Atherosclerosis of the Soul

         The phrase “hardened hearts” appears all the way through the Bible.  In the Exodus story it is used to describe Pharaoh as he fails to see and understand the plight of the Hebrew people he has enslaved.

In the Gospel of Mark Jesus refers to a conversation among the disciples and asks:  Don’t you know or understand even yet?  Are your hearts hardened?

            April 24^th was both Armenian Martyrs’ Day and Yom Ha’Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).  We remember so that we can never forget what happened to those two communities of people.  We remember so we can never forget that we as human beings are capable of genocide.  And yet these are not the only examples of genocide.  Nor did genocide end with the liberation of the last death camp.  We remember so we can never forget – but do we remember so we can care and prevent.  Or have our hearts hardened to the brutal treatment humans have the capacity to inflict on one another?

            It is so easy to read the Bible and shake our heads when we read the phrase “heart was hardened” and assign that capability to the really “bad” people of the world.  And when we read that phrase in relationship to us it is too often with a particular biblical interpretation that suggests the hardened heart is when we refuse to accept Jesus as a personal Savior. 

            Sisters and brothers a hardened heart is possible with each one of us, and it has nothing to do with a ticket to heaven.  Each one of us is susceptible to the condition of a hardened heart because each one of us carries the vulnerability to that spiritual disease, atherosclerosis of the soul.  Our spiritual arteries get clogged by the gradual build up of complacency, disengagement, disdain, prejudice, assumptions.  These insidious little pieces of death build one upon the other until the life giving flow from our hearts to one another is stopped in its tracks and our hearts are hardened to the pain of the world.

            The disease creeps up on us. 

·      We hear that there is going to be a special commemoration of the Holocaust somewhere and we sigh “not again – that happened 70 years ago – time to move on – ‘they’ got Israel”.  Or even worse some say the Holocaust was a myth. 

·      We might see an article about the Armenian Genocide and we ignore it because we haven’t a clue whom the Armenians were and are nor do we know anything about that piece of history.  And even here, some give more value to Turkey’s interpretation of events.  What’s more we pay little attention to a growing autocratic government in Turkey that has little tolerance for those who do not agree with them.

·      We see articles about sex trafficking and dismiss it as an isolated incident even though it is a major problem that is only getting worse

·      We commemorate with great love and honor those World War II veterans that are aging and now dying at a steady rate.  Yet we who are not part of the Jewish community give little thought to those Holocaust survivors who are also aging and now dying at a steady rate and who have powerful stories to tell us.

·      We might see a news story of starvation in Southern Sudan but that seems so far away from us and so inconsequential.

·      We hear of the plight of the Syrian Refugees and we want to postpone any thoughts about how to ease this humanitarian nightmare.

            The disease of atherosclerosis of the soul creeps up on us.  Each bit of indifference adds another clogging element.  Each bit of rationalization on behalf of those who victimized others narrows our spiritual arteries.  Each bit of moral or religious presumed superiority over the “other” tightens the arteries.  Until finally we just ignore those difficult realities and our hearts are hardened to the sufferings and the memories of others. 

            I want to prescribe some spiritual anticoagulants for us, including for myself.  It is my intention (and I hope the good folks at St. Paul’s UCC will keep me honest in doing this) to provide a focus for the month in our prayer list.  That focus is to be around one of these situations, realities, concerns.  It is my hope that we not only lift that specific focal point in prayer, but that we also take the time during the month to learn more about the situation or the event.  And then, if our individual research and our praying lead us to some concrete action we feel called to do we will answer that call as individual people of faith.  The preview for May is going to be the Holocaust.  It is my prayer that all prayer and contemplation will lead us to a renewed sensitivity to the rise in anti-Semitism hate speech (a rise of 86% in the first three months of 2017). 

            May prayer and changed behaviors become the spiritual anticoagulants to a destructive epidemic in our world – hardening of the heart because of an atherosclerosis of the soul.  Let us open the vessels of our souls to let God’s healing love flow out of us and into a wounded world.

Grace and Peace,

Rev. Clara

Mandate to Love

           

                                        

            Maundy Thursday – Holy Thursday – the beginning of a twenty-four hour period in the Christian tradition where we who profess our faith in Jesus Christ come face to face with all the implications of that confession.  We stand at the precipice knowing that Easter is coming.  But we know also, so very well aware, that all the forces that brought us the passion of Christ are still at work within our world, including within our own hearts.  God in your mercy, forgive us.

