Go And Do Likewise: Based On A Sermon At Hebron Presbyterian Church, July 10, 2016 (Text: Luke 10:25-37)

If you have attended church for any amount of time you have heard a few sermons on the Good Samaritan.  In my eleven years here at Hebron I have preached on this text multiple times.  And I have preached on it even more in my 25 years of ordained ministry.  And many, many other preachers have preached on it many, many times.  After all of these sermons have been preached by all these people in all these churches over all these years you might think there cannot be anything new to say. 

A secret.  I think you are right.  There may be nothing new to say.

And yet, here we are.  You.  Me.  Jesus.  The Legal Expert.  A traveler who has seen better days.  Some thieves who were our traveler’s problem.  A priest.  A Levite.  And…a Samaritan.

Sometimes it is not saying something new.

Sometimes it is saying something timely.

Sometimes it is the breathtaking reminder that the text we approach is unique and that while it spoke to specific communities at specific moments in time in its original presentation, somehow it speaks centuries and millennia  later as though it is saying, “This.  This is the moment for which I was intended.”

The lectionary is a three year cycle of suggested texts for preachers.  Not a mandatory thing, but a good idea for preachers to consult for suggestions of possible texts for Sunday.  When I saw that the Good Samaritan was among this weeks texts I thought here is another example of what the Holy Spirit looks like.  This familiar text is roaring to come and speak to the events of the past week.

Anybody watch the news this week?

To be truthful, I was to the point of being afraid to turn on the television to see what would come next.  The shooting in Louisiana and it’s aftermath.  Which was interrupted by the shooting in Minneapolis and its aftermath.  Which was interrupted by the shooting in Dallas and here we are in the aftermath of all of that.

Here is a thing I believe.  In a week like this with all that has happened, with not one, but two more shootings of black men by police officers captured on phone video, and culminates with a gunman in a major American city shooting a minimum of 12 police officers, five fatally - if you have a week like that and the preacher does not mention it - it is possible there are other things that absolutely need to be addressed, but it is also true that you potentially have a strong case for pastoral malpractice.  This is why we are here.  Not to pass the time thinking about interesting concepts from two thousand years ago, but to hear this stunning book - this Word of God - speak to us about our lives and our world now.  And it does.

I want to focus on a bit on the front and back of this story from Luke’s gospel.  The framework.  A legal expert asks Jesus a question.  “What must I do to gain eternal life?’  After some back and forth in which the answer to the question is love God and neighbor, the legal expert asks, “Who is my neighbor?”  And Jesus tells the story.  But let’s not lose sight of how it begins.  “What must I do to gain eternal life?”

Jesus does not tell the legal expert that he would need to pass a test about what he thinks about Jesus.  He says love God and neighbor.  Then he tells a story where he suggests that when he says neighbor he means everyone.

When he finishes his story, Jesus asks, “Which one of these three was a neighbor?”

And the legal expert, who has nowhere else to go with his answer, says, “The one who demonstrated mercy.”

And Jesus says this awesome thing.  “Go and do likewise.”

My wife hates ferris wheels.  We had been, I believe on one date before we went together with a group from the place we were working that summer in college, on a trip to Kings Island amusement park in Cincinnati.  She told me she did not like ferris wheels and so I insisted we ride a ferris wheel.  Friends, when someone tells you they do not like ferris wheels, listen to them.  I thought there were many rides one might not want to go on - a roller coaster, one of those spinning rides or sudden drop rides - but surely the ferris wheel was benign.  So we went.  Then she told me not to rock the cart.  Friends, if someone tells you not to rock the cart in the ferris wheel you are riding, do not rock the cart.  I rocked the cart.  And I learned she was serious.

You see the problem with the ferris wheel is not that it goes really fast, or that it spins like crazy or anything along those lines.  The problem with the ferris wheel is that you are not in control of when you get off.  And it takes a long time to work through getting folks on and off.  And there is a lot of time when you might be simply sitting there at the top, the ride not moving, and in a bad circumstance you’ve got a would be boyfriend the cart rocking the thing.  Somehow, the story ended well from my perspective.  I held her hand for the first time that day.  But I did not help myself with the ferris wheel thing.  I promise you this story has a point beyond confession.

