Called to Action, and Renewal

Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6, Luke 13:10-17

In our scriptures today we hear of Jeremiah, who is anxious about being called as a prophet because he’s only a boy.  Yet God affirms his gifts for this line of work, and he’s going to need that affirmation, because being a prophet is not an easy job.

And we know it’s not an easy job because in this week’s Gospel, Jesus, that prophet of prophets, gets into loads of trouble with the religious authorities for healing a woman on the Sabbath.

So...what exactly is the Sabbath, and why is it such an issue?

The Sabbath comes from the word ‘seven,’ as in, ‘on the seventh day, God rested.’  It’s one of the 10 commandments, to remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.  Everyone in the Jewish tradition was supposed to rest on the Sabbath.  You could not plow fields or harvest or grind grain or fix your roof or any number of other tasks, especially if they were your means of business.

You were also to make sure you gave any employees or servants you have an opportunity to rest and spend time with their families, and you were to ensure that your livestock, such as your donkey or oxen, had time to rest from their labors.  This was to help prevent the exploitation of workers or other vulnerable people by the ‘big bosses,’ so to speak, and certainly, people who did hard physical labor six days a week, would need a day of rest!

Observing the Sabbath was so important that it carried some heavy penalties--including the punishment of death for violating the command to rest.  You could act to save a life, but even the dead had to be buried either before or after the Sabbath day--after the crucifixion on Good Friday, Jesus had to be buried before sunset, or have his body left up on the cross until Sunday morning.  It will not surprise you to learn that violating the Sabbath was one of the reasons the religious authorities wanted Jesus crucified.

What does Sabbath look like today?

For some folks, Sabbath looks much the same as it did in ages past.  In modern-day Israel, the most conservative groups of Jews block off streets to vehicle traffic and everyone walks everywhere--perhaps to the park, or more especially to the synagogue, and nothing else is open in the conservative neighborhoods.  When I lived there I found it tough if I ran out of milk or needed a taxi, but otherwise it was really quite...peaceful.

Much of the 20th century labor movement recognizes the Sabbath--the need for at least one day of rest, giving us our weekend, and limits on the hours many employees in physically demanding jobs may work.  In fact, the concept of the Sabbath gave us our first Sunday Schools in this country, in the early 20th century, primarily to give child laborers a day of rest from the sweatshops by offering large group religious instruction.

In our 24/7 world, perhaps it is now harder than ever to observe a full 24 hour day of rest.

After, all, how many of us, thanks to technology, can be reached by our workplace any time of day or night--or weekend? How many of us may never feel like we’re truly away from work--even on vacation? How many of us feel anxious if we don’t check our work email even when we’re at home with our families?  How many of us wonder if we’ll still be employed if we don’t answer emails, texts or other messages immediately?

I have a pastoral colleague who has perhaps more guts than I do, and in the signature line of her email, writes, “I ordinarily do not answer emails on Saturdays and Mondays.”  Therefore, everyone with whom she emails knows her policy well in advance.  After all, if it’s a true pastoral emergency, she’ll probably get a phone call.  She has found it important in an active ministry to ensure that the time she spends with family, is time when her full attention is given to her family.  Other pastors are starting to take note.

After all, religious leaders are supposed to lead by example, to demonstrate what Sabbath truly is, and how to keep it holy.  No doubt the religious leaders challenging Jesus thought that was exactly what they were doing--stopping this radical sinner in his tracks.  But Jesus, the true leader, demonstrated the true intent of Sabbath.  He was teaching in the synagogues, as any good rabbi would do on the Sabbath; and folks were listening, as any good folks would do.  And then he turned everything they knew upside down.

So, what is lawful on the Sabbath?

There’s a long list of things that are forbidden on the Sabbath, but by comparison, the list of things that are good to do is relatively simple.  Sabbath is a time to rest, beginning at sundown the day before.  It’s time to get out for a walk and take the long way home.  It’s time to reconnect with your family.  You light the candles, put on the good china, have a simple but fulfilling meal, and pray together, like doing devotions at the dinner table.  

It’s also time to reconnect with your significant other.  Put mildly enough, some Sabbath time needs to be spent in the bedroom.  You have six other days to be too tired, have a headache, or be arguing with your partner.

Sabbath starts and ends with worship.  Traditionally, you head to synagogue twice, once in the evening and once the next day, for worship and study of the Scriptures.  After all, perhaps you’ll be too busy the rest of the week to study them.

And to make all this possible, there is a Day of Preparation.  You clean the house and make the food ahead of time, so that it can be enjoyed with a minimum of effort, and the day can be truly a day off--traditionally speaking--for women as well as men.