            The unusual name given to Holy Thursday has its roots in the gospel of John, the 13^th chapter.  There the Passover Meal Jesus shared with his disciples on the evening he was betrayed does not include the words that are the basis of what we call Communion or the Eucharist.  The familiar images of bread and wine become instead the images of a towel and a basin.  Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and tells them they are to be a servant people.  Jesus gives them a very clear directive, a command in fact, mandatum in Latin – the root of that word “Maundy”.  I give you a new commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

            Through the words of the gospel of John we are told that on the night, when Jesus was well aware that he would die, he shared a meal with his disciples and his central message in word and action was service and love.  He told his disciples that love was to be their defining characteristic.

            We have a sentimental tendency to place great value on last words.  Good Friday services will often focus on those Last Words of Jesus from the cross.  We ask those who are to face the death penalty what they want for their last meal as if they really cared at that point.  We write about deathbed confessions.  Within the Christian Church we have the sacrament known as “last rites”.  Once upon a time the church encouraged baptism as a person was dying so they wouldn’t live long enough to sin again.

            Here in the 13^th chapter of John we have Jesus speaking to his disciples, not through the agony of the cross, but in fellowship with those who had been chosen to continue the ministry and witness Jesus had carried out the past three years.  According to the account in John, Jesus comes to this Passover meal fully aware that it would be his last.  Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.

            This last meal would not be steak and cake or some other favorite food of a lifetime.  This last meal would be meal filled with the food that told the story of the Jewish people – shank bone, egg, bitter herbs, vegetable and haroset.  There would be unleavened bread and chalices of wine.  The meal would tell the story of God’s action in history when the Hebrew people were freed from their enslavement by the Pharaoh.  The meal would include Jesus taking the unleavened bread, breaking it and offering it to his disciples – “This is my body, broken for you.  Take, eat, in remembrance of me.”

During the meal Jesus would hold the chalice of wine and offer the traditional blessing and give it to his disciples.  “This is the blood of the new covenant.  Drink of it in remembrance of me.”

            The bread and the cup are indeed defining symbols of the Christian faith.  In some churches, Communion is a part of each service where members gather to worship.  John’s gospel though has more to offer about what is to be the defining quality of a Christian.  After Jesus takes a towel and a basin and gets down on the floor in order to wash his disciples’ feet, he tells them that servanthood is to be a hallmark of their life moving forward.  A few verses later he gives his very clear command to love one another as he has loved them. 

            This past week my home church and the Jewish community center about a mile further down the road were vandalized with some of the most vile symbols and words of hate possible to imagine.  The community center was targeted because it served the Jewish community.  We as a church were targeted because we had put up a banner against hate and bigotry leveled against those who are Muslims.  Among the vile words leveled against us was that “we have been found wanting” (based on a verse in the book of Daniel) and that if we “know Jesus” we will hate Muslims. 

            What a contrast to the commandment Jesus gave on that Thursday evening before his betrayal!

            We are living in one of those periods of time when vicious language and hate are being leveled against groups of people because of their religion, their color, their sexuality.  According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 917 hate groups are currently operating in our country this very moment.  Sadly some of these groups are promulgating hate in the name of their interpretation of teachings of Jesus and the Christian Church.

            Against that reality we are confronted this Holy Thursday with the words of Jesus as recorded through the gospel of John.  We are commanded to love at the same level as Jesus has loved us.  We are confronted with Jesus hearing the abuses of the crowd assailing him as he stood in front of them stripped of his normal clothing, beaten unmercifully, wearing a crown of thorns pressed into his head.  He stood there absorbing their hate into his body and returning to them unconditional love.  We are confronted with Jesus on the cross still refusing to hate or retaliate.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  

            May we hear the words of our Savior this Holy Thursday and commit  to radical, inclusive, all-embracing love to each and every person, no conditions attached.  It is what it means to follow Jesus.  It is the way out of the tombs of our making to the new life Christ gives.

Grace and Peace,

Rev. C.

Friendly Persuasion

          The Apostle Paul was a master rhetorician.  That is, he used the power of a formalized persuasive speech to state his beliefs and understanding of the gospel and the core of Christianity.  We see this most clearly in his letters which at times seem to go around in circles as he attempts to prove a point.  The center of his letter to the churches in Galatia is no exception!