I saw several articles this week posing the question, has the world gone crazy?  I talked with several friends who found their way to the question, is the world out of control?  It seems to be an open question.  So much pain.  So much anger.  So much hurt.  And along with that question I have heard a second thing.  There is nothing that can be done about it.  It’s too big.  It has too many moving parts.  It is too entrenched.  The world is too broken.  It’s out of control and there is nothing any one of us can do.

It’s like we are stuck on the ferris wheel and all we can do is ride.

Jesus say something else.  When we feel like there is nothing we can do.  When we feel like the best strategy is to move quietly to the other side of the road and keep on walking, try not to get engaged, see if we can’t ride this one out….  

Jesus tells a story about a Samaritan who didn’t do that.

You are not a passenger in life.  Things do happen around us and to us.  But we are not scenery.  We are participants.  If we feel like the world’s problems are glaciers - with the part we see and the much more massive part we know is under the water - dwarfing us and our ability to do anything to change the course…

Jesus has a story for us.

“A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered thieves, who stripped him naked, beat him up, and left him near death.  Now it just so happened that a priest was also going down the same road. When he saw the injured man, he crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way.  Likewise, a Levite came by that spot, saw the injured man, and crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was. But when he saw him, he was moved with compassion. The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’ (Luke 10:30-35, CEB)

Then Jesus has a question for us.  “Which one of these is a neighbor.”

We know the answer.  We speak, “The one who demonstrated mercy to him.”

And Jesus, our Savior and teacher says, “Go and do likewise.” 

Amen.

Our Call To Contemplate Jesus: Based On A Sermon At Hebron Presbyterian Church, July 17, 2016 (Text: Colossians 1:15-28)

There is a video making the rounds on the internet of the singer Rufus Wainwright joining forces with a fifteen hundred voice choir to sing Leonard Cohen’s classic “Hallelujah”.  It’s sublime.  The lyrics, of course, matter, but there is so much more involved that contributes to the impact.  There is the unique and lovely voice of Wainwright.  The animated direction of the conductor.  The faces of the members of the assembled choir, a diverse group sharing their vocal gifts.  And before any of the folks came together there was the arranger who imagined the melody and the harmony, the back and forth, the ebb and flow of the music.

To view this video - click here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGRfJ6-qkr4

It is transcendent.  I can describe it to you, but description only gets you so far.  It has to be experienced.  One must watch and listen for oneself.  It is possible, in watching, that you will find your emotions swelling, that you will be lifted up, that you might perhaps find tears in your eyes.  And it is just a song.

This morning we consider Church.  And we consider Christ.  We are pushed to consider what goes on in this place.  We will try to put into words what we suspect may be beyond words.  There is something that pulls us out of bed on Sunday mornings.  You could be home, perhaps still asleep in bed.  You could be home at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee.  You could be on the couch with a blanket on this particular day watching the final round of the Open Championship.  Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson are probably on about the fifth hole right now.

We may be here because it is our heritage.  People we love have come here before us and we follow their example, we follow in their footsteps.  We come to study - for Sunday School, on Wednesday evenings to engage the minds God gave us in pursuit of greater understanding of the things of God.  We come to worship, to pray, to gather around the Lord’s table along side of brothers and sisters in Christ.  We gather in order to not be alone.  To experience  support and encouragement, and at the same time to offer support and encouragement.  To know that there is a place where our presence matters, where people will miss us if we are not present.  All of this may describe what draws us to church - but none of these things get at the transcendent core of what we are about.

In the opening chapter of the letter to the church at Colossae, the Apostle Paul attempts to remind the people of what brings them together as the Church.  This passage is known as the Christ hymn.  It is Paul at his loftiest and most poetic.  He is summoning words to describe that which defies description.  He portrays the church not by what they do, but by who they are.  Not by what we do, but by what we are.

The Son is the image of the invisible God,

        the one who is first over all creation,

Because all things were created by him:

        both in the heavens and on the earth,

        the things that are visible and the things that are invisible.

            Whether they are thrones or powers,

            or rulers or authorities,

        all things were created through him and for him.

