Sunday, September 26, 2004

Sermon September 26, 2004 How could it come to this? How did the rich man allow it to get to this point where an unbridgeable gulf develops that, despite all his wealth and power, cannot be closed by human hands. He now becomes the living example of the old New England joke about being lost, asking for directions and being told that you can not get there from here. What a crazy scene! Lazarus gets dumped off at the gate. It was neither the rich man’s fault nor his responsibility. He just got the problem laid off on him. Just who did the tossing – the literal meaning of the original language? Was it some family that could no longer handle an addicted member? Perhaps he was an incorrigible uncontrollable youth that has been dumped on a system that could find no better place for him than a bed at the gate of the rich man. The language literally means tossed and when people get tossed it is because other folks have reached their breaking point. Having found that they have exhausted all the possibilities they just give up and in desperation hand over their problem to somebody else and hope for the best. Who knows, maybe they made the round of the doctors, the counselors, the lawyers, and the professionals. Now it is time to hand him over to the streets and see what happens.          It may not have been the rich man’s doing but all of a sudden he finds himself on a course for disaster, because he is unable to close the gap between himself and Lazarus. You know the things that he said that distanced him from Lazarus. This is not my problem: the nerve of those who dumped him on my doorstep. “Why does anybody think that I will do any better with this situation?” This is not my responsibility. If I respond it will only encourage people to be dump on my doorstep. He’s a health hazard. None of that kind of talk however true it might be closes the gap that is developing between the rich man and what God created him to be, for as true as those things might be none of them will help him bridge the gap between the rich man and disaster.          It is not that the rich man was a bad man. We have no evidence that he got his wealth through corruption or exploitation. He had family values and was concerned about the fate of his brothers. It is just that this gap has developed in his life. All it would have taken was some scraps from his table that would have indicated that there was some connection, some affection, and some recognition that Lazarus was more than garbage thrown at the Rich man’s doorstep.          In the story no name is given to the rich man – a sure fire indication that Jesus is intending that he could be anyone of us. He was right on the unfairness of it, man of family values, but still a dangerous fissure is beginning to develop in his life. We know how this kind of crack gets started. It is just not your fault that the problem gets tossed at you at the end of the day after you have taught a whole day and there is this kid pouring his heart out to you about a home situation that stinks and how nothing is going right in their life and what does he expect you to do? Just one too many of those moments when it seems that all of society is dumping its problems on your doorstep and you are not sure how you are going to scrape by let alone have any scraps of humanity to offer. If the system dumps one more piece of documentation, one more piece of paper to fill dumps, one more Medicare patient on you, you will explode. You have done all that work and training, and they dump on you. It is just not fair. You can hear in the cracking voice the crack that can lead to the gap where as it happened to the no name that just might have all our names you can get burned real bad and that can last a very long time.          You get the feeling that this gap can begin to develop very easily in us. It came to this for the rich man because it comes to this for all us in one way or another. Have you finger-painted lately? Have you plaid in a puddle like you did when you were a kid. Have you tried something new more in anticipation than fear of judgment?  If not I suspect that the gap has begun to develop in you and that you have felt the first hint that you can get burned and burned out in life in a way that leaves you unable to get from here to there.          I suspect that the folks who are running for president are really beginning to feel the heat if not feel burned by the gap that has arisen. Do I have it right? - This election is all about whether you ride motorcycles, like Nascar racing, hunt animals, clear brush, land on aircraft carriers, or wind surf. Vote for one. There seems to have developed this gap between what Jefferson, Madison Hamilton, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts had in mind. It does feel like we are all getting burned, doesn’t it, and that we cannot get there from here!          At this point in the story it all seems that it is all over for the rich man who cannot get over the gap. God love him - he has one more thing to say, a plan to bridge the gap at least for his brothers who still may have a chance. Only the plan is badly flawed. “Let him warn my five brothers, so they won't come to this horrible place." Abraham answered, "Your brothers can read what Moses and the prophets wrote. They should pay attention to that." Then the rich man said, "No, that's not enough! If only someone from the dead would go to them, they would listen and turn to God."31So Abraham said, "If they won't pay attention to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even to someone who comes back from the dead."          Don’t you think encountering a dead man returned from the grave would have a way of closing a lot of the gaps in your life? In an unmistakable reference to the events of Easter, wouldn’t that answer all questions? If that doesn’t do it then what does it take? According to the story we don’t get it if we get things out of order. You don’t understand scripture because you experience the resurrection, rather you understand resurrection because you have first gotten the old, old story straight. Otherwise you think the resurrection is all about escaping from life’s problems and scary spots rather than, as the preacher Donna Schaper puts it, entering into them in hope. The old story is about entering not escaping. The tomb opened not so that Jesus can escape but so that we can enter into life, even into the scariest of places in hope, because he has been there before.          So you start to tell the old, old story of your life and you begin to realize all those places where stumbling blocks were turned into building blocks of something better - greater wisdom closer relationships, more strength than you imagined that was in you. Lord knows that is the story in Genesis the first book of Moses, and how these families Adam, Eve, Cain and Able, Noah, Joseph and his brothers, stumbled, yet something was building in their lives. Sounds like my marriage and most families I know. Do you feel the gap begin to close, the heat lowered, the hope rise.          Read all about it. Isn’t the second book of Moses, the Exodus, all about your life? The waters do part and it is only a matter if we trust enough to walk through the waters. Just when all human possibility is exhausted and it seems that the Hebrew slaves have not only dumped on the shore but also so been dumped on in general that only the dogs get excited about their presence. End of story! But the waters do part don’t they? The kid coming to you at the end of the day is an opening into yourself, into finding that you have common ground - you both feel up against the system half the time. There is an opening to common ground, holy ground, dry ground on the other side of fear and helplessness. Do you feel the earth shake, the tomb open, the gap begin to close?          Come on, tell the old, old story that makes all things new. You feel the gap close, and here is something that is vitally important - there is a lot less likelihood that you are going to get burned like the no name rich man who has all our names. The prophets and all their talk of Emmanuel God with us have it right. Sure there have been times when we have been in the wilderness but our difficulties in life have not been caused because we are alone but because we have failed to reach out.          Enter in even if on any particular day all you have is scraps, you don’t have to try and escape life or even your responsibilities in life. Enter in hope! A lot less chance here that you will get burned. The good news is that from here you can really get somewhere!                     6:44:49 PM    comment []