          After establishing his bona fides and letting his readers know he is really angry about even having to address the questions about membership requirements for the Christian Church (should pagans/Gentiles become Jews as a prerequisite to becoming a Christian?), he decides to lay out his argument in his own style of persuasive argument.

          Galatians 2:15-21:  Here is my foundational belief.  We are justified by faith in Jesus.

          Galatians 3:1-5:  Remember your own experience.  Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?

          Galatians 3:19-25:  This is what the Law really means, its true purpose.  These verses (and their varied interpretations) are examples of Paul being his particularly convoluted self.  However, if you take Paul’s basic argument at face-value (salvation/justification comes through faith in Jesus Christ), then  in verse 22 – you get his premise.  The Law had its validity for a time.  Its purpose was a form of “holding pattern” until Christ came.  It gave us form and structure to navigate on this earth.  But now that Christ has come, we have been set free from that holding pattern.                               

           Galatians 3:27-28:  We are one in our baptisms.  As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.  There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

          Can we look at one another across denominational lines, across church tradition lines, across “conservative” or “progressive” lines, across conflicted church lines?  Can we see each other as one in Christ Jesus?  Can we listen to one another through our baptisms?  Can we, united in our baptisms, be united in discipleship to the world in Christ Jesus?  Can we humble ourselves so Christ might live through us?

          May it be so.

Grace and Peace

Rev. Clara

Bedrock for Protestants

         Galatians 2:15-21 is one of those scriptures that we Protestants have an asterisk beside – but would just as soon not try to explain.  It is one of those defining scripture passages for the thoughts of Martin Luther as he struggled with the idea of indulgences and whether we could DO anything to effect our salvation.  “Justification by faith” is a Protestant by-word and its roots include this scripture passage.

         Richard B. Hays, Professor of New Testament, The Divinity School, Duke University, suggests  four questions to help in “unpacking” this scriptural passage:

         “1.  Who sets things right?

          2.  What role has Jesus played in setting things right?

          3.  What is the character of the new life that the death and resurrection of Jesus have inaugurated?

          4.  How is the truth of the gospel embodied in social practice.”  [The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. XI, Galatians, page 245]

         Let’s use these questions as our guide.

         1.  Who sets things right?  Paul says loud and clear that it is God whose actions set things right.  That was Martin Luther big “ah ha” moment.  He had been thinking he needed to pray longer, work harder, buy more indulgences (a practice of giving to the church and getting time in purgatory removed on your behalf because you had pleased God.).  The more he tried to please God the more he felt he fell short and was trapped in his own sin.  It is hard for a lot of folks to get beyond their own feelings of unworthiness.  After reading this passage of the Bible, he suddenly realized that it wasn’t what he DID that justified him (made him right with God) but what GOD did.  It’s all about God’s Grace – God’s action.

         For Paul, as he wrote to his congregation, it wasn’t about which half of the congregation followed Jewish protocol and beliefs in their Christian journey and which did not.  God’s action was what defined them as Christians and not what they did or did not do or what they ate or did not eat.  They were now new creations – all of them – because of God’s doing.  We can let go of the need we feel we have to make things right and bring people back to living religion as we do.

         2.  What role has Jesus played in setting things right?  God has set things right through the faithfulness of Jesus, not our own doing.  Faithfulness of Jesus is an appropriate focus in Lent (and throughout the year).  Read and reread the stories of Jesus’ life on earth.  How did he speak truth to power when it was easier to just “go along”?  How did he reach out to others when it would have been easier, and religiously acceptable in those days, to avoid impurity and walk on the other side?  How did everything he said and did move him closer to the confrontation with power that resulted in the cross?  How was Jesus always faithful to God’s vision of what God wanted the world to be (the realm of God)?  How was Jesus always faithful to Love made known to every person he encountered.  As Richard Hayes also says:  “It is unintelligible to preach Gal. 2:11-21 apart from the passion and resurrection narratives.”