He existed before all things,

        and all things are held together in him.

He is the head of the body, the church,

who is the beginning,

        the one who is firstborn from among the dead

        so that he might occupy the first place in everything.

(Colossians 1:15-18, CEB)

Christ is the head of the body, the head of the Church.  Christ existed before all things and in Christ all things are held together.  Paul is pushing us to do work.  Pushing us to consider the Christ we follow and what is at stake in our choice to follow and be a part of the Church - Christ’s body.

Back in my college days - and this will come as a revelation to most of you who most likely have never utilized something like this - back in those days there was a resource known as Cliff’s Notes.  Cliff’s Notes were thin pamphlets that would communicate summaries of great works of literature.  The themes, the characters, the plot twists and turns.  Say, for instance you were assigned to read my favorite book after the Bible, Don Quixote.  Don Quixote is a hefty bit of reading.  Cliff’s Notes would give you a quick and efficient  overview of some of what you would know if you had actually taken the time to read the book.  This approach may be enough to get a busy student with too much to do and to little time to do it through an impending exam.  What it will not do is give that student the transcendent experience of actually reading and engaging this masterpiece.  You can quickly and efficiently gather information, you cannot quickly and efficiently experience a transcendent work of fiction.

And you cannot know Jesus quickly and efficiently.

You meet Jesus in a moment, but having met Jesus it will take every breathing moment you have remaining in your life to begin to know Jesus.  There may be hurried moments in life when someone is trying to explain an urgent matter to you.  You may become impatient and ask that they skip to what you need to know.  There may be times when that approach will work.  It will not work with Jesus.

Simply put, we dare not try to make Jesus seem tame or manageable.  If as we talk about him, Jesus begins to seem either tame or manageable we are not talking about the Jesus of the Bible.  Understanding the Son of God - just pause there for a moment, the Son of God… - comes in bits and pieces and even as a truth comes into view we will immediately come to understand how much more we do not understand.  

Writing about this passage, Matthew Flemming states that, “Given that Christ is the very structure of creation to live in accordance with his gospel is to follow the grain of the universe.”   Which is to say, because Christ is one with the Creator, to follow Jesus is to get in sync with the creation.

Knowing Jesus is where we will find purpose, joy, and unity with our Creator.  It is not an impossible thing, which is remarkable in itself - we can know Jesus!  However, it is not a do it today and forget about it job.  It’s a lifetime commitment.  To learn, to grow, to seek to know Christ and in knowing Christ to know who we are and what we are about as Christ’s body.  Perhaps more effectively stated it is a lifetime commitment to desire to know Christ.  To desire Christ.  To feel deep within ourselves that need to “follow the grain of the universe”, to get in sync with creation and with the Creator.

This desire becomes all the more acute in times where things have the feel of falling apart.  A week ago we considered the quality of events going on in the world.  The relentless pounding of bad news following bad news following bad news.  This week has continued the theme.  It feels more rather than less this morning as though the world is falling apart.  Under such a barrage of news it can feel like what we must do is hold things together.  Grab on to whatever we are able to grab on to and hold the world in place.  That project is doomed to failure.

But here is good news.  Paul tells us, that Jesus existed before all things and all things are held together in him.  Not held together by the Colossians.  Not held together by us.  Held together in Christ.  The Christ Paul calls us to contemplate.  Contemplation that is not about satisfying religious curiosity, but about keeping sane and finding a way to move forward day by day, in our lives, in our world.

Our hope, our call as participants in the Church - the body of Christ - is to continuously seek to know, to understand and to follow the One in whom all things are indeed held together.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Laundry

I am the primary doer of laundry at our house.  I like doing the laundry.  I've been doing it for years.  It is a mundane, ordinary activity and yet it has it's virtues.  You know when you are starting the task and you know when you are finished.  At the end you've accomplished something.  It's also a sneaky task.  There will be laundry forever, right?  You'll never be out of a job.  Well, sort of...