*A detailed description of Shabbat in conservative Jewish households may be found at: http://www.jewfaq.org/shabbat.htm.

Not Just a Weekly Thing

So, that’s your regular weekly Sabbath.  But there are other kinds of Sabbaths, which are kind of big breaks from our lives of work.  Jewish people have larger, multi-day holidays which are classified as Sabbaths.  Some folks, particularly in academia, get seventh-year sabbaticals, taking a year off to travel, study, and get re-charged so they can return to the work of teaching and leadership, which can be rather draining.

And I would argue that it’s a Sabbath to be healed of a condition which has crippled you for eighteen years.  It’s significant that the healing in today’s Gospel is taking place in a synagogue, where the woman continues to come despite obviously great difficulty getting there.  I would also note the woman wasn’t even necessarily healed because of her level of faith, according to the Gospel text, but because Jesus saw her, and did the right thing--breaking the laws, but also fulfilling God’s intent.

God has called us to action, and action for good.  Sometimes, we need to break with human rules or convention in order to do good, to come to someone’s urgent aid.  But God has also called us to times of rest and renewal.

And that is the point of Sabbath, both big and small:  to have time for activities that bring rest,  re-newal, re-creation,  and re-juvenation (literally, “to make young again”).

So, what are you doing later today, on this Sabbath?  You here in the room have come to worship and praise God.  What will you do today to make yourself new, to make yourself feel young again, or to create within yourself or your family a new sense of well-being and wholeness?

Where will you walk?  Where will you find your drink of water?

Maybe this isn’t such a bad Sunday to think on these themes, when children prepare to go back to school and there is only one real week of summer vacation left.

I know for myself, August zoomed right by, with some seriously long days in the office, considering all that is needed to get ready for September, and maybe once all the lovely lawn concerts in our area ended, which had made it so appealing to make a picnic and take the kids, it seemed more pressing to tackle lengthy to-do lists.  Soon the workweeks, crammed with many tasks and needs, crept longer and longer.  I finally realized this week how just plain tired I was, and now I’m trying to practice what I preach, and will hopefully undo this pattern over the next few days.  So far, we’ve been out on some good walks, to enjoy the kids singing and dancing in the park, playing in the sand, or just to hold Maya (our three month old) a little longer.  After all, they grow up so fast.

What is causing you to feel bent down and burdened?

You might have noticed that line at the end of Jeremiah, when God gives the power to tear down and to build up.  This power isn’t given to fulfill any personal whim, but to dismantle what needs to be dismantled.  The illness the woman had, needed to be dismantled.  The woman needed to be built up, healed, to stand up straight.  The systems which forbade healing on the Sabbath needed to be dismantled.  Systems of human concern for one another, rooted in love, needed to be built up.  This is God’s justice, that love prevail.  That people be unburdened, and not exploited.  That we be created anew.  That we be motivated not by fear and not by legalism, but solely by love.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers for This Week:

Syria, Egypt, all who have died in the violence

Colombia, where 140 young people were kidnapped by armed militia in a village this week.

Equality and unity among people of all races, on the 50th anniversary of the ‘I Have A Dream’ speech

For our earth, and the wise stewardship of all creation

For all who are sick, or nearing the end of their earthly lives

For outreach efforts and new ways of being aware of our community

Back to school children and their families, including ‘empty nesters’

When Young People Leave the Church

Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

Friends, if you haven’t heard, over the past few weeks, there has been an awful lot in the media, especially the religious media, about young people leaving the church.  It has been on the minds of every pastor I know.

Now, I want to say, that these articles are nothing new.  Right now they talk about Millenials leaving the church, but a few years ago, it was about Generation X leaving the church, and before that, there were actually articles about Baby Boomers leaving the church.  Well, I know that my audience this morning is primarily Baby Boomers, as well as folks who are in what’s called the ‘Greatest Generation,’ who survived the Great Depression and World Wars.  But friends, I know that many of you, because you have told me so, are worried about young people not being in the churches.  Sometimes you are worried about your own young people, your grandchildren and children, not being in church.  So I know this is on your hearts, even if you haven’t seen the news.

In fact, the way you feel about this might even be well described in today’s scripture readings, when you’ve tended the young vine and given it every form of nurture you could, and saw how strong and vibrant it grew for a time, and now you’re left shaking your head and wondering, with a worried heart, what exactly happened?  You might even feel, if you’re the parent or grandparent of a child who is no longer involved in church, like you live in a house divided, like the Gospel says, two against three.  You may even be looking around this room, and many of you do tell me you notice more gray heads in here now than there used to be--and you may be wondering how to interpret the present time.

