Lord, give us the temperament to think about the 4th of July as more than burgers, beer, and sparklers. May we honor the integrity and bravery of those who saw injustice and fought tyranny of taxation without the voice of the many. May we give thanks to those who saw that leaders of the day cared more for power and prestige than the hard work of leading. We remember the leaders and planners who gathered others of like mind who could not abide an uncaring King. We honor equally those who fought peacefully for a land of equality and for those whose fight is memorialized in the red stripes of our flag.
We pray for Somalia, Iran, North Korea and all places ruled for the benefit of a few. We pray for all those in nations where some are captive to poverty or anger or despair of the power need of the leaders. We pray that they find mercy and safety. And freedom from oppression.
We pray for our own nation. May the founding principle that all people are created equal be ever more fully realized. May our nation find a unity of purpose, a compelling vision of fairness that forms our national character.
This Sunday we had with us Suite Notes, a recorder group that has been playing for many years. The played several things, including “Simple Gifts”. I wish we had a recording of their playing. Which to my surprise I do. Please note that the recorder was in my shirt pocket and right above the Suite Notes. Here is “O Savior Sweet” and the Doxology:
Also in attendance were representatives from Sharon’s Masonic Lodge and Eastern Star. We got to hear a bit about Masons. The joined us because it is St. John’s Day. Masons revere John the Baptizer and this is the feast day of his birth. The scripture lesson was selected in honor of this.
God of All, teach us to be like Esther. Remind us that her star rose as she opposed the oppression of a minority, second class citizens scapegoated by a racist bully, who wanted power more than the responsibility of leading. Teach us to be brave like Esther.
Lord of heaven and earth, teach us to be like John the Baptizer. Remind us our sins are forgiven. Free us from the yesterdays of yesterday. Heal our regrets, remorse. Settle the ache that happens whenever we think of particular times, actions and even inaction. We confess we have not always done what we should. Our guilty feelings remind us we do not feel forgiven – by you or ourselves.. Forgive us. Let us forgive ourselves.
Forgive us, so tomorrow might be a new day without the weight of the past. Forgive us, to teach us how to forgive – we don’t do that well. Teach us to forgive ourselves – we do that most poorly – holding on to our guilt as if it is the guilt that will bring forgiveness and wholeness. Let our guilt be a sign that we have spiritual work to do – making amends, seeking to never do so again, and trusting you – that you do and will forgive. And then, Holy One, teach us to let it go. Let the sin and the guilt go and trouble us no more.
Lord we have mighty people in our faith story. Remind us to trust you and act like them.
Before this middle section of our worship, our congregation has something we call “Becoming As a Child”: Prayers of Joys and Spirit Sightings (ways and when we have sensed God’s presence). It is a beautiful time.
This day I did not invite anyone to sit with me and had this to say. If I was to title it, it would be “Politics in the Pulpit”
Last week the sermon was on Job – the whole thing. Obviously a lot was skimmed over. One thing skimmed was about the satan and how this was not Satan. This week I focused on the satan/Satan. The sermon is a bit teachy. The sermon is gratuitous. So, sue me.
I need and want to acknowledge two books essential for my education on this.
Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagan, and Heretics (New York, Random House, 1995)
T. J. Wray and Gregory Mobley, The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil’s Biblical Roots (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2005)
Oh Father God, who is as far away as heaven and as near to us as our breath, Holy and Wonderful is your name to us. May you rule our hearts so that we live and follow your will and way as we travel earthly roads. We trust you will provide.
Stay with us God, as we move through this world. Be with us when life is grand – so we know who to praise and thank. Be beside us when life meets obstructions so we know we are not alone. Guide us when we would cut moral corners or think “it will be alright this time”. Lord, without you we are a noisy cymbal and a clanging gong. Bind us to our best self with your love and forgiveness.
Do not only protect us, Holy One. Free us to reach out to the unlovely and love them. The poor, tired, and huddled masses are often strangers who look, talk, and smell in ways we are not normal – to us. But we are not you. You are their maker and you hold them as normal. Your ways are not our ways, yet. So we must pray for your grace to help them, love them, travel with them on their way. Let that be our way of life. Free us to go that way.
[This summer the minister invited people to request sermons based on scripture, a theme, or question they have. This one came from Joe who said he always had a hard time interpreting Job. Not sure this answered all his questions. BUT it did spin off another sermon for next week about the history and origins of Satan.]
You are the God of Love and we praise you. You are the light in the dark, hope in tragedy, calm in terror, and a promise in death. To you we turn when life seems to crumble and all is is shifting sand under beneath us. To you we lift our hymns, our prayers, and our worship. You are our God.