	Sunday, September 12, 2004

We know why all the tax collectors and sinners were coming to hear Jesus. It was because they got a hearing from him. Their lives, their stories, and their hopes, their failures mattered to him. With him they would get a hearing so they came to hear him. Of course there are always those who grumble at the notion of those left behind getting a hearing. For us the safety net often really means our safety, having pigeonholed people in safe convenient categories. From early on to now we have learned to put people in boxes - from geeks, nerds, and greasers, retards, rejects to red states and blue states we learn to round up people into herds for interpretive, political, and social convenience. So you can well imagine the response rate was pretty high to the invitation to come to the party where adjectives were not turned to nouns so that that people thought they had the skinny on you by just knowing your skin color, place of origin, income or political affiliation. Of course that is when the party begins - when we are not a herd but people who need to laugh and love, leap and live, recover and be redeemed. So, those who engage in the usual round up and corral people behind the fence, having caught them in their nets in a way that Jesus was not talking about, crumble at the notion of the red state and the blue, the Palestinian and Israeli, the special ed and the advance placement parents, the addicted and those addicted to achieving, sitting at the same table just as folks. Who knows what might break out here if the walls are broken down: a party, peace, and the promise of the kingdom?          So Jesus tells this story for those who don’t get it so that they can get with each other and get with it. He tells them a story about how a coin can go missing and how sheep can wonder off of their own accord. As familiar as this was to his listeners, the stories sound crazy on first hearing. Do people really invite in others to celebrate like they do in these stories? Now when the TV remote goes missing in our house and what was lost is found I sort of look around in hopes that nobody notices how stupidly I have behaved, tossing pillows around, pulling cushions off the sofa, accusing others of being part of some sort of international conspiracy to thwart my fun, refusing to simply walk over to the TV to turn it on until this modern convenience is found, madly asking Barbara “Where did you put the remote?” The day does not begin well if I cannot find my favorite coffee mug. I tend to withhold my love and laughter until the almighty comes across with my mug. Do I really want to invite the neighborhood in so that they know what a creature of habit I am? When things go missing or wonder off in our household it is not a pretty sight.          Jesus had his tongue in cheek when he told this story. Which one of you does not leave the ninety-nine out in the open and go after the one? Excuse me, none of us do that if we are in are right mind. Rather than go after the tax right off less we loose the others. We celebrate a 3.4% unemployment rate and count it a gift from the gods as the best we can do, count on the revenue from our liquor stores even though you can count on it that a good amount of that income will come from those lost in a alcoholic fog, entertain the notion of balancing our state budget by counting on the imbalance in some people’s lives that leaves them taking chances on gambling rather than taking life as a gift. Not only do we not go after the one we often seek to profit from them.          The woman with the broom seems even more obsessive-compulsive than the shepherd with the crook. She throws a party for the neighborhood, spending farm more than the coin was worth in celebrating that she found the coin in the first place. Do you want her to be in charge of your finances? I would not be letting her near my checkbook. This seems to be voodoo economics of the first order. It is as crazy as the shepherd who goes after the one leaving the insurance company to take care of the ninety-nine. Check please. For the most part we want to check out on this. People like this will spend us into the ground.          Jesus says there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than ninety-nine who don’t need to and it seems that the angels are also into the voodoo economics getting their kick out of a 1% return. Anyone getting interest in the bank lately would like to tell these angels a thing or two.          But these stories are about going after whatever it is that gets the party going. That happens less when we get interest than when we take interest in each other. Just who is it that does the repenting here. As cute as sheep are, they do not repent. They keep wondering off and as much as I expect that some day someone will apologize for my remote going missing it is I who need to do the repenting of making everybody else’s life miserable until I get back in my groove. In the story it is the shepherd who moves beyond just seeing a herd and cutting his loses. He moves beyond calculation to connection and caring about one sheep with which he has relation more than calculation. This sheep will not be left behind. Now THAT is when the party begins! When, it is relation more than calculation that matters people get found. You stop seeing the herd for the individual stories. When life is less about getting interest and more about taking interest in one another the party begins. You see less the advance placement student than the student who might wonder if the attention they get is more about what they can do in the head than who they are in their heart of hearts or the one with the good looks who has their ticket in life punched and wonders whether anyone will get a good look at what is on their insides. You see the child who has gotten a label early on, wondering what they can expect now that no one expects much of them. Or the party begins when waiting in line at the airport you see the women with the veil and baggy cloths and all the bags and two kids in tow and you see a mom traveling in a strange land needing some help more than you see a potential terrorist. You make a tentative gesture of help and that day relation wins over calculation: the party begins.            As much as I would like to beat my remote control silly senseless for failing to give me remote control over my world I can assure you that inanimate objects do not repent. It is I who needs to do the repenting. There is plenty of joy in heaven when you repent of thinking you knows anything about the world when you knows nothing of a three foot high child who stands before a twenty-four foot high wall.  It is barrier that a child sees that has just come crashing through his Palestinian neighborhood guarded by Israeli tanks and he wonders what he has done to cause them to come and to take a way the view of the mountain. He cries because it is the mountain that one day he wanted to climb because he thought he might see heaven from up there. When you repent of thinking that you know anything of the world with out knowing how the world now looks to the child then there is joy in heaven for that is when the party that we are all invited to begins. When you take an interest in that child you will know that that child knows that the twenty-four foot high wall was paid for by us. All he knows about America is that they have taken his mountain and stairway to heaven away. When you have found this child and have found a place for him in your heart then there is joy in heaven and there is a party on earth. Once you were lost and now you are found.          We normally put the obsessive behavior we see in these stories under the heading of neurosis. Given the fact that both of the characters in these stories behave in ways that are so obviously dysfunctional and that simple throw all economic sense out the window, what other explanation can we come up with for their behavior? They are neurotics. Surely some talk therapy will help and if not that surely in this age, certainly in this age, there will be some medication to get them back into the herd: get them back to trying to be everywhere without really being there, get them back to trusting more in getting interest than in taking interest in anyone so that they will not lose remote control. We can fix them rather than have them go after the brokenness of the world. We can do that. Of course there will be no joy in heaven, no party on earth and it will turn out that only the angels will be sad at the loss. © 2004 R. Craig MacCreary 9:39:27 PM    comment []

	Saturday, September 04, 2004

3:49:08 PM    comment []