So let’s talk about that.

First of all, I should say that at age 35, I am firmly planted within Generation X, and I have spent a fair amount of my pastoral career helping interpret the actions of adult children my age and younger, such as Millenials, to parents, who are usually Baby Boomers.  And I don’t actually mind this, it is kind of fun.  But if you find yourself in this category, I want to first say, relax.  More often than not, your kids are actually fine.

When to Worry:

Granted, there are times to worry.  If your kid is heavy into drugs, drinking, gambling or crime, headed on a path to destruction, then yes, it is time to worry.  In fact, not having a church might be the least of their worries at that moment.  Even then, Jesus still loves them and they probably still love Jesus, but the depth of their problems is making it hard to focus on that relationship right now.  What they might need more than anything in that moment, is you and a strong network of friends who can be that love of Jesus to them, truly invested in their well-being and recovery.

When NOT to Worry:

However, I also believe, and it has been true for me and most of my pastoral colleagues, that there is some need for young people to become independent and define themselves, not only in becoming independent from you, but also even from ‘Mother Church.’  After all, there is more to the world than you have taught, or your home congregation has taught, however lovingly, and to an extent it is healthy to take time away and question those things, and decide which parts to carry forward--just as we all here probably do not do everything exactly as our parents did, now that we are adults.

And I have to confess, that while I did go around to lots of churches of different backgrounds in my twenties, I admit I also spent a fair number of Sundays just simply sleeping in.  Part of that was being at work until two or three am the night before (if you’re curious, I worked at both a bar and grill and a Pizza Hut).  Other times, it was sheer laziness, or the opportunity to go to brunch. I spent plenty of time worshipping at the “Church of the Holy Comforter,” complete with pillow.  And all of this was knowing full well I was going to be a pastor.  Perhaps, in part, because I was going to be a pastor, and would never sleep in on a Sunday again.  

And, granted, some young people are still in the church!  As a young person, when I was in church, I hated having it pointed out to me that very few young people came to church.  Sometimes I felt it was hard to be seen for me, and not just my age.  More on that in a moment.

There are a few things though, that I think we as Christians, should probably talk about first:

Organized religion has a lot to answer for, and I’d almost be more worried if your kid hadn’t noticed.  Let’s list the things....clergy sexual abuse.  Homophobia.  Sexism.  Racism. No drinking, dancing or playing cards.  Corruption, and million-dollar preachers on corporate jets.  Hating people of other faiths.  Bombing abortion clinics.  The list goes on and on.  And when you see Christians on TV, not just in the movies, but speaking as experts on the news, they tend to be the most hateful and least reasonable.

I’ll admit I cringe, even as a pastor, at the word ‘Christian,’ because of the deeply nasty, negative connotations it carries. Sometimes, when a person says, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” what they mean is, “I have faith, but I don’t want to be lumped in with the extremists.” Not always, but often enough.

It’s almost never about not loving Jesus.  It is often about how to follow Jesus faithfully in a world where churches and Christians don’t often seem like friendly and welcoming places that really want you.  It’s hard to belong to a church and call yourself Christian when doing so may make you look like you identify with the people who are hateful and intolerant.

That’s the big, wide picture.  Now let’s talk closer to home, just being a younger adult, looking for a new home church in their new adult life:

An Invitation to Life Together:

Finding a new church can be as intimidating as finding a life partner.  And your church probably is, in a way, your life partner.  A young family says to a new church the things that you say to a new spouse: “I want to raise my kids with you.  I want you to be there when I’m hurting, and I want to be there when you’re hurting.  You and I share the values that I think are the most important.  And, we can really have fun together.”

There are some other things about the home church.  Especially given that everyone has graduated and moved on, well, you don’t really belong to the high school youth group anymore.  You also don’t really belong at the senior ladies’ coffee, no matter how cute they think you are.  It’s, um, a little like moving back into your parents’ basement.  Or maybe worse, back into your old bedroom.  Sure, there’s a little comfort in the familiarity, but everything has also changed.  Sometimes, finding another church is like moving into somebody else’s parents’ basement.  In the ‘social real estate,’ you don’t have to ‘own’ a whole big thing to feel like a real adult, but it helps if there’s at least a little something that’s really yours, which you can claim for yourself.  It’s similar with church.

It’s hard to come back and be the only one like yourself.  We might say, “bring more people like yourself!”  But it’s just not that easy.  For those of us at different life stages, it’s like being the only single person when all your friends are married now.  Or being the only couple with kids when everyone else isn’t at that point.  Or, it’s like being the only widow in your bridge club, or anywhere else you used to socialize as a couple, and everyone else in your social circle still has their husband.  You all still love each other, but it’s honestly very awkward.

