarding what's really at stake in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The truth is elusive, as ever. Pilate, though hardly anybody's teddy bear, was interested in only one thing in Palestine, keeping the peace and moving on to a better assignment. Jerusalem and its environs was hardly the plum of the Mediterranean. The primarily Jewish population living amidst a pagan state always made for strange bedfellows and managing their affairs was as difficult and tricky a business then as it has proven to be for the 20 centuries that have followed. It was the Passover, the biggest festival of the year, it was the Allentown Festival, the taste of Buffalo, First Night, Curtain Up, opening home game at the Ralph and the Fourth of July in South Buffalo and ribbon cutting on the new Peace Bridge and Bass Pro all rolled up into one event and the population of Jerusalem had quadrupled along with the problems regarding crowd control, sanitation, policing, and overtime. The crowds brought this insurgent before him and try as he might, they would not let him adjudicate the problem with a wave of his hand and a dismissal of the charges.

They accused him of being a threat to Caesar, of starting his own movement to overthrow Rome and as you can imagine, Pilate wasn't taking the threat seriously. He knew the charges weren't the truth, he knew this man posed no threat to either his position or the Empire. But the people who were in charge, the city over which he had jurisdiction, were unstable and a riot during the Holy Days would not translate well in Rome. He had the power to release him, he had the power to wave his hand and have him executed, he didn't have to ask anyone's opinion and he didn't have to appeal to any higher authority because there was none.

Pilate did not know Jesus, did not know of his ministry, his miracles, his interpretation of Scripture, his powerful charisma, his intimacy with his heavenly Father, the power of his prayers, the challenges he put forth to power and the status quo. He never heard any of his parables, nor did he have any knowledge of his followers, the five thousand he fed on the hillsides, the miraculous catch of fish his direction garnered. But he knew how the world worked and how a selfish humanity operated. He knew, better than most about the pitfalls of ambition and how the desire for power and prestige often manipulated reality. I'm sure he bent the rules in his favor more than once and told the people what they wanted to hear and when he became Procurator of the Region, he never had another bad meal and subsequently, never heard the truth again.

So when Jesus told him that he came simply to bear witness to the truth, Pilate responded by asking, “what is truth?” “What is truth?” is the question we have most on our minds as well.

Today we end another Church Year. The celebration of Christ as King ends the liturgical year and we begin the New Year with the season of Advent next Sunday. Once again we will relive the drama that was the life, death, resurrection and Ascension of Christ and search the history of salvation for the clues that apply to our lives from his story, his teachings, his words, and his life.

Perhaps never before and most likely never since, did he ever stand closer to the truth than he did that day in the Praetorium when Jesus stood before him and told him that his Word was the embodiment of the truth. We would do well to acknowledge that fact ourselves.

Amen.

Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost - November 15, 2009
The Rev. John A. Buerk

WAR AND CHRISTIANITY

This week we celebrated Veterans' Day – a day when we honor our service men and women who have given their lives in defense of our country. And, last week Pastor Olsen highlighted the role of our fallen soldiers when he preached about the tragedy at Fort Hood. Today we remember those service men and women who are related to our congregation.

As we all know religion and war have always been closely related – from the Crusades to the Thirty Years War following the Reformation. Our country provides chaplains for our armed services and an article in last Sunday's newspaper had a provocative discussion about that practice. Lutheran chaplains, however, have played an important spiritually supportive role for our military men and women.

But, we also know that war is a terrible thing. And it doesn't go away. In today's gospel Jesus is quoted as saying, You will hear of wars and rumors of wars…( Mark 13:7) And so it was - and is - and so it will be.

We often forget the horrible numbers when it comes to war causalities. If you go to a list of the highest number of casualties in war in all recorded history – the top two occurred in the 20 th century. The first was WW II with a death toll of 55 million. Number two was a war in China led by Mao – 40 million people died - albeit most of them from famine. And lest we forget – 20 million Native Americans were killed during our country's early history.

The Thirty Years War in the 16 th century in which 7 million people died was especially tragic. That war was a major part of Lutheran history. It was fought soon after the Reformation – it took place mostly in Germany – it was devastating – 7 million deaths represented about a quarter of the German population. Ostensibly it was the Protestants against the Catholics – but as is the case in most “religious” conflicts - it had more to do with power and property and money than with religion. Religion too often becomes the medium for the massacres of war.