My son, Cameron, is a Senior at Western Kentucky University.  He has accomplished all sort of things in his four years of college and is clearly able to live independently.  Cameron can do and most likely often does do his own laundry.  And yet when he comes home he brings a big hamper stuffed with clothes.  To be honest I don't know if he brings it home because he needs it done or if he brings it home because he knows I like to do it.  He may come home on a Friday evening and be leaving on a Sunday afternoon and I will take great joy in processing the three or four loads of laundry through washer and dryer and eventually folded and back into the hamper to journey forth with him once more.  There isn't much that I can do for him at this point - doing the laundry is a tangible thing I can still do - and remember, I like doing the laundry.

One of the sub-categories of doing the laundry is the timely laundry - laundry that must be done by a particular point in time because a particular item of clothing is needed.  Delving even deeper in this category there is the further sub-category of athletic laundry.  For Cameron it was soccer uniforms and socks from the time he was around four until his Senior year of high school.  Those days are behind me.

For my daughter, Eliza, it was first soccer and then it became basketball laundry.  Mt. Washington Lady Generals laundry.  AAU laundry.  Bullitt East Lady Chargers laundry.  Basketball has been a year round sport since the sixth grade and that has meant uniforms, socks, sliders, practice gear...lots of moments of asking, "What do you need for tomorrow?" and hearing, "I'm not sure, I'll think about it" or "I'll have it in a few minutes - I'll throw it down the stairs to you".  That sort of thing.  On Monday evening Eliza had a game, the first round of the regional basketball tournament.  I had put the clothes in the washer in the morning and had intended to be back to put them in the dryer well before she got out of school.  Afternoon came and I was leaving a hospital visit when I remembered the clothes in the washer.  They needed to be moved to the dryer so they would be ready when she needed them.  A quick text of explanation and reassurance and a purposeful drive home and the needed clothes were dry and ready in time.  This may all seem kind of trivial in the larger frame of things that must be accomplished in life, but timely laundry is a sacred trust - especially athletic timely laundry.

So here's the thing.  We won that game Monday evening.  We have another one tonight.  It's the regional semi-final.  At best there are a handful of games left.  We've been through Senior night.  We won our district which allowed us another home game and we have been through that additional home game and we were grateful to see her play on the home floor one more time.  That's great stuff and hard stuff and bittersweet stuff.  But it's stuff you can anticipate.

I was just doing the laundry, because, you know, I do the laundry.  Eliza brought some stuff last night when I asked her what she needed for today.  It's done.  Ready.  Waiting.

I know there isn't much more of it, but I hope I have a few more days of doing timely athletic laundry.  I love doing laundry.  Did I mention that...

10/9/16 - Running A Marathon

Ever since the days of running cross country in high school and in college I have had in the back of my mind the goal of running a marathon.  As of yet, that still hasn't happened.  My narrative has typically been that I should have done it back when I was actually in good shape for running and that as the years tick by it is less likely that the marathon will ever happen.
Several years ago I did run my first half-marathon (I prefer half-marathon to mini-marathon - there seemed little that was mini in running 13.1 miles).  It remains my only half-marathon.  It was a miserable experience.  My training was more mini than half.  I did not put in enough time and certainly not enough distance.  I was not ready.  I did not walk - which in my mind was important to me - but it should be clear that a person walking at a not too vigorous pace could have cruised right past me from about mile ten forward.
In that race there was a point where people running the marathon were to go to the right, while those of us in the half-marathon were to go to the left.  I can vividly recall looking to the right and thinking that I could not imagine what would be happening in my mind if I would have had to go in that direction.  That seemed impossible and became my enduring take away from the half-marathon - the full marathon was never going to happen for me.
I've changed my mind.  Getting ready to turn 52 in January, I've chosen a marathon nearly a year away, the Chicago Marathon on October 9, 2016 as my goal.  It's a race that you sign-up for and then they choose who is allowed to run (not by ability, but by a lottery) so it's not a given that I'll get in, but it gives me a target.  I'll choose something different if I can't go there.  I've begun to lay a foundation for the actual training.  I am thinking another half-marathon in the Spring may be a good idea - perhaps the Derby Half-Marathon again.
The difference in approach must be the commitment to the time between now and then.  The training cannot be haphazard and when I feel like it.  It must be a priority.  My goal is to run a marathon.  My goal is to run a marathon and to not be miserable afterwards because of lack of preparation.  My goal is to run a marathon and to enjoy the journey to the destination.  More to come.