As churches, we have to do our very best to make it not awkward.

Just a few more things:  It’s not all about the music, but it is just a little bit about the music. And, it’s not all about the technology, but it’s a little bit about the technology.  It’s not all about the liturgy and tradition, but it’s a little bit about the liturgy and tradition.  Simply put, everybody has to take turns, just like in any family.

There are churches that are all about the new music, technology, and traditions, and they do attract many young people.  Young adults can also outgrow them when they become older, and some do.  We don’t have to get rid of everything we hold dear, but we do have to make room for young adults--and not just at the kids’ table.

I want to break away a bit from the age groups and talk more about the life stages.  After all, I’m 35, and I have tiny kids at home.  Other people my age have teenagers at home.  Yet other people my age aren’t married, or have no kids.  We’re at totally different life stages.  Jorge’s in his early fifties and has small kids at home.  The other guy his age here is Tom, who has grandchildren the same age.  Same age, different life stages.  Which is not all bad.  In fact, sometimes that is the glue that can help bridge the generation gaps.

Finally, I’d like to talk about how the world has changed.

Fifty years ago, in reality, life was probably simpler.  There was a time not so long ago you could marry straight out of high school, get a job that supported your family, and live on one income, freeing up (usually the wife) to raise the children and be active in the church.  This all helped people who were raised in the church to stay in their same churches, or at least easily join a church and find your place.  Now, it’s not right to get married so young.  You have to get your education.  Both spouses usually need to work full-time to make ends meet.  This leaves a lot less time to volunteer everywhere, including the church, and many young families are pulled in so many directions that they don’t have any real time together.   I’ll be honest--many churches today exacerbate that problem, because we are built on a model that worked really well for the baby boomers, fifty years ago.  

A lot of times, young people come back to church when they have kids, who have faith questions, and they don’t feel equipped to answer them on their own.   They need to learn alongside their children.  They need mentors to be their own heroes of the faith, people to tell them and show them how it is possible to grow meaningfully in our lives of faith.  When church can be a place that families are truly together,--and not again pulled in all different directions, there is a real blessing that we have to offer today.

The Good Gardener

Friends, the good news is (and there is always some good news somewhere) is that God, the constant gardener, is a good gardener, who still loves everything God has planted.  God has regard for the young vine, and also for us.  Where we have wandered, where we have failed, and where we have failed to welcome the wandering--God still nurtures us.  God still loves us, and calls us together as one people, all family, all children of God.

Prayers This Week:

For those facing addiction, and their families

For those wrestling with mental health issues

For those recovering from stroke

For those struggling to find a church home

For all who travel

For children and teachers preparing for back to school

Beyond Things

Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

What This Message Is Not About

It would be so easy to preach this week’s Scriptures as a pointed stewardship lesson, that God blesses us with so many things that we should be ready to give everything to God, and by the way, we have a mortgage on the building, so, you know, be generous....right.  Give as you feel led, but that’s not what I’m going to talk about today.

Instead, let me talk a bit about parenting.  After all, the Gospel story starts off with a sibling dispute over the inheritance--something that causes a great deal of pain in families.  And you can definitely hear the parent in God’s voice speaking throughout the passage in Isaiah.

Let’s Talk About The Kids

My family and I went back to our old neighborhood this week, and pretty soon all the parents were hanging out talking about our kids--sharing both the joys and the frustrations.  Many of you know that banter.  And I wonder, what if God talked about us the way we talked about our kids?  How would that sound?  “Oh, you know, Adam and Eve, they were so cute and agreeable at first, but then they made a total mess out of my garden--so I put up a gate to keep them out of there--but then they just went out and made even bigger messes, I can barely keep up with it all!”

Well, God does often talk about us as though we were God’s children, because we are.  And we really hear that today in the reading from Hosea.  We hear how God raised us up like a child, and such vivid imagery:  I taught them to walk, I held them in my arms, I healed their injuries, I lifted them like infants to my cheek, I fed them.  Can’t you just see that?

And yet, that relationship was mired in pain.  For as much as God tended and nurtured the children, they ran away from God, and found themselves increasingly mired in trouble, and wouldn’t turn back and seek help, they put their trust in powers, like powerful political alliances (aka “friends”) that would ultimately betray and destroy them.