One wonders about Christianity and war if one reads the gospels. One can wonder about fighting in a war if one is a Christian. The gospels have Jesus saying many things about the way his followers should behave, and war was not an option. Although war and killing are part and parcel of Jesus' religious tradition in the Old Testament. Even the Ten Commandments get skewed because they translate the fifth commandment as “Thou shalt not kill” - when in fact the Hebrew says, “Thou shalt not murder.”

The Hebrew scriptures have a lot of killing in them from Sampson killing ten thousand Philistine with the jaw bone of an ass – to David killing Goliath with a sling shot – to Jacob's sons killing all the males of Shechem's tribe under very dubious circumstances, because he had violated Jacob's sister Dinah.

Still, “peace and martyrdom” was the mantra of early Christianity.

Although, Jesus did not condemn those who were soldiers. Remember the centurion who came to Jesus to see if he could heal his daughter? Jesus didn't say – quit the army – and I'll see what I can do. He told the man to go home and he would find that his daughter was well.

But, on the whole, Jesus preached pacifism – he was non violent. He told his followers that if someone hit you on one cheek you should also offer the other cheek. If a soldier asked you to carry his pack a mile, you should carry it two. It was the rule of the Empire that any soldier could ask a civilian to carry his pack – but not for more that a mile from the man's home. Jesus told those who followed him to “ go the second mile.”

Remember when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and one of his followers – presumably a disciple – pulled out a sword and cut off a soldier's ear? Jesus called him on it – he restored the ear and said , “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.”

On the whole, Christianity preached pacifism. And, that worked as long as the faith was a minority group. And pacifism is still the rule in some denominations such as the Quakers. The Quakers are highly respected, and although they are pacifists, they are willing to service in our armed forces and risk life and limb in caring for our wounded soldiers on the front lines.

Our government respects that religious tradition, but it appropriately has a lot of trouble with those who decide to be “pacifists” whenever a war breaks out.

But when did this shift take place – when did Christianity side with the state when killing was called for? It happened, ostensibly, when Christianity stopped being an oppressed religion, and became the religion of the state under the reign of Constantine. Constantine's mother was a Christian, and the story is that her son had a vision in which he saw a cross in the sky and heard the words, “In this sign conquer.” And conquer he did!

He ended up declaring that Christianity was to be the official religion of the Roman Empire. Not that there might not have been some political motives behind his piety – if you can imagine that!!! Making Christianity the state religion provided a cause celebre for him to bring all the diverse religious traditions in the Empire into line with his agenda. Again, it is not an uncommon thing to have religion and the state linked. Even the United States did – albeit not quite the way Newt Gingrich envisioned it. If you want a lot of information about our country's ties to religion in its formative years read Dan Brown's new book, “The Lost Symbol”.

As you can imagine, when Constantine made Christianity the state religion, the role the faith played in the Western world changed. It was no longer a faith that could stand on the sidelines and let the state do all the policing and warring. All of a sudden, Christians were in charge of running the state, and to run a state you have to exercise the power of the sword – because if you don't - someone else will.

Luther tried to balance things out by identifying the state as an entity along side the church – he called them the two kingdoms. Both, he said, were “ordained” by God, and each had its function. They were both part of God's scheme to manage the world and civilization. But don't forget this was a time when a prince could be a bishop, and the Pope had an army, and kings ruled by divine right.

Today, however, we have a serous separation between church and state in this country. And yet we still have chaplains, and the United States is the most “religious” country in the world. And the president can say with out impunity what President Oboma said at the memorial service at Fort Hood this past week. No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts. No just and loving God looks upon them with favor.

It is sometimes difficult to deal with religion and the state when it comes to war. During the Second World War, German soldiers had the words, “Gott mit uns” – “God is with us” on their belt buckles. Japanese pilots participated in religious ceremonies before they took off on suicide bombing missions. And remember Abraham Lincoln's famous response to William Seward when Seward told Lincoln that God was on his side? Lincoln said , I am more concerned that we are on God's side, than I am that he is on ours.