It's A Serial New Year

Serial.  One story told week by week.  It's a phenomenon.  As with most phenomenon's I came late to the party.  My wife and I were driving first to Springfield, Missouri where our daughter was playing in a holiday basketball tournament (they finished in second place) and then driving home on New Years Eve.  That's about sixteen hours of driving, round trip.  This turned out to be the perfect setting for binge listening to all 12 Episodes of the "This American Life" podcast "Serial".
It passed the time and it was interesting.  And it's one of those things that you find yourself thinking about after the fact and applying in a variety of situations.  While ruminating over the arrival of 2015 and my combination of lack of any giant resolutions, yet giddiness with a brand new year awash with possibilities I found myself comparing the moment to...Serial.
Serial begins with a lot of energy.  There's this guy who is in prison.  Maybe he shouldn't be.  Enter intrepid radio reporter with curiosity and a desire to see what actually happened.  Her approach is straightforward - arrange the facts, check the timeline, review the accounts of the participants. Early on there is close attention paid to the timeline.  If a certain window of time can be accounted for in some way the whole case goes away.  Or so it seems.  Until it just gets more rather than less confusing.  By the time Serial hits its homestretch - it's final three or four episodes - it becomes clear that the facts are negotiable, that the timeline may not help all that much at all, and that we may be no closer to having any idea who to believe than we did when we began this project.  As the weeks wind down, the focal point of the show, Adnan Syed, asks the narrator, Sarah Koenig, if her show will have an end.  Meaning, how will this tie up?  Will it just be finished or will there be some sort of outcome, conclusion, point made.  She answers yes, that it will have an end.  And it does.  But it's not clean and there is much left in the balance.  Which is not a criticism - just a reality.
And brings me back to January 1, 2015.  That first day of the year is like the early days of Serial.  Perhaps things have gotten out of control in some part of our lives.  They aren't what we want them to be.  We wish to do better.  We need to make resolutions.  If we can just lay the facts out of what the problems are and get a good look at them, fix the timeline so to speak, get everything in order, 2015 will look dramatically different than everything that has come before it.
Perhaps.  Maybe so.  But more likely we discover in life, as we discover in Serial, that more days may bring more information, and more information may not bring more clarity.  Those commitments we make in the pristine mint world of January 1, 2015 may create excitement, but know that the world will be introducing some variables we have not planned on as we've plotted our course.  Life is thick.  It just is.  Like Serial it may be endlessly surprising, endlessly interesting, and seem imminently solvable. 
Our lives are one story, told weekly, daily, hourly, minute by minute.  The solutions to life's problems are crystal clear.  Except when they are not.  Always.  Except when they are not.   

One Of My Favorite Passages (Move Along)