Hosea:  The Perfectly Dysfunctional Family

I noticed that several folks commented (but nobody complained!) that some of the usual Bible readings were absent last week while I was away.  Part of the reason for that was they were kind of doozies.  The upshot of the story was that God commanded the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, and then have a couple of kids which he was supposed to name, “Not My People” and “No Pity.”  Well, ouch.  God’s point in this was to create a totally dysfunctional family, where there is no love, no mercy, and no fidelity, to serve as a metaphor for what had gone wrong in the relationship between God and God’s people.  Granted, this didn’t go over well: mostly because it was weird, and also, as far as God’s people knew, it was a time of relative prosperity.  Everything was going great, so, what’s the big deal?  In reality, things were about to go horribly wrong in ways even they could see: As the scripture reads, the sword rages in their cities and they are in danger of returning to captivity and repression.

When Things Go Horribly Wrong

I think most of us have known situations where a child has been raised lovingly, and still somehow ends up down a wrong path that leads to their destruction.  Perhaps the most frequent metaphor today would be drug addiction [CBS This Morning 8/5/13 reported on the new heroin epidemic].  But there’s any number of things that could happen, that are truly frightening.  And for those of us who are parents, we may wonder if there is any reason we would ever abandon one of our children, or even kick them out of the house.  Perhaps ultimately, and realistically speaking, if the child was endangering the others who lived there, to protect the rest of the family, we might have to say, “you can’t come home right now.”  Now, I don’t want to ever think about any of that happening to my kids--who are rascals, but they’re also so young and innocent right now--but it might.  I can parent to the best of my ability, but I realize that even as a pastor, my family and my children are not immune to the ills of this world.

And that’s where we hear and understand God speaking through the prophet Hosea in today’s reading.  [Insert your own children’s names here] and you begin to get the picture of God, this brokenhearted parent, worried sick:

“How can I give you up, ____________?  How can I hand you over, ________?  

[Insert your own name here] and you begin to get the picture of God, this brokenhearted parent, worried sick.

Insert the name of anyone whom you love deeply, and you begin to get the picture....yes, I think we can begin to tap into those feelings and relate.

The good news is, even when we have done things to break God’s heart, God doesn’t write us off.  God instead chooses compassion and continues to invite the rebellious child home.

++

It’s Not About the Little Things

Sometimes, our relationships are painful, but nothing huge and tragic has caused it.  Sometimes, things just ‘get in the way’ of our relationships.  Not just material things, like the inheritance dispute between the brothers in the Gospel story, but things, you know, stuff that happens, and builds up, and forms into walls and barriers between us that are so hard to tear down, without tearing each other down in the process.

Granted, it’s easiest not to let those walls get built up in the first place--to handle the issues while they’re small, and not let them blow up into big things.  When those little things get blown up, then we know the relationship is in trouble.  After all, even churches die, not because they ran out of people to invite, but because they got caught up fighting over little things like the carpet and blew all their energy, and pffft, there they went.

Who among us doesn’t have a relationship we wish could be better?  Who among us doesn’t have words or mistakes we wish we could take back?  

All these human divisions, God seeks to break down, bridge, or transform.  We’ve talked in the past few weeks about those walls of animosity between Jews and Samaritans--folks who were really two sides of the same coin; and today Paul speaks to us of Greek and Jew, slave and free, barbarian and Scythian (and who are those guys anyway--we’ve forgotten, because the division didn’t really matter)!  God is inviting us to not let those little things--and they are really little things, that we make into big things--stand in the way of love.

Beyond Things

So let’s talk about that Gospel verse again, but in a non-traditional way.  Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to build bigger barns--or churches, for that matter.  Really it’s hoarding, or at least not sharing, that is the problem.  We have a beautiful new facility, and God does call us to share it--to share our sanctuary, share our classroom space, even our lawn, and not keep it to ourselves.  Things will probably get dinged up a bit in the process, and we’re going to need two things:  a good-sized can of touch-up paint, and a load of graciousness.  After all, it isn’t really our building, but God’s.  When we can overlook the little things, and use wisely the big things we have been given, all of our relationships, and all of us individually, are deeply blessed.  God wants for us far more than we can imagine.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers this Week:

For all who struggle with addictions; mental health concerns; and for all who are facing abuse of any kind.

For those who come to harm when working in far-off places.

For our Sikh brothers and sisters as they remember the shootings in their sacred space one year ago.

For our PCUSA friends who are gathered at the Big Tent conference in Louisville, KY this weekend.

For all who are traveling

For all who are ill or injured

For those who are dying, and for those who are grieving

For peace in our world

Lyrics for the Lectionary:

When reading the Scriptures this week, consider the following:

A Thousand Years, Christina Perri (Hosea)

Somebody That I Used to Know, Gotiye (Hosea)

Paradise, Coldplay (Hosea, Luke)

How To Save A Life, Fray (Hosea)

Feel the Tide, Mumford and Sons (Psalm)