We live in a remarkable country – a country with the Statue of Liberty on one coast and the Golden Gate Bridge on the other – both symbols of welcome for those who are seeking freedom. We don't always get it right, but we try. We sometimes make mistakes – big ones – from slavery to the genocide of Native Americans. And we struggle - not knowing if we are doing the right thing. And sometimes the answers must wait till the next life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran Pastor who was hanged by the Nazis just a few weeks before the end of the Second WW because of his effort to assassinate Hitler. On his way to the gallows Bonhoeffer was escorted by a Roman Catholic priest to whom he said, “Father, in five minutes, I will know more than you!”

Life has many struggles and challenges and questions. We use our minds and our judgment the best we can. We use our faith as a guide to what is the just and loving thing to do. But in the end, Bonhoeffer was right! As Jesus said in our gospel lesson: Beware that no one leads you astray…the end is still to come.

And in the end there will be justice and peace because all will be ruled by our Lord, the Prince of Peace.

Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost - November 8, 2009
The Rev. Eric O. Olsen

All Saints Sunday - November 1, 2009
The Necrology
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

My maternal grandfather died on March 22, 1967. It was a Wednesday. We lived with my grandparents in a two family house in Deer Park, on New York's Long Island. I was in high school. My grandmother came upstairs to tell us that she discovered my grandfather sitting motionless in his chair. Though she never uttered the words, the tone in her voice betrayed the fact that knew he had died. He had put in a full day's work as a house painter, washed up, enjoyed his dinner and then after dinner, retired to his favorite chair to smoke his pipe and read the paper. His name was Gustav. Gustav Adolf Kollem. I called him Opa.

For all intents and purposes that was a lifetime ago, but I remember the day as if it was yesterday. I'm sure those who knew and loved Vicki Cafferelli, Hazel Fisher, El Searles, Ibrahim Ayad, Ann Gross, Bud Yuhl, David Lehde, Dotty Harmon, Stacy Micoli and all we name on this All Saints' Day will forever remember the day their loved one joined all the saints in light.

A couple of days afterward, my grandmother, who was one of the most superstitious people I've ever known and who had a saying or a remedy or a legend or some piece of folklore to accompany any aspect of life or death, gave the instruction that we should open a window so as to let his spirit go from the house.

It wasn't so much that she was ready to let him go as it was the acknowledgement that he really had died, that it wasn't just some bad dream from which she hoped to awaken. He was dead and she was ready to let God have him back.

32When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." 33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." 35Jesus began to weep. 36So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" 37But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" 38Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days." 40Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me." 43When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."

“Unbind him,” Jesus said, “and let him go.” Unbind him from the strips of cloth that were meant to hold his broken, diseased body together. Unbind him from the trappings of death, the cloth that was lovingly wrapped around his body by those who loved him before they laid him in his tomb for the rest of time. Unbind him from death, free him from his fate, for up to this point, from the moment he was born, he was bound to die, a slave to a master who only lends us the tools of our time and our days, only to ask for them back once our work is done. “Unbind him,” Jesus commanded, at least for the time being, because as you know, Lazarus does die, we're not told when, but he does. So he was not resurrected, but merely resuscitated, brought back to life, but only to die again.

That's when it dawned on me what my grandmother was doing, 42 years ago now. Hers was the same command. “Unbind him,” she commanded, open the window, and unbind him not from death, but from life, unbind him from his work, his toil, his disappointments. Free him from his temporary master, the one who merely lends us time, to the true Master, who rules it, who from the very beginning created him and in whose hands all of it rests, and rests eternally. Unbind him from this life, so that he may have the life God intended him to have for all eternity.

We celebrate All Saints' Sunday today and if we could attach a non-liturgical gesture to the day, we would open the window. Today we pause to read the names of those who died since last All Saint's Sunday. We recall their names to the gathered community to remember them, to remember how Ann and Dotty and Stacy and Maureen sang so beautifully with our choirs for all those years, how Linda Brackett loved this church and always had a kind word no matter what her circumstance, how Vicki always loved to see you, how Bud giggled, how gentle and kind Ibrahim was, how Elwood cherished his friends, how Tim and Ellen lived for others, and how Cliff was always deliberate and conscientious, how Hazel loved her Lord, how David and Pat and Stacy fought their illness with courage and grace, how Eric and Marge and Anna and Ruth lived for their families, and how Don loved sports with a passion I'll never understand.