I have this way of beginning sermons by saying, "This is one of my favorite passages."  I mean it, but given the number of times I've said it, I have a lot of favorite passages.  So I probably need to do some remedial work on what favorite means.  Moving forward however, this coming Sunday, June 1, the lectionary takes us to Acts 1:1-11.
It's one of my favorite passages.
This favorite passage is found in Acts which may be my favorite book in Scripture.  It's dynamic, absolutely full of energy and risk and adventure.  The early church is birthed and then it is off and growing, here, there and everywhere.  And it all begins with these first verses of the first chapter.  Jesus makes his farewell remarks to the disciples and then he is off - ascended to heaven.  Picture that however you will.  I'm always caught with an image of the now eleven disciples looking skyward kind of wistfully.  They know they should probably do something, go somewhere, move along, but, for sure you would want to stand there and linger in that moment another moment or several.  But there are these two men in white robes (hospital orderlies?  angels?) who pose this question to them:  "Why are you standing here, looking toward heaven?"
On the one hand there is an easy answer.  They are there staring at heaven because Jesus just now went that way and after everything they had been through in the past three years, shoot,in the past three months, excuse them if they want to have a good long look before moving on.
On the other hand there is the reality they know they've been gotcha'd again.  It's almost like Jesus is still right there.  He leaves them to carry out his work and they stand frozen in time watching the skies, maybe hoping that Jesus will come back into view...and then this voice is poking into their reality - "Why are you standing here, looking toward heaven?"  Will we ever get this right?  Perhaps that was the thought running through their minds as they left that spot behind.
Two things.
First, it may be a bit counterintuitive to make this the point, but I feel like we could stand some time looking at the sky.  We have this belief that Christ will return.  What will that look like?  I have not a clue, but I believe it.  Christ will come again.  And in some way I have to think there is a value in a spiritual discipline of occasionally looking expectantly at the sky.  You can really go and look at the sky or do it in some figurative way, but our hope is built around that whole coming again notion and being expectant might help us feel a little less like we have been left to hash this thing out on our own.  If anyone has ever felt that way.
Second, this is a great story about getting moving.  We can't stay in the comfortable, safe, secure, easy place forever.  Maybe we can never stay there.  The thing is we have to get off the hill and get busy.  The disciples figured that out - in a big way.  Our calling is not to faithfully gather weekly on the hill to see if anything has happened and check in with each other.  Our calling is to move along.  Move into the world.  Wherever our world takes us, wherever the Spirit leads us, there we are to go.  And all that dynamic energy stuff that comes in the rest of the book of Acts - that's the life we are called to - vibrant, breathtaking service sharing the good news that death didn't win, that life abundant is possible.
Move along say the men in the white robes...move along.

Time To Write This Again

This blog can go dormant for stretches of time, but inevitably there is a moment when my children grow older that draws me back...
Cameron has just finished his sophomore year at Western Kentucky University.  Last year he interned at the Lexington Herald-Leader over the summer. He lived in Lexington for the ten weeks, but Lexington is right there.  An hour and fifteen minutes or so away.  This summer he is interning at the Tampa Bay Times.  The Tampa Bay Times is housed in a building in St. Petersburg, Florida.  That is and hour and 15 minutes times about ten away.
We packed Cameron's stuff into his car and he and I left for St. Petersburg on Saturday.  Stopped in Knoxville at a friends house Saturday night and then drove all day Sunday, rolling into St. Petersburg around 10:30 p.m.  I don't pick up the rental car and come home till tomorrow (Tuesday morning), so Monday morning I took Cameron to the Times building for his first day.  Dropped him off at 9:00 for a 9:15 start.  And then I got sent packing - it's not a good thing to be seen getting dropped off by your dad for your summer college internship.  I get that.
Spent the day driving all over the place.  Scouting out where the grocery stores are, where the Kia dealership is (in case there is any service required), where the Wal-Marts are - that sort of thing.  So I could report back on all these things if any of them came up.  Unnecessary stuff really, they have computers here with search engines and Cameron is armed with a smart phone and a good deal of intelligence.  He's got this.
So the end of the first work day comes and Cameron says where should I meet you and then he suggests the Starbucks where we stopped this morning and I agree.  As I arrive at the Starbucks my phone rings.  It's Cameron.
"Where are you?" he asks.
"I'm at Starbucks.  Where are you?"
"I don't know."
"Okay.  Is there a street sign?"
"Yes.  Central."
"Okay.  Is there another street sign?"
"Sixth."
And right here is the moment.  I know what he has done.  He's walked a couple of blocks in the wrong direction.  He's been in that building all day and got turned around.  Easy to do.  Except I don't want him to ever have that happen.  And I always want to be able to correct the situation.  But that cannot be.  Your sons have to grow up and they have to go to college and they have got do summer internships and eventually live their very own lives on their very own.
But not today.  Not totally.
"Stay there.  I'll be right there."  I know where he is.  I've been driving around all day.  I know exactly where he is.  And so I drive there.  And there he is.  There is my boy, waiting for me.  Trusting me.  And he comes to the car and gets in.
And so yes, tomorrow I'll get in the rental car and I'll drive back to Kentucky.  And over the next twelve weeks he'll have amazing experiences and probably get lost a few times and grow up some more.  My role is not what it was.
But sometimes it is.  Sometimes when he doesn't know where he is, maybe I will.  And when I do, I will be there.  Just as long as this honor of being dad is mine.