	Monday, August 02, 2004

Parish Post September 2004   We are more in need of a vision or destination and a compass (a set of principles or directions) and less in need of a road map.  We often don't know what the terrain ahead will be like or what we will need to go through it....   But an inner compass will always give us direction.   Steven Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People                   One year ago who would have thought we would be where we are today. I get the feeling that as a church we have been traveling more by a compass than a road map. How ever difficult this journey can be, just look at where we have arrived.  We have arrived home with the largest delegation from any New Hampshire church from the United Church of Christ National Youth event, and with changed people feeling more optimistic, more ready to walk in faith, and closer to God. We have arrived on the other side of “Faith and Nature Camp.” After months of hard work we arrived at Loon Lake to discover that not only could we pick up where we had left off two years ago but also that we could go beyond where we had been following our one-year hiatus. We arrived on Pentecost Sunday having found that the theme of “The Actor’s Studio” opened new portals into the meaning of embracing Jesus Christ as director and understanding God as the audience. We arrived at midyear meeting “working out our salvation in fear a trembling” to find that the Holy Spirit was steadying our walk and we were held in God’s heart.  If anyone had told me last August that in little less than a year I would be standing in Jerusalem and walking by the shores of Galilee I would have politely as best I could laughed to myself. If anyone had said one year ago that I would be fifty pounds lighter and run fifty miles a week you all would have laughed. That I will arrive at the Choir camp under the direction of Kristin Ruthenberg with 14 other adults is no laughing matter. At least we hope not.            These are the kind of places that you arrive at when even if you don’t have a road map you have a compass and a sense of direction. To paraphrase St. Paul it seems less important to know exactly where we are headed than to know who is our head. This has a way of helping us keep our head and keeping us headed in the right direction until we arrive at those places where God wants us to be.           In this Parish Post you will read of changed lives and renewed living because of the journeys that we have undertaken. You will also see that while we don’t always know what lies ahead or where we are headed, these kinds of experiences help South Congregational Church know who is the head of the church. “Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” Ephesians 4:15     Craig       A Medical Update I am pleased to report that I continue to make significant progress! The CEA blood level, an indicator of cancer, continues to shrivel. We are right where we need to be in the process at this point. I continue to function well, run every day and have minimal side effects. I am blest to be part of a faith community as I make this journey without benefit of the usual road map.  - Craig 8:00:15 AM    comment []

	Tuesday, July 20, 2004

I write this drawing on one side of my brain while another recovers from Faith and Nature camp while still another prepares for our journey to Tennessee with fifty children, 10 from South Church, for the national youth event of the United Church of Christ. I seem to be facing serious brain meltdown. One antidote to cranial burnout is a good book, not just to take your mind off things but also to take it to a place where it can be refreshed. I doubt that you woke up this morning wondering what your minister has been reading. However, I lift up the following titles to enrich your reading. They have helped my sanity this summer.           Schaper, Donna. Sacred Speech A Practical Guide for Keeping Spirit in Your Speech. Woodstock, Vermont: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2003. Have you ever wished that you had said something different or that you could speak in a more redemptive way. Donna provides some clues.   Goldstein, Warren. William Sloane Coffin Jr. A Holy Impatience. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Those who have heard my preaching have heard in my words the echo of a fellow New Yorker William Sloane Coffin.   Hendra, Tony. Father Joe The Man who saved My Soul. New York: Random House, 2004. Ever acted on an impulse to buy the book they talked about on National Public Radio and been rewarded? I was.   Rossing, Barbara A. The Rapture Exposed The Message of Hope In The Book of Revelation. Cambridge, Mass: Westview Press, 2004. By bringing the book of Revelation alive she debunks much of the end of the planet mentality that has reaped havoc in  the world   Singer, Peter. The President of Good and Evil The Ethics of George W. Bush. New York: Dutton, 2004. Bound not to please George Bush fans it provides an ethical critque of our Government that will challenge Democrats as well as Republicans   Frank, Thomas. What’s The Matter With Kansas? New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004. Everything is up to date in Kansas and that may be the problem according to this author. These are seven books that have kept me from meltdown. Some of them are mass reads as well as must-reads; I hope they might help you avoid summer meltdown. Perhaps you can let us know here at Parish Post some of the reading that has kept your heart open and your brain in gear. These authors renewed each in their own way my faith that God is still speaking. 2:28:03 PM    comment []