Be God. Sometimes we have a long list of things to be done by you: healing, forgiveness, fixes, and preventions. Hear in our lists part of a conversation about our values and priorities. Dear in our prayers that we trust you, that we look to you to make right what we can not influence. We trust you like our God, our prayers are for some sense that that you are there: alive, active, and love us. Our deepest prayer is that you love us and do not abandon us. Even in our imperfect understanding of what it means, we want you to be our God.
We pray to avoid the darkness and the tragedy, we want healing, forgiveness, and for things to be fixed. And yet Lord, we also hunger for you to be God in our daily lives, the ordinary bits of our existence.Be God in the beige times of life. Mold us then, strength our trust and increase our spiritual sense so we do not need you to confirm your love when the dankness of tragedy enters our lives. Yea Lord, maybe would not even see such times as tragedy if we already see you( your love and presence) already in the folds of time and circumstance. How often do we pray for our lists to be done? Truly Lord, all we really want is for you to be God, our God, and to know we are your beloved.
Lord, hear our prayers. Especially when our words do not convey them.
Mark
The bible is filled with stories. Some repeat. Some contradict. Some are just stories. They are not history. They are not memoires or diary entries. They are not reports about what happened. Walter Cronkite does not say, “And that’s the way it was…”
The two stories that make up our scripture readings for this morning come from 2 of the three main creations stories in the bible. Stories. Not history. How can they be history when there are two stories that disagree?
Our first piece of scripture comes after there already have been 5 days of creation.
Day one: God’s spirit, breath, wind moved over the face of the deep and light was created.
Day two: waters were separated from waters by the sky.
Day three: separated waters meant there was now dry land and plants appeared.
Day four: light and dark were separated with the sun and the moon.
Day five: animals of the sea and of the air were created.
And God saw, continually, that these things were good.
Day six: the animals of the land were created. This too was good. Then…
Joe
Then God said,
“Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them,
and God said to them,
“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
God said,
“See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”
And it was so.
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Mark
The second creation story is actually the older creation story. What we have for a reading this morning also deal with people, like the first reading. In this story, we are created because God had created heaven and earth, but no plants or animals. Creation was incomplete, God needed irrigation and a way for the ground to be tilled – cared for. We are to till the ground. God forms mud, some of the ground that needs to be tilled, and blows breath/wind/spirit into the mud creature. This is how humanity starts. We then get to be a part of creating by giving a name to the animals. God allows us to care for the creation and eat anything, ACCEPT the fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Humans, those mud creatures, are told that to do so is a death sentence.
At the time this story is written, a snake was a symbol of wisdom, fertility, and immortality. The word “craftiness” to describe the serpent is used as the contrast of the description for the humans: naked and innocent.
JOE
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. The serpent said to the woman,
“Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent,
“We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ”
But the serpent said to the woman,
“You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So when the woman saw that the tree was:
• good for food,
• and that it was a delight to the eyes,
• and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,
she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Mark
Then they all play a game of ‘not my fault’ that would make today’s politicians proud.
At the Beginning of the Sermon I refer to a picture/poster. This is it.
Vicki Eastman is reading the mornings scripture that is in bold. Mark Piton is interrupting.
When the day of Pentecost had come,
This was not the first Pentecost. This was the Jewish “Pentecost” called Shavout or the harvest Festival of Weeks.
they
The Apostles that is. They had just voted in Matthias as an Apostle to replace Judas who was not with them. The number 12 had been restored!
were all together in one place.
After all they were in Jerusalem and it was Pentecost! The other faithful had made a pilgrimage and were celebrating the Festival of Weeks and the day – Fifty days after the Passover – that Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. Fifty – Pente – days after the Exodus started.
And suddenly from heaven there came a sound
How do we know it came from heaven? Well, the events of the day will show that, but it was sudden, non-natural, and it is reminiscent of the pillar of smoke that led the Hebrews out of Egypt, the still small voice, the whirlwind, the spirit moving on the face of the deep. And the word “ruah” can be translated as wind or breath or spirit. So, yes the verse could say “a sound like the rush of a violent breath or spirit”. Instead, it is usually translated …
…came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
It touched everyone. But also notice how Luke, the writer of this, is not saying THAT is what it was. The sound was LIKE this. It was not THIS. It was LIKE it. He is getting ready to do the same thing with the next symbol of the day.