And while we'll remember them in our minds and through our tears, the day is not about bringing them back, but letting them go, to live the life God promised them on the day they were baptized. On that day, they were given the promise they inherited this past year, the promise that Isaiah and St. John spoke of when they wrote down their visions. Isaiah, using the language that held the most weight among a nomadic and oppressed people, speaks of a banquet held in God's presence, with a menu that you would reserve for only the best of days, and John speaks of that New Land, where pain and suffering do not exist, and God himself will be the one to walk into your room at night after you've had the worst of days, and will sit by your side and dry your tears and tell you stories of grace and comfort until, reassured by his touch and his words, you fall quietly to sleep.

Let us pray…As the leaves fall and the grasses cease to grow, as the wind grows cold and the scent in the air is no longer that of summer, so the earth prepares to sleep holding the promise of a new life to emerge on the other side or winter. The earth abides and holds tight to the promise that in the seed the whole plant exists, in the stem and root and bud, the leaf and flower reside and will return to bloom and feel the sun and create beauty and create the next harvest. May such faith be ours in this time of waiting, O Lord. Until we open our eyes in your eternal Kingdom, O God, and share the same promise that those whom we love have already redeemed, grant us a quiet and strong faith to rest securely in the knowledge that until that day, we reside in your kingdom and rest securely in the palm of your hand.

Amen.

The Feast of the Reformation - October, 25. 2009
The Rev. John A. Buerk

Click here for the 28 Articles of the Augsburg Confession

OUR LUTHERAN LEGACY

For many Lutherans Reformation Sunday is a big deal. Even non-Lutherans – including some Roman Catholics – get on the bandwagon and sing. A Mighty Fortress is our God. We celebrate with red paraments, and special music, and special sermons, and today we are even going to tap a keg of beer!

However the things said in sermons on Reformation Sunday are a lot different these days from generations past. Some of us “old-timers” remember when the Reformation Day sermon would be about all the things we thought were wrong with the Roman Catholic Church and the things we thought were right about the Lutheran Church. Needless-to-say, the issues were always over-simplified and often exaggerated, but back then there seemed to be a battle to be fought and a war to be won.

But this isn't the case any more - the world we live in is different from the one we lived in fifty years ago. In fact things have changed so much that ten years ago, on Oct. 31, the most significant document in Christendom since the Reformation was signed in Augsburg, Germany. After thirty years of dialogue and negotiation, the Lutherans and Roman Catholics signed the, JOINT DECLARATION ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION, in which they agreed to rescind all the nasty things they had said about each other in the 16 th century, and they affirmed the Reformation principle that salvation comes through God's grace and not through our good works.

The document was signed in Augsburg because it was there that the Lutherans presented to King Charles V, the Augsburg Confession that contained 28 articles stating the position of the Lutheran Reformation leaders. Actually, a number of these articles became part of the Roman Church after Vatican II, when John XXIII was Pope. For instance, the Lutherans said that the Mass should be said in the vernacular – the language of the people – and the Mass is now said in the language of the country where it is celebrated. Another article called for Holy Communion to be administered in both species. - that is, the laity should receive the bread and the wine, and that is done in a number of Catholic parishes. The practice of the laity receiving only the bread was part of the separation between laity and clergy that had evolved over the centuries.

The great plague also had something to do with withholding the cup from the people – and it looks like with the new swine flue threat, that concern is being revisited in some congregations – including our Western New York Catholic Diocese.

The Augsburg Confession called for the Bible to be made available to the people, and most Catholic parishes now encourage Bible study.

Of course, there were a few items in the Augsburg Confession that the Roman Church has resisted and a prominent one is the right of the religious – priests and nuns - to marry. Luther's position was that the discipline of celibacy was in order, but that it should not be compulsory for ordination.

Unfortunately, it seems that the old men continue to insist that young men should stay single – how quickly they forget.

Interestingly, celibacy wasn't officially incorporated into church dogma until the eleventh century. Several Roman Catholic scholars have pointed out that celibacy seems to have had less to do with piety and discipline, than with owning property. In the Middle Ages the Western Church owned nearly two thirds of Europe! By not allowing the clergy to marry, the church prevented the offspring of clergy from having any legal claim to the Church's property by subsequent generations.