	Saturday, July 10, 2004

Down The Same Old Road?     The question is, “Who is my neighbor?” Having gotten to the point where both Jesus and the Lawyer agree that eternal life or the life worth living, as one translator puts it, is all about your relations to God and neighbor and that those relations have a lot to do with each other, Jesus tells this story. Jesus places the lawyer and all of his listeners on the road to Jericho: not a sunny street, or at town hall meeting, or at the coffee shop or evening or afternoon circle. The question of “who is my neighbor and what is neighborliness?” gets answered on the road to Jericho: not any old road, mind you. Jesus picks the road that was notorious for its thieves and bandits and where it was most likely for folks to find themselves beaten up and robbed. It was where people were very likely to come upon the scene we see portrayed here. If you traveled the Jericho road often enough, sooner or later you are going to find yourself beaten and robbed. Sooner or later you are going to find yourself having to make the kind of decisions that faced the priest and the Levite in this story and that is a part of all our stories. What happens there is an indicator of whether we are leading the life worth living, at least according to Jesus. Things get settled and come clear on the road where people get mugged and robbed and cast aside.           It happens to us all. We get robbed and we come upon scenes that remind us that we are vulnerable and because we are at risk for the same fate and often we are not sure of what to do, we pass by on the other side. Life can look like a demolition derby some days - what do you do, how do you do it?           It can happen in so many ways. My mother towards the end of her 94 years of life felt like she had fallen in among robbers. It was a simple thing but the kind of thing that happens on the road to Jericho but it can leave you feeling out of it, half dead meaning only half alive as Jesus describes it. She lived long enough to have to struggle with all the changes that had come to the phone system and all the options they give you. She really didn’t want to hear about all the meaningless choices that were being offered to her. Making ordinary calls become a struggle and a hassle. When she got into trouble and she wanted to talk to a real live operator she didn’t want to hear for more options press one. It only reminded her of how many things had changed and robbed her of the kind of joyful anticipation that can come in calling friends. We are all on the road to Jericho where we can feel beaten up and reminded of our inadequacies. It can leave you pretty far from the life worth living. Sudden long-term illness can rob the conversations of their spontaneity. What do you say, how do you say it? Do you avoid it and try to pass on the other side of what seems to fill the road ahead in a relationship. People fall in among robbers and fall upon the folks who have been robbed. That is life on the road to Jericho. I often feel sorry for our American Presidents. You see the picture on the first day in office and then you see pictures taken at the end of their term. They sure look like they have fallen among folks that have stolen something from them - they look weary and guarded and defensive and if not half dead then only half alive at best. It happens on the road to Jericho. There are folks out there gunning for you. There are people who are ready to pounce on you and keep you afraid and keep your trust level down. I think of the teenagers who are exposed to an endless parade of messages to eat fast food and soda and candy and then are told by the same advertising agencies that they ought to look like the thin models that never seem to get fat. You can feel pretty bruised and beaten on the road to Jericho. When the politicians get done with you and you don’t know which way to turn or whom or what to believe, you can feel only half alive at best.           We usually tell this story as if it were a simple morality play - with the characters who wear white hats and those who were black hats - with the pretty obvious conclusion that we know going in that it was of course the Samaritan who proved that he was the real neighbor. However whenever we reduce Jesus’ stories to such easy to get truths we may be far off the mark. As morality play we know that when the priest and the Levite come on stage that we are supposed to hiss and boo: bad insensitive people, double triple shame. Clergy and their assistants, the best families, folk you ought to look up to in the community; they pass by on the other side. How could they?       I take another position. I am glad that the priest and the Levite passed on the other side. There are some people that ought to just keep moving because they might not be of any help at all. Warren Goldstein, William Sloane Coffin’s biographer, recounts when the great preacher and pastor found himself beaten and robbed of the life of his son who died in a Car accident in the midst of an ice storm. Preaching the following Sunday, he opened by evoking Alex the "day-brightener," who "enjoyed beating his old man at every game and in every race," who had now "beat his father to the grave." He then gratefully acknowledged the Hemingway quotation he had received among the "healing flood of letters": "The world breaks everyone, then some become strong at the broken places." His "own broken heart" was beginning to heal, "largely thanks to so many of you, my dear parishioners." Throughout the sermon he expressed his gratitude to Riversiders, hundreds of whom had come to his "rescue" and given him "what God gives all of us minimum protection, maximum support." But Coffin needed someplace to put his anger, too, so he criticized those would-be friends, especially ministers, who sent him the worst letters, proving “they knew their Bibles better than the human condition." After all, "while the words of the Bible are true, grief renders them unreal." That is why those who made no demands but simply brought food and flowers and held him, helped far more. He saved his real wrath, though, for an old friend (unidentified as such) who had made the mistake of implying that Alex's death was God's will This "should never be said," he told the congregation, as he described "swarming all over her," demanding to know if it was "the will of God that Alex never fixed that lousy windshield wiper of his, that he was probably driving too fast in such a storm, that he probably had had a couple of 'frosties' too many?" He confessed that "nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn't go around this world with his finger on triggers, his fist around knives, his hands on steering wheels." Quite the contrary: "My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first of all our hearts to break." This argument accounts for why clergy have been using this sermon in grief counseling ever since.           There are some people who ought to pass by on the other side for they bring nothing to the moment. I mentioned my sympathy for our presidents. I do feel for the current occupant of the White House. While I do not agree with him much of the time I am appalled at those who think that in this time the best thing to do is to make fun of hid accent and to mock his evident dyslexic struggles with words. Do those folks think that they increase the president’s ability to cry out in the midst of his wounds rather than act out his pain in less than the best ways? There are some folks that ought to pass by on the other side. Of course we wonder what to do but there are some people who come into such situations with all the answers and solutions in the world that just make us feel more incompetent and ashamed that we have fallen among robbers. It must have been our own fault in the first place. What was he doing on the road to Jericho in the first place? They ought to pass by on the other side.           According to Jesus the Good Samaritan is good because he brings three things to this moment. First he concentrated on the wounds. Oil and disinfect no judgment, or solutions or answers, or explanations but just deal with the wounds first. It is better to have people cry out than act out their wounded-ness. It is ok to be wounded, none of us avoid it, all of us are on the road to Jericho, and it will catch up with us. If you are not ready to deal with that then please pass by on the other side. At first it is oil and wine soothing and disinfecting. There is a soothing presence that says there is something that we can do about this and we can find it together. The wounds won’t leave you winding up on the outside looking in. Oil and wine soothe and prevent the wounds from getting infected with despair and hopelessness.           He next gets him to a safe house where the man who fell among robbers can recover. Sometimes, we don’t let people recover at their own pace. When people are suffering from burnout that is robbing them of life we don’t always make it easy for them to recover. Sometimes when people recover it means that we may have to face some hard truths in marriage or in church or family. Do we make it safe for people to recover? If not please pass by on the other side.           Finally, the Good Samaritan makes arrangements for the future.  This takes some courage and trust on the part of both the Samaritan and the Innkeeper. Who knows what happens next. But the future will be covered with a love that might have to deal with disappointment and will certainly have to deal with the reality that people have a habit of finding themselves beaten up and in ditches by the side of the road.  The future is not tied to any particular outcome but is open to dealing with whatever comes up. If you are not ready for this please pass by on the other side and don’t try and be helpful.           The Samaritan was a neighbor to the man because he went down the right road when folks were beaten up and helpless. He started with the wounds, provided a safe place for recovery, and was open to what ever the future might bring or not bring. Jesus said to the lawyer and to us all, “Go and do likewise.” You will be on the right road.               6:46:24 AM    comment []