Divided tongues, as of fire,
AS of fire. NOT fire. Tongues AS if fire, like fire, like a rushing wind, as if it was – BUT it was not these things. Like them, but not them.
I think they got it.
Sorry
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them,
Fire from heaven. How do we know this? It was sudden, non-natural and reminiscent the burning bush that did not consume the bush, of the pillar of fire that led the Hebrews out of Egypt at night, and the tongues of fire that destroy the rotten roots of those who reject God that Isaiah speaks about.
and a tongue rested on each of them.
Again they touched everyone. And this is getting ready for a bit of a pun, at least in English.
All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit
The Holy Breath the Holy Wind
and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
…they spoke in other tongues .. get it? … tongues of fire tongues of language…
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound
Not the sound of from all these pilgrim in Jerusalem but the sound that was LIKE a mighty wind or breath and the 12 speaking while lit up with tongues of Holy fire
the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.
Scholars have debated whether this is a miracle of the Apostles speaking in another language or if God did a miracle on the non-believers so they could hear in their own language. I can see where it makes a difference, but I am not sure it matters all that much.
Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?
Galileans were not well regarded for intelligence.
And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
This has been answered. Sounds and fire from heaven. The how doesn’t rely on humans.
Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”
All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”
Always the question. Peter is getting ready to answer it.
But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
Because there are always those who will dismiss what they do not understand or want to believe.
[Wait like a 5 count just staring at me.]
Would you like me to read it again without interruption? To let them get a sense of the flow or the story?
…That might be good…
I am reading this time from The Message paraphrase.
When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force – no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.
There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were thunderstruck. They couldn’t for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, “Aren’t these all Galileans?
How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues?
Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; Visitors from Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene; both Jews and proselytes; Even Cretans and Arabs! “They’re speaking our languages, describing God’s mighty works!” Their heads were spinning; they couldn’t make head or tail of any of it.
They talked back and forth, confused: “What’s going on here?”
Lord. We have volcanoes on our minds 10 more people murdered at a school on our hearts. We know there are wars around the world and other natural disasters, and we know there is illness, grief, and pain closer to home with us now. We want someting better in all these situations. We may pray for you to fix them, but we know we will have a part to flfill. We need help to meet our responsibilities. Help us.
Come Holy Spirit. Come.
Come as a wind of change when we ignore injustice so that we can have peace. Come and knock down the wall of ignorance, hatred, prejudice. Blow away the stench of racism, arrogance, pride, and pretension. Clear the choking smoke of lies, diversion, and division. Burn away the chaff of greed, the pedestal of power, and the idols of false gods that love injustice. Set fire and burn away the dross of “nice” and set fire to our hearts with passion for liberty and justice for all. We need help to set aside niceness and a desire for our own peace to become your prophets demanding justice, proclaiming what is right and wrong, Holy and profane,. Blow on the fires of our passion until we will accept only peace for all who would have it. In the light of that fire may we see your will on earth as it is in heaven.
Your earth is beautiful, Lord. No matter what, the earth moves from season to season. The earth is set in a course that flows from expression to expression – all Holy – all Holy.
May we find our flow – our course that moves us from holy moment to holy time – from beauty to season to you. Like the earth, may we move through our life seasons no matter what storm, cold, drought, or flood might slow us. Grant, creative One, that the certainty and surety from this trust gives us the calm we need to see you all around us. Let there be peace on earth and in our hearts.
Gentle us with your love. Calm our frantic worry that drives us too fast to touch holiness. Empty us of regret, remorse, resentments, fears, needs, and hurt. Empty us and fill us with your love – show us how to live with you, our neighbor, our enemy.
Your earth is beautiful. No matter what, the earth moves from holiness to holiness.
Here you can see our table all set to go. The shallow bowl on a stem we will use to Baptise Patrick. The rainbow documents in the center are the cetificates for the New Members: Denis Backus, Patrick Cummings, Rebecca Eladala, Mark Pitton. We also have communion all set to be served. Before worship everything looks nice and neat and orderly.
The choir sang the song “Let Us Talents and Tongues Employ“. It is a Jamaican song and the bread for communion was spiced like a Jamaican breakfast “Bun” and had raisins. It was also gluten free, because that is how we roll…
For Silent Prayer and Meditation:
“Some people would rather debate doctrine or beliefs or tradition or interpretation than actually do what Jesus said. It’s not rocket science. Just do it. Practice loving a difficult person or try forgiving someone. Give away some money. Tell someone thank you. Encourage a friend. Bless an enemy. Say, “I’m sorry.” Worship God. You already know more than you need to know.” John Ortberg