An interesting anomaly here is that the Polish National Catholic Church is in Communion with the Roman Church, but their priests can marry. The same is true with the Orthodox Churches, although if a priest's wife dies he cannot remarry, and their Bishops must be celibate. Also, some clergy – especially Episcopalians and Lutherans can convert even if they are married, and they are reordained by the Roman Church. The last I heard there were about fifty such priests in the United States.

The current fuss this week about the Holy See agreeing to accept Anglicans – including their married clergy – has gotten a lot of attention. Some have speculated that it is Rome's way of allowing for married clergy to come in through the back door.

Sometimes, we forget that the Reformation was a very complicated event. It was not a bumper sticker movement. It took place in the midst of unprecedented change.

For instance, it took place during the enlightenment. Luther was born in 1483 and died in 1546. In the century and a half that surrounded Luther's life, the world gave birth to Copernicus, Columbus, Galileo, Bacon, Hobbs, Descartes, Locke, Newton, Leibnitz and Pascal – all names you recognize as being people who changed the Western world's way of thinking and acting.

Second, a lot of things were happening in that 16 th Century. Cities were emerging along with all the commerce that relates to urbanization and Capitalism was on the rise.

Nationalism was coming to the fore – the Germans didn't like sending their German sausage to France and Italy.

The Holy Roman Empire was coming apart at the seams, and many European countries were developing their own identities and fostering their own languages.

There was a communication explosion – Guttenberg designed movable type and built a printing press to use it.

And then there was the exploration of space – Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 – confirming that the world was not flat. Luther, however, was not convinced. He thought that all this talk about a round earth was foolishness.

All these phenomena effected the Reformation, and many were affected by it. And perhaps the most significant issue was the threat of the Muslim Turks who had conquered North Africa and Spain and who had laid siege to Vienna. Charles V was so consumed by this threat that he was afraid to send troops to Wittenberg to wipe out this troublesome group of religious reformers. If he had, there probably would not have been a Lutheran Reformation.

But, Luther survived, and his forceful mind drew him into the world around him. He responded in the problems of his day. He was upset with the incompetence in bureaucracy, and he was acutely aware of the need to have an educated citizenry. Luther was especially concerned about the education of children and he did what he could to provide schooling. Listen to what Luther said about educating children . Schools should be fun. Today schools are not what they once were – a hell and purgatory in which we were tormented with cases and tenses and yet learned less than nothing despite all this flogging, trembling, anguish and misery. For my part…I would have children study not only languages and history, but also singing and music together with the whole of mathematics.

Luther was also concerned about providing for educated leaders: he wrote:

In ancient Rome boys were so taught that by the time they reached their fifteenth, eighteenth or twentieth year they were well versed in Latin, Greek and all the liberal arts, and then immediately entered upon a political or military career . Their system produced intelligent, wise and competent men, so skilled in every art that if all the bishops, priests and monks in the whole of German today were rolled into one, you would not have the equal of one Roman soldier. As a result their country prospered; they had capable and trained men for every position.

But here we are today – we spend a fortune on education at all levels, but nearly three quarters of our college graduates are illiterate – they cannot write a paragraph without a spelling or grammatical error. No other country would let their students graduate from high school without mastering the skills of their own language. We need an educational reformation.

In Luther's day, commerce kept kids from getting an education. Today, it is commerce that demands education. If you have any doubts read Thomas Friedman's book, THE WORLD IS FLAT.

You know the phrase – The more things change, the more they stay the same. Those things that were happening in Luther's day – an information explosion, exploration of space, the increase in urban populations, the expansion of capitalism – these are the very things that surround us today. And they all need our due diligence.

Lutherans come from a remarkable historical tradition of making the faithful responsible and caring and loving, and the Church relevant. And that is the goal of the Roman Church as well.

I hope and pray that we can remain faithful to that tradition.

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost - October 18, 2009
The Rev. Dr. Charles D. Bang

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I'm sure I've told you over the years that when I went to college, I was a philosophy major. This decision struck my parents as odd, as I was always interested in the sciences and in mathematics. Why would a child who excelled in those areas, chose philosophy as his college major?