	Saturday, June 26, 2004

Sermon June 27, 2004 As many of you know next week will be vacation week for me. So, this week I decided to preach about sin. This will provide plenty of opportunity to skip town until things blow over. Preachers get a bum wrap for always talking about sin. The truth of the matter is that most sermons I hear and read seem to soft-pedal the whole idea. I would not want to do a word search of my sermons on how many times that I have mentioned the word sin. So, I will make up for it here. Sin seems to have gone quite out of fashion. I suspect not without reason. Just look at what happened in this morning’s scripture and you can see why people might want to avoid too keen an interest in Sin. James and John are ready to bring down the wrath of God on the poor Samaritans.  But he was on his way to Jerusalem, so the people there refused to welcome him.   54When the disciples James and John saw what was happening, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy these people?"  Sin in the hands of the wrong people can be a pretty lethal concept. I imagine that we all carry around a heavy enough load of guilt to keep us busy without the likes of these two making things worse: without having to worry about the skies opening up with a deluge of fire and brimstone at our slightest misstep, as if God was perpetually carrying around a red teachers pencil. I understand that the largest single grouping of people coming into the United Church of Christ is something called the de-churched. I rather suspect that has to do with folks who have been burned by some churchly concepts of sin. Which may explain some reluctance of preachers to mention this “s” word.           Just where did these folks go wrong? After all for the most part in Luke’s gospel the Samaritans come off pretty well: the good Samaritan and the one of ten lepers that did thank Jesus was a Samaritan. What is different this time is that Jesus is heading for Jerusalem. It is the place according to Scripture where Sin with a capital S will be addressed. Like Peter these folks seem to think that there is some way of getting around this trip. Can’t things be resolved at a lower level?           However I suspect that most of us believe as well that things can be dealt with on a lower plane: Dr. Phil on television, the talk shows in general, every third person with a Doctorate on the self-help book shelves that seem to be saying that there is an easier way. If you know enough, have enough, buy enough of their books, or watch enough of their programs then you will probably be able to deal with enough of your problems to get along in life. I suppose that most of us do believe that “Foxes have dens, and birds have nests,” but then there ought be a place where we could be safe enough to hang out and secure our lives. As one observer put it, “We acknowledge the destructive effects of sin and recognize that sin pervades all of life, but we have subtlety redefined it. Sin is now attributed to a series of poor choices, mischances or, at worst, a personality disorder. Thus we reduce it to a size that can be managed with common-sense advice, a pep talk, and perhaps, counseling. "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy these people? There are days when it might not be a bad idea. For we are only kidding ourselves if we think that we can resolve the deepest issues in our lives without setting our own faces toward our personal Jerusalem. It is that place in our lives where, as Jesus did in his, we face the truth that we have torn apart what God has joined together and no amount of filler will cover the whole. Of course we do say Yes, Lord, but let me take refuge and seek safety in family. Yes, how we put so much on our families. Let us all be perfect at the wedding, avoid the touchy parts at the reception, and be determined to be on our best behavior even with our worst relatives. Or we expect marriage to be a refuge from the world rather than a launching pad into the world. Or we try to bury our anger and rage either in frantic activity or being a couch potato until we explode. Or we do try to plow ahead by looking backward over our shoulder less anyone is gaining the advantage on us. “Yes, Lord if I can be safe enough, have enough, be strong enough or in general watch out for my enemies carefully enough, then this sin business will take care of itself, I will be able to live well enough: Thanks but no thanks for the Jerusalem trip. At best see you when you get back. That Jesus is making for Jerusalem is a sign that the deepest issues in our lives requires something that looks like Good Friday if we are to live at all, let alone have our lives take on the contour of something that looks like eternal life. Jerusalem means that before there is going to be life something is going to have to die. That has the issues about right. Sin does not get taken care of without death. We simply cannot keep alive the myths that we maintain about the world. Sin dies when the myths die of violent Arabs, arrogant Jews, lazy Mexicans and the list could go on and on. This usually involves the death experience of facing our own violence in the west that has killed Moslem and Jew alike. Myths die hard because they are usually maintained by maintaining a myth about ourselves. We are not violent they are, we are not lazy they are. If the sin is going to be dealt with that stuff is going to have to die. If sin is dealt with then the idea of an eye for an eye will have to die for as Gandhi said then the whole world is blind. The trouble with the current mental map of the world held by our national leadership is that the great evil in the world comes not from the world being divided into us verses them but from the fact that we all share in the axis of arrogance and ignorance far too much for the good of any of us. If you were to believe most advertising you would be hooked on the myth that most of our trouble comes from not having more rather than letting go of more. Jerusalem reminds us that it is the letting go that we gain. Hardly common sense at all, but then sin is resolved at a deeper level than the sense that is common to most of us. This past week on one of my runs I learned the lesson all over again. In general running is about letting go and letting a deeper rhythm and beat take over your life. Getting in tune with the deeper rhythm of life has a way of tuning you up. Letting go to the stress and strains and let the miles do the rest for an hour or so. This past week on one of my runs I came upon four deer that were clearly frightened that I might successfully out run them. But letting go seeing those deer being in harmony with a deeper pattern of life that God chooses, beauty that I cannot create but that I can enjoy, did more for the Sin in me than all the lectures and fire and brimstone that could be hurdled at me. I suspect that crocheting, quilting, and any number of ways of loosing yourself for an afternoon has done as much if not more to limit sin in the world than all preachers that have harangued the world. Now in our world or at least the part that we inhabit we tend to think that the deepest issues in our lives can be resolved by offering people choices and equipping them to make their choices. No doubt offering choices touches some issues but not all. Jerusalem is a reminder that things would come that easily but something more profound is required. Attending a breakfast of service providers for youth in our community it seemed it was not the lack of choices that cause trouble for our youth. If anything, it was too many choices in many cases that often left them paralyzed and unable to choose for fear that they would make the wrong choice and be doomed. Yet when people feel chosen and precious no matter what choice they may make then their paralysis can be overcome. Sadly for many youth it is not having too few choices but feeling that they are not nor will they ever be part of the chosen, if they failed once, if they did not win the gene pool at birth, because they did not get to choose the parents they have, if they blow the SAT tests, or have an unsuccessful relationship then they feel that it is all over. Good Friday and Jerusalem is about proclaiming that what looks like a hole turns out to be an opening into what God can do with God’s chosen, which is everyone of us. Jesus took a path here that many preachers do not. He went down the road that James and John did not go down. He took the path that did not involve incineration but inspiration. He chose not the weapons of mass destruction but the weapon of mass attraction: a love that would go through death in order that new life might arise, a love that was willing to let go in order to let God in, a love that reminded people that what ever choices they made they would be chosen and precious in God’s sight. As the Gospel of John has it behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by taking us all on the journey to Jerusalem. Go there.                       5:19:37 AM    comment []