         3.  What is the character of the new life that the death and resurrection of Jesus have inaugurated?  We often talk about having our sins forgiven – and that’s it.  Our “ticket is punched.”  In Galatians Paul ups the ante.  I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.  Paul is talking about a transformation of oneself into a person who indeed allows that person to be Christ in the world.  We are loath to change on a good day.  And a statement like this from Paul makes us think of “goodie two shoes” folks who really make us uncomfortable with their overt piety.  Paul is not saying that we become caricatures of a person of faith.  Paul is saying that if we want to say we are Christian then that faith ought to be authentic in our daily lives.  It should impact the way we treat others, what we call others, what decisions we make about how we live on this planet.  We are to become transformed into service for the sake of others, an instrument of God’s reconciling love for each person in the world.

          4.  How is the truth of the gospel embodied in social practice?  If you have gotten this far, you have probably already thought about ways this question is answered.  If we are to be agents of Christ’s reconciling love in this world then we have something to say and to be to those who are posting hate language on the houses of worship of our Jewish and Muslim neighbors.  We have something to say and to be to those who are ridiculing and condemning our LGBTQ friends and family.  We have something to say and to be to those who are fleeing war and destruction and live as refugees without a documented past and with a dubious future.  We have something to say and to be to those who define our future by military might yet downplay the “soft force” of diplomacy.  We have something to say and be to those who privilege education for some and not for all.  The list can go on and on.

        

         Life is “made right” – all life, including ours – by God’s action – by God’s Grace.  That action was made manifest in Jesus Christ, in his life, in his passion, and in his resurrection.  We are invited into Christ – to die to our old ways of thinking and being in the world – and to be transformed inwardly into Christ’s servants in the world to reconcile the world to God and God’s vision of shalom, wholeness.  Because we are no longer living for ourselves, we can no longer long for those things  the world defines as beneficial to some at the expense of others.  We must be about living as Christ to the world, even though that’s not popular.

Grace and Peace

Rev. Clara

Remember the Poor

          Galatians 2:10  They asked only one thing that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.

          The Apostle Paul continues his account of his ministry in chapter 2 of the Book of Galatians.  In particular, he was recounting his version of the events at the Jerusalem Council.  Paul’s account differs with the version found in the book of Acts of the Apostles.  Paul’s account is the earlier record and it was Paul speaking about events in which he participated.  The account in the book of Acts is about 50 years older and is second hand.

          The Council of Jerusalem convened around the year 48/50 CE in response to an incident in Antioch which questioned the necessity of non-Jews undergoing circumcision in order to become Christians.  The book of Galatians struggles with that question.  In that struggle we learn other things that are more pertinent to the 21^st Century.  One of those things is the verse quoted in this blog post.  After much rancor, the Council sent both Peter and Paul out to preach the good news of Jesus without the entrance requirement of circumcision.  However, they were instructed to remember the poor.

          Can we hear those words amid the contentiousness of our daily life?

          What might those words look like?

          For one thing, to “remember the poor” is to build a relationship with those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder.  Peter and Paul were not being instructed to administer a detached charity relief program.  They were being commissioned to be in ministry with the poor ones.

          Again what does that look like?  Read Matthew 25:31-46 to find out.

          Miguel Manzano and Jose Antonio Oliver wrote the lyrics for one our newer hymns.  It comes to us in Spanish and is translated into English by George Lockwood.  It is #624 in the hymnal used by St. Paul’s UCC.  This is what Peter and Paul’s commission to go out and preach the Gospel and remember the poor means.  It is a shared ministry of living into God’s Vision for our world.  Here are the lyrics:

When the Poor Ones

Cuando el Pobre

When the poor ones who have nothing share with strangers,

          when  the thirsty  water give unto us all,

when the wounded in their weakness strengthen others,

          then we know that God still goes that road with us,

          then we know that God still goes that road with us.

When at last all those who suffer find their comfort,

          when they hope though even hope seems hopelessness,

when the wounded in their weakness strengthen others,

          then we know that God still goes that road with us,

          then we know that God still goes that road with us.

When our joy fills up our cup to overflowing,

          when our lips can speak no words other than true,

when we know that love for simple things is better,

          then we know that God still goes that road with us,

          then we know that God still goes that road with us.

When our homes are filled with goodness in abundance,

          when we learn to make peace instead of war,

when each stranger that we meet is called a neighbor,

          then we know that God still goes that road with us,

          then we know that God still goes that road with us.

They asked only one thing that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.  That was the commission to Peter and Paul from the Council of Jerusalem.  That is our commission from Jesus.  Together with the poor we will bring into reality the Vision of God.

Grace and Peace

Rev. Clara