Good question. And then, as if that wasn't enough of a mystery, halfway through my college career, I added a religion major to my academic portfolio because I had exhausted most of the philosophy curriculum and wound up taking so many religion department courses that I thought I might as well add it to my major concentration. My parents were still wondering what I was doing. I then went off to study German literature in Vienna and had enough German credits to my name to add German as a declared minor. After paying three years of tuition and room and board, my mom asked what I would do with a degree in religion, philosophy and German. I didn't understand then what I understand now, as I also wondered what our first born would do with a degree in Policy Analysis or our last born with a degree in Geophysics?

The answer to that question then and my question now remains the same, “What do you do?” You go to graduate school, what else?

I see many of you nodding your heads, either because you have lived or are living the same scenario with your children, or else you perpetrated the same crime on your parents.

I did eventually get a job that had something to do with what I studied, but not before 9 years of lifeguarding, giving swim lessons, running water aerobics for overweight middle-aged women, cleaning filter equipment and the bathrooms after the club closed, and one day in a lamp factory, sorting chain, nuts and bolts, and cutting wire for the canopy where chandeliers meet the ceiling.

There were many days out in the hot sun when I questioned how valuable or essential Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Kierkegaard and Schleiermacher were to my well being and my potential future career as scholar or professor.

Thinking back on it all now, not all of those lengthy and convoluted conversations on ethics and morals and the nature of evil were wasted…Deb and I did raise two children, and the skills I learned in ethical debate came in handy when dealing with Katie.

And, truth be told, a good bit of the dialogues from the ancients, and the proofs of the existence of God and the nature of man and good and evil, have proved helpful over the years and I'm thankful to my teachers and professors for what they gave to me and to my mom for her patience and understanding. If there is one thing I could say to those who are about to go to college or graduate school, I would advise you somewhere along the way, to take a course in household plumbing or electrical wiring, because I have found those skills to be just as useful as a semester spent on Nicomachean ethics, perhaps even more from time to time.

A word to the wise should be sufficient.

Thinking back on those college days in philosophy class, one of the recurring themes in many of the great thinkers, was the business about humanity's basic goodness and inherent penchant for being not so good – to put it simply. The debate still rages, are we intrinsically good or inherently evil? Is that goodness or that propensity for evil in our DNA? Take an innocent child, and watch what happens to it as it grows and as it is subjected to the rest of us. Or take that innocent child, shield it from the influence of the rest us of, and see if by the time it reaches three, if it still says, “Mine.”

The conversations of the great thinkers were more sophisticated than that, but the point remains the same. Is our propensity for getting into trouble genetic or environmental? Is our inclination to sin learned or inherited?

The other recurring question of theme among history's great thinkers has to do with the question of whether humanity is improving or not? If our basic nature is somehow flawed, and that is how we explain away the things we continually do wrong or mess up, do we do what we do because we don't know better? If you watch enough TV law shows, sooner or later you'll hear about the defense for the accused under-aged child offender, that he or she can't be indicted for a crime because he or she isn't old enough to know the difference between right or wrong, or not old enough to know that the crime he or she committed was wrong.

Applying this rationale to the whole of humanity, is our proclivity for sin a matter of inadequate knowledge? In other words, if we knew better, or better, if we knew more, would we be different people, would we be better people, would we be kinder, or gentler, or more honest, or more caring, or more civil, or more loving?

And finally, to round out the philosophical debate, is the age old question of, are we getting better? As humanity becomes older and wiser and more well educated, as the world shrinks, as we come to know our global neighbors, as we amass knowledge, as we grow from our mistakes, as a species, are we getting better and better, so that eventually, we will become what God would have us be? Now I threw in the last part about God, because the great thinkers of history almost all agreed that when you throw God into the equation, things get murky.

Which is the primary reason why I left philosophy and started my religious studies, because philosophy without God didn't make much sense, because at some point in time, you come to the conclusion that without God, humanity doesn't make much sense, least of all the way we work, the things we think, the way we behave, the things we do to each other, the heartache we endure, the suffering we experience and finally, the death that befalls us all.

Without God, without that tie to that which is eternal and eternally good and eternally forgiving, I could never find much hope for us, for myself.