	Thursday, June 24, 2004

Let’s Mix Religion and Politics             I rather suspect that I now have your attention and I rather suspect that depending on your point of view you have some firmly held notions of what is coming next. However, as we sail into the summer of 2004 there is somewhat of a calm before the barrage of campaigning and political advertising we are in for given the announced dollar figure of what the candidates have managed to raise. No doubt it is somewhat hip to try and be above the fray. Anyone anywhere can score some points mocking the process and distancing their self from the madness.             Yet here we go again engaging in the ritual that will define us for good or ill. With the passing of Ronald Regan we are reminded that rarely in the American experience have we been able to define ourselves without drawing on the religious roots of our past. President Regan was clearly fond of quoting John Winthrop’s (Governor of Massachusetts in the 17th century) line that, “We are a city set on a hill.” Of course in addressing his Puritan sisters and brothers Winthrop was drawing on Jesus’ words from the 5th chapter of Matthew. The Bible voices two perspectives on the meaning of city. On the one hand it is the place where the best among us get betrayed and crucified and was where the man came from whose craziness went by the name Legion. Yet, the book of revelation cannot describe the completion of human history outside the context of the restored and renewed heavenly city and righted and “rited” human relationships. Like it or not, we will be a heavenly city or not that all will.             In speaking at New York University Bill Moyers recently said “Equality doesn’t mean equal incomes, but a fair and decent society where money is not the sole arbiter of status or comfort. In a fair and just society, the commonwealth will be valued even as individual wealth is encouraged.” That is the meaning of the society Winthrop envisaged. It is not the City we ought to hide or hide from. Of course we will be mixing religion and politics. Neither Winthrop nor the late President could separate the two. They are a pretty combustible mixture. Yet that combination may provide not only heat but also enough light to guide our steps toward what God is rooting for us to be. Much will depend on if as result of our work we draw closer together or further apart or if we draw the conclusion that the commonwealth is valued significantly less than individual wealth, or as Election Day draws near we draw lines in way that says we are all in it together or not. These things may not be the themes of the political advertising we are about to be deluged with at the behest of the candidates. Yet, in combining the twin realities of religion and politics we might get the best out of the candidates that are before us. “Let no one put asunder what God has joined together.” 12:46:05 PM    comment []

	Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Getting Home from the Holy Land They don’t call it the “muddle-east” for nothing. At least that is how it feels waking up in Toronto having lost a day somewhere getting back from Jerusalem and having lost one’s dignity to every form of custom inspection known to humankind. Judging by a quick glance at the morning paper there does not seem to have been a sudden parting of the fog of war on the home front while I was away. If anything the news from the usual sources only matches the addled and rattled condition of my brain. Having flown 12,000 miles and spent two weeks exposed to the lure and the haunts of the people who call the Holy Land home, I seem no closer to any sense of resolution, solution or dilution of my own fears for the future of the region that is a spiritual home for millions. If I come away with a clear sense of the complexity of the issues and a deeper appreciation for those who have struggled to make it a homeland for all human aspirations, I also have a idea of the bases that need to be touched before people get to a home plate that will serve up enough to nurture the hopes of the world: ten things to remember when thinking of the Palestine. 1.    This is a land in which it seems everyone says, “the Bible says it, Grandfather said it, I don’t know who said it but it has always been said.” If the God who is larger than these claims is not worshiped then the world is going to be a long way from home for a long time. 2.    Those who claim that it is the beginning of the kingdom of God or the end of the world if their way is or is not followed will not be the source of the answer. It will come from those who share the region’s rich traditions of hospitality shared by all faith groups. 3.    The media does an exceedingly bad job of conveying the sense that just about once a day someone is killed, usually a Palestinian, as a result of the “Troubles,” or capturing the feeling of having a tour bus a bit behind you fired on because they are mistaken for Christian Zionists touring Jewish settlements. All will have some of the truth and none will have all the truth. Unless we come to terms with that truth we will see none of the truth. 4.    The primary axis of evil in the world is the combination of arrogance and ignorance. Can we really get home on only clips and bits from Radio and TV? 5.    How long can the State of Israel be in a state of war? How long can they continue to put Machine guns in the hands of what look like children as they threaten, demean and debase and claim that this is a homeland for anybody? It is chilling to see a youthful soldier drop the safety on his machine gun and menace folks just trying to get to work and get on with life. And even get to the hospital: the blood runs cold watching an ambulance with flashing lights dutifully waiting in line at a check point for the soldiers to sort things out. 6.    Building a wall as the Israeli’s are doing to separate themselves from their Palestinian brothers and sisters assumes that that fundamental human task is to protect us from each other rather than connect with each other. It is not the way home. 7.    There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. 8.    If you believe that you are not on the frontlines of all this because you are on the home front, think again. More than 911, the fact that American tax dollars have paid for the wall that divides Palestinians and Israelis, and the highway system that get them around really seeing each other assures our complicity in establishing the unholy land.  9.    Yes, the Ghosts of the Holocaust do haunt. However there is no place in the world where a Jew is more likely to be killed for being Jewish that in the land of failed promises that is the State of Israel. 10.           “Palestinians” don’t hate us: at least most of the time. They do expect a lot of us. We got ourselves into this jam when we said that all are endowed with certain inalienable rights including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is not a happy thing to be living in a refugee camp since 1948 or to be able to point to the place where you used to live before your parents were driven out, or to see your farm destroyed and your centuries old olive trees uprooted to make way for others. This is not the way home. As many of us do, the Palestinians that I met rage at the distance between what we say we are and what we have become as the financial source of the weapons that has left them prisoners in their own land. They and we should expect more of us.   11.           Count on things almost never being, as they appear to be. Almost immediately after announcing their withdrawal from Gaza the Israelis invaded Gaza. Now none of this amounts to anything near another plan for Peace. However, if we keep these things in mind we might be part of the larger plan of God for us all to grow up. If that plan kicks in we just might touch enough of the bases to get home. At any rate it is enough of what my addled brain can handle right now. Home at last. Craig   6:59:25 AM    comment []

