Our Holy Calling
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Many denominations will observe World Communion Sunday this week, celebrating the bonds that join Christians throughout the world. It’s an uplifting occasion when we think about what unites us rather than divides us -- one that offers quite a contrast with the emotional thrust of the lectionary readings for Proper 22 (particularly those from the Old Testament), which are heavy on the themes of depression, homelessness, exile, and lamentation. Nevertheless, as team member Chris Keating observes in this installment of The Immediate Word, there are still definite connections in these texts with the spirit of World Communion Sunday. In the Luke passage, Jesus talks about coming and taking our place at the table, and about the amazing transformative power of faith. Moreover, Chris notes that reaching out and finding common ground with those who are strangers -- whether around the globe or in our own backyards -- is certainly an example of living out the kind of faith that Paul identifies in the epistle text as a spiritual gift God has given us: not “a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7).
Of course, that’s not as easy to do as it sounds -- especially in today’s dangerous and violent world. There are so many reasons to be distrustful of those who are on “the other side of the fence” (however we define that) -- so it is difficult and risky to find comity with those who do not fit our profile of God’s children. Yet, as Chris reminds us, the faith required to do so is “our holy calling.” There were hopeful echoes of that spirit in last week’s remarkable gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly. Amid much speculation about the possibility of a thaw in relations, both President Obama and Iranian President Rouhani discussed tolerance and potential olive branches in their addresses to the UN. While there was no face-to-face contact between them, Obama announced that they had indeed spoken by phone -- the first direct conversation between leaders of both countries since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979. As Chris points out, this breakthrough -- small as it may be -- is consistent with historical precedents of our leaders sitting down with those they’ve previously demonized. And what better paradigm is there for finding peace than World Communion Sunday, as we sit down together at Christ’s table with people from all across the globe?
Team member Dean Feldmeyer offers some additional thoughts on the difference between true lamentations, such as we see in our Old Testament texts, and what he describes as “lemon-tations” -- the bitter carping and complaining of those who are deeply disappointed by events. So much of our political dialogue today is characterized by fear and the denigration of opponents’ motives... and as Dean notes, we especially see that now in the fight over “Obamacare.” Yet there is a significant difference between true lamentations -- which might be best seen in our contemporary environment in the sobs of those who have lost homes and loved ones to a natural disaster, or who are trying to survive in the living hell of a war zone like Syria -- and the faux apocalyptic rants of those who are either throwing a temper tantrum, or worse yet, cynically playing to their fundraising base. But, as Dean reminds us, God understands real expressions of grief and despair -- we just need to remember the difference.
Our Holy Calling
by Chris Keating
Luke 17:5-10; 2 Timothy 1:1-14
They came from east and west, from north and south -- not to eat at the kingdom of God, but to listen to the world’s leaders proclaim messages of diplomacy. While they weren’t yet singing “One Bread, One Body,” those attending the 68th General Assembly of the United Nations did hear remarkable calls for peace.
Last week’s UN meetings provide new possibilities of peace in a war-weary world. As World Communion Sunday approaches, these possibilities will resonate with people of faith. There are hopes for negotiations between the United States and Iran, desires to bring peace to Syria, and fresh commitments to pursue talks between Israel and Palestine. With panoply of crises brewing around the world, President Obama used the UN pulpit to declare these new commitments and discuss his foreign policy initiatives. And while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani wasn’t quite ready to shake Obama’s hand, it was clear that he too brought new flexibility to pursuing hopeful conversations.
Jesus’ parable in this Sunday’s Luke text reminds us of the need to take our place at the table -- something President Obama indicated the United States is willing to do. Critics see these policy initiatives as uncertain and wobbly, but others find the President’s evolving doctrine as a sign of a new commitment to peace.
If so, then this could be the mustard seed that will move the mulberry tree.
All of this is risky. But that is the message of the gospel, and also the pastoral task Paul commends to Timothy. Peace requires more than words delivered from a bully pulpit. Communion is always risky, and involves reaching across lines of disagreement. In preparing for World Communion Sunday, it is time to listen again to what Paul describes as our “holy calling,” the work of rekindling the gift of faith within us. It’s time to be servants who do the hopeful work God has commanded. It’s the pursuit of peace which will lead all nations to take their place at Christ’s table of welcome.
In the News
As he stood before the United Nations, President Barack Obama signaled a desire to give peace a chance. Some called his speech one of the most noteworthy of his presidency because of his focus on the Middle East. Having stumbled across his infamous “red line” regarding chemical weaponry in Syria, Obama seemed eager to push a new agenda designed to seek peace and build diplomatic relationships. In particular, the president set negotiating with Iran and establishing a workable solution to the Palestinian/Israeli dilemma as his administration’s primary foreign policy goals.
Missing from his speech, according to one observer, was the notorious “us versus them” approach toward other nations characterized by previous administrations. Call it a newer, humbler, more flexible Obama doctrine.
Obama’s speech was a move beyond the so-called “pivot” toward Asia which had been his administration’s focus two years earlier. He also opened himself to a possible political solution in Syria, and laid the foundation for renewed peace negotiations between Palestine and Israel. He even chided Russian Vladimir Putin by reminding him there is no longer a “great game to be won” in Syria other than creating a stable nation.
There are certainly many obstacles in the way of these peace paths. One can only imagine Obama’s aides crying out, “Increase our faith!” The tipping point, however, may come from Obama’s pursuit of new conversations with Iran.
Commentator John