Let me give you one short example to suffice for today. Study the history of salvation, by that I mean, take a short look at the whole of God's dealings with God's people. What do you find? Well, it's not a pretty sight. From the moment of defiance in the Garden of Eden to yesterday's car bombings in Afghanistan., we're not getting better, we're certainly not getting smarter. If anything, we're just becoming more calloused. And as the world gets smaller, we just get better at insulating ourselves from what we know is out there and from what is out there happening to the rest of us.

In today's gospel reading, we hear about James and John, in Aramaic, boangeres, the Sons of Thunder, the two sons of Zebedee who became disciples of Jesus. By this time in the three year long period of time the disciples were with Jesus before his death, or according to some scholars, it was only one year, whatever the time period, it was certainly long enough for them to tune into his message, to appropriate the sense of what he was trying to preach. He talked about love, about mercy, about service, about sacrifice. He told stories and gave them examples in his parables about the new order he was trying to inaugurate, at least among his followers, where all were equal, where putting others first was the new paradigm, he talked about the law and how it was meant to serve God and not the other way around, he gathered outcasts and sinners into innermost circle, he abandoned wealth and status and asked others to do the same, he said if you had two coats you ought to give one away, he said the kingdom of God was the priceless pearl of great worth that demanded allegiance and obedience, and that if gold and silver and power and prestige or even family asked you to put them first, you had to choose.

He came to teach by example, caring more for the person than for the position, he came to heal, caring more for the life than for the fame, or money. To woo the learned he spoke Greek and Hebrew, to woo the religious he quoted Scripture with a familiarity before unknown. To woo the outcast he scorned the status quo and sat instead at the leper's table, to the rich he preached charity and to the poor he preached contentment.

When he talked to his disciples, he talked about service, and what it meant to be a servant. He talked about emptying yourself for the sake of another, he talked about the good shepherd, he talked about laying your life down for your friends, he talked about giving your life as a ransom for all.

So here, near the end of the gospel account, just before Jesus leaves for Jerusalem and all that Jerusalem means to his ministry, and his suffering and death, he overhears James and John, two of his closest disciples, come to him, perhaps sensing the enormity of the moment and the moments to come, to ask him to “set-them” up, to give his places in his Cabinet, to move them up from campaign groupies to inside men, “grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left when you come into your glory.”

Astonished that they were asking what they were asking, perhaps even overwhelmed at how far away they still were from what he had been preaching and teaching all along, he asks them, “Are you sure?” And with a bravado borne of both ignorance and self-righteousness they answer, “Yes, I am, yes, we are.”

I can hear the ancients saying, “See, nothing has changed, humanity isn't getting better, it certainly isn't getting any smarter and if given half a chance, we'll still think first about number one, and what's in it for us, each time and every time. Our greed, our self centeredness, our selfishness, is both genetic and environmental, in our DNA and learned from one another.

Which is why I left philosophy behind and went looking for God, because without God, without the goodness I learned that resides in the source and which, from the beginning, was imparted to us and to all of creation, I'd have to come to the conclusion that there is no hope for us. Without the gift of Christ, without his teaching, without his sacrifice, without his redemption, without the promise his resurrection gives to us who are perishing, without the hope that at my end there awaits a good and gracious, forgiving and welcoming God, my fate seems dismal and hopeless. Because I can't do it on my own, because I have my weaknesses, because I can't seem to be the person I would want to be, because I disappoint and am disappointing and get disappointed, I need the God who says, “Come to me you who tired and heavy burdened and I will give you rest.” I need the Father who comes to me when I've left home and squandered my gifts and became that which I wanted least to become and says, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

When I turn in on myself and begin to think only of my needs, I need to hear the words , 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'

And when I come to the end of my days, if for only a moment I could claim a mustard seed sized amount of faithfulness, I hope to hear my God say, “Well done good and faithful servant you have been faithful in a few things, enter into the joy of your Lord and Master.”

That promise is something philosophy could not give me, only God could. I hear about this promise all the time, in many places, and I hope in some way I have communicated it from time to time, to you, if not again, this very morning.

Amen.

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost - October 11, 2009
The Rev. Eric Olaf Olsen