	Saturday, June 19, 2004

Sermon Luke 8:26-39 Life goes like this, doesn’t it? What I find most difficult is not loving my enemies but loving those who love my enemies. I just can’t quite bring myself to trust them. I can love my enemies quite nicely thank you. They are useful! They can be quite helpful in focusing on blaming rather than readjusting my aim in life. I love my enemies in life. I love the way my enemies help me feel righteous indignation. Even if they don’t give a feel for the kingdom of God at least they help me feel good. I love my enemies - they are always icebreakers among my friends. In my family of origin my enemies provided endless opportunities for dissection and titillation. They helped us avoid having to deal with, or pray for, or in general get too close to each other. Our enemies helped us to keep our emotions set in the safety range of anger and hostility toward outsiders and kept the distance between us insiders safe and certain. No meal went unseasoned without the fine spices of arrogance and ignorance. The politically ambitious can see the advantage to all this. In the backwaters of complexity and risky uncertainty a constant stream of enemies can, as Thoreau said, “simplify, simplify, simplify” things. Why attempt the risky work of inspiration when perspiration over your enemies can bring frequent political victory! My enemies - I love them. But those who love my enemies are another matter. They remind me that as on Easter morning the power to kill is much greater than the power to bury. Those who love my enemies always threaten to give too much credence to the notion that my enemies have some truth that I should pay attention to or that God loves my enemies. They always threaten to remind me that there might be a more excellent way to handle my enemies than calling them arrogant barbarians, Republicans or Democrats, Moslem towel headed terrorists, or ignorant fools. My enemies - I love them. Those who love my enemies, crucify them. Now isn’t that somewhat of what we have here in Jesus’ encounter with the man from the city who had demons and who had taken up residence in the local cemetery? It is a moment of high tension and low comedy. Neither one seems entirely thrilled that the man who does love our enemies is meddling in their situation and the arrangement of their affairs. "Jesus, Son of God in heaven, what do you want with me? I beg you not to torture me!"  The locals were none too thrilled with the results of this encounter either: “Everyone from around Gerasa begged Jesus to leave, because they were so frightened.” At first none of this makes sense. A little thought to the matter would have yielded the idea that there might be some tourist dollars in the advertising “Come see the place where Jesus walked and cured the naked crazy man.” Crazier things have happened. No. The town focuses pretty much on the disruption to their well-worn paths of life that will come if this man is healed. This is what comes of encountering the one who loves our enemies. What will the kids do after school if they have no one to go out and taunt? At least we know where they are. What happens if we no longer have to live down the reputation of being the town with the crazy guy? Now we will have to live up to a higher standard. That might take some thought and work. Just what are we are going to do here if we no longer have this crazy loon to talk about? We just might have to talk to, or even with, each other. For a generation this guy has been the source of constant pity and endless excuses as to why we have never amounted to much. Do you have any idea how morally superior we feel having this guy in town? Did you not say that we are to pick up our crosses daily? Follow well this train of logic. This is our cross and we love having him even if none of us have invited him over for dinner. This is our cross to bear and for the whole world to see what patient kind people we are. I will have you know that every year we get up a collection to fix his chains. If you fix him then quite frankly we will be broke because our well-worn paths of life will be broken and all hell will break loose. It is time for the one who loves the enemies we love to love to go. When pigs fly we will put up with this but since it is pretty clear from the story that pigs don’t, it is time for Jesus to go. The sequence went like this according to the story. When Jesus was done with his healing “He had clothes on and was in his right mind. But the people were terrified.” Oops! Not the indicated response. However, isn’t that the sequence in our lives more often than not; just when we think all hell might break loose it is actually heaven breaking in. What looks like the end of the world, often turns out to be the beginning of the kingdom of God breaking in the midst of what we can only see as a breakdown. I believe it happened at Harvard the year the girls walked into the athletic directors office buck naked in protest of the second rate facilities that the women’s varsity sport were given. Of course everyone thought all “you know what” was going to break loose. Of course it was heaven breaking in for doesn’t it break in whenever no one need consider himself or herself unworthy and refuses to settle for being second rate. Or would we prefer to pay for folks to live quietly and in desperation and in ill health, adjusting to being in the back of the bus? Most studies indicate the result of elevating women’s sports is healthier women and better students. Of course some will argue that it is time for the one to go who puts himself in our place rather than make anyone be satisfied with second place. Yes the pigs that devour us just might take a leap off a cliff if the craziness that causes us to take up residence among the tombs was cured. What if we said that the image on television that causes our children to be torn between bulimia and obesity were unacceptable as way of defining life and we will not tolerate it? You can hear the bodies of those who would devour us hitting the pavement. “Why all hell would break loose,” they might say. Yes but it would be a precursor to all that heaven is breaking into our world. You see what happens here. “When the men taking care of the pigs saw this, they ran to spread the news in the town and on the farms.” They are not just spreading the news; they are sounding the alarm here. “To arms to arms Jesus is coming.” Do you see what happens when this preacher comes to town? Commerce is interrupted, the free hidden hand of the market gets exposed, and people are out on the employment line. Do you see what happens here when the craziness is exposed? When it is exposed that one part of our government fights the tobacco industry tooth a nail while another part actively promtes the foreign sale of American tobacco products. I mean they are only foreigners, for crying out loud. If the Chinese are going to be making our shoes and our underwear for crying out loud they ought to be smoking our cigarettes while they are doing it. “All you know what” is going to break out with this Jesus stuff and people will be in the unemployment line. But maybe it is not hell breaking loose but heaven breaking when we say we are all in it together. Is that not what Paul writes to the Galatians, “whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman.   29So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham's family, and you will be given what God has promised.” Is it not heaven breaking in when we say that since all belong to Christ then we are all part of the same family and it is dysfunctional to be selling poison to any of our brothers and sisters? Of course it is craziness for one part of the government to be fighting tobacco tooth and tong while the other part gladly markets it over seas. The story suggests that the folks loved their craziness as they fed the very thing that was devouring them. Of course all hell broke loose when the Israeli officers dropped their weapons and said we cannot do this anymore. In effect saying we cannot look through our bombsites and only see the stranger, the alien, and the strategic target. I have seen the look you get on the faces of Israeli soldiers, and they are always young, when you look through your gun site and only see that: a horrible combination of arrogance and terror. It is not hell breaking loose but heaven breaking in when we do look not through bombsites at each other and see targets but when we see each other in the way that one who loves our enemies sees us.            What must have it been like to be a kid growing up in Gerasa? You must have thought that this is crazy, fearing that hell will break loose when it is heaven that is trying to break in. You must have thought it bizarre. You must have thought it crazy to draw lines where people needed to draw together; of targeting each other more than opening to each other. It says that the crazy man came from the city. That is where he got crazy. He came from the center of the way things are and met up with the way things could be. In the city they will say, “as for my enemies I love them; as for those who love my enemies, crucify them lest all hell break loose.” 6:18:42 AM    comment []

	Saturday, June 12, 2004

Not A Bad Day So why didn’t I get to NH UCC conference this year? At first it doesn’t seem obvious to me. I woke up tired and weary and feeling my age and the chemo. However I ran nine miles today and loved it. So what’s up? I think it had to do that my body and my immune system really wanted to celebrate the good news that CEA level is way down. This is joyful because it means not only is the cancer taking a beating, but also that my worst fantasy that I am riddled with the stuff is probably not true. This moment is good till next Thursday when I go back for a weekly treatment. The jogging is a time when my body and I can really get along which is something worth shouting about. Such moments cry out to make it happen. I will probably be more alive and help others live better as a result of this day. I can’t say that with nearly the same conviction about attending conference. We received a copy of the finances of this thing today. It costs somebody about $6,000 every time I walk into the cancer center. Let’s hear it for the United Church of Christ Pension Board.  - Craig 4:59:00 PM    comment []

It has been several years since I had the recurring nightmare that used to waken me with a cold sweat. It came in several versions but it all boiled down to the idea that for some reason that was only revealed at the last moment I would not get to graduate from High School. It meant that I would spend all eternity wandering the high school halls until they had to wheel me around in a wheelchair. The dream usually involved some last minute discovery that I had forgotten to turn in a gym lock, miscalculated the number of required hours for graduation, or failed to pay a library fine. In one version they actually bring the police along to pull me out of the graduation line lest I put up any resistance and refuse to surrender quietly to my fate. I imagine for most of us the high school years were a difficult time of testing and finding our way. No, I would not like to be 17 again. Thank you very much. You just feel that so much is at stake and that one slip up can leave you serving twenty-five to life in detention, walking penalty tours in the court yard, or living in perpetual exile. Now picture this. Can you imagine anyone ever waking up in a cold sweat that they will not graduate from church school, that they have been left back, or they have flunked out? Come on! Let’s face it, with all the fears, phobias and concerns that we can have as human beings, thank God that this is one that we don’t have to sweat. What would it take to flunk out or be left back? No doubt a few of us might have been a little concerned that we might be expelled for disciplinary reasons but what were they going to do? Put it on your permanent record? Would it have showed up in an interview for college? Well, I see that you failed “Prophets and Martyrs” in you first year! What seemed to be the problem? Would such a disgrace have prevented you from getting a passport, leave you cooling your heels at the gate while they made an extra search of your luggage, become the center piece of a scandal – “it was reveled today that the candidate Has failed numerous times to pass “The letters of Paul.” Hey don’t sweat it. Not going to happen. Is it? Or on the other extreme, I have yet to hear of anyone every padding their resume by including that they graduated with honors with a major in Biblical felt board figures. So what is Christian education for? Is there anything at stake here? I don’t see any special learning centers for those who are struggling with “Church 101.” How do you measure what is going on in Christian Education in the first place? Take a look at Paul, the writer of this morning scripture. He does not appear to be the kind of product that we would like to see come out of any of our schools. Certainly he would not be a candidate for the citizenship medal. He spent too much time in jail for that. In many ways he was not a nice person. Read his letters and it seems he has a lot of unresolved anger issues as he chastises his opponents. He was far from a successful life. All of the churches that he founded went under and disappeared from history: so much for the alumni of the year award. If this is the kind of product of a good Christian education, bring on the pagans. Give Paul credit for he does give us the standard by which he measures himself, others, and by which he believes no one need be left behind, “There are three things that last forever: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.” Or, first, second base, third and you get home. The truth may be that we do not waste a lot of time worrying if we are going to make the church school grade but when it comes to the things that are more about having a life than earning a living these things come into play in a big way. Now faith, whatever else it is, comes down to trust. It will matter very, very much if you trust that life is about growing in wisdom and stature, that the fundamental plan is for you to grow up and that in everything that happens to us God is trying to give you yourself - if you are willing to accept it. No, there will be no midterm exam, a term paper will not be required, but we are going to know whether you have touched base here when you have the worst hair day of your life, the baby has a sore throat, the car won’t start, the headlines in the news won’t quit, and you forgot to put a stamp on the IRS envelope. That is going to be a day when it will come down to whether you have faith that more than life going your way, it is about walking in a way that makes a way. Now the trigonometry you learned may not come up in conversation, you may find that it will be somewhat difficult to work the geometric theorems you learned in high school into the conversation, but there will not be a day when you will not find your sense of trust challenged and have the opportunity to grow in faith. In 2004 and for the foreseeable future faith we will be put to quite a faith test. Given the variety of faiths on the face of this earth we will be challenged as to whether we believe and trust that we are put on this planet to engage in endless battles to try and convert each other or are we here to enrich each other with the truth that we all have. Given the jitters that the price of a gallon of gasoline gives us it is going to matter a lot whether we believe that life is about more than enough to live on or having enough to live for. It will matter very much whether our children and we trust more in our systems and kingdoms or in the one who said, “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly” and that abundant living comes less from putting people in their place than being able to put ourselves in their place, less from force of arms and more from the force of open arms, less from our ability to nail things down and more from God’s power to open things up. Three things last forever and the first is faith. Douglass Hall, a theologian, defines hope in part as the willingness to be surprised. Abundant living comes from the willingness to be surprised that history can come down on the on the side of a Mahatma Gandhi, a Martin Luther King, folks at Valley Forge, people on the picket line to end slavery and to begin to make it possible for all God’s daughters and sons to dream dreams and see visions. Hope is the willingness to be surprised that God might speak through the stranger ands the strange: of course not always. But has not the truly abundant life come from those who have been willing to be surprised that God could speak through what at first was thought to be strange and those who were thought to be strangers? Hope is the willingness to be surprised that the abundant life can come from what God can do through us. Lord knows we know ourselves too well and we are too acquainted with our weaknesses yet through us children can be raised, the world can be blessed and though we have this treasure in earthen vessels and some of us are cracked pots still the world can be blessed through us by the One who is above all acquainted with all our ways. The question that life throws at us: “are you willing to be surprised that through him who first loved us that two young immature souls can make a marriage, that mere mortals can be church, that Easter morning means that death and decay is not the final word.” The record seems to suggest at the least that those who are willing to be surprised usually are surprised by an abundant life that seems to have no end.            But the greatest of these is love. If you know anything about Paul you know that he was far from being sentimental, cute and effusive. What makes the other two possible, unlike baseball where getting to first and second base gets you to third, it is because third pulls at you that you get to the first two. It is because of love of a teacher, a friend, that you trust and dare hope. It is because of love that somebody chooses the power not to be over you, but to be with you, for you, open to you so that you trust and are willing to be surprised. It is the greatest because all the victories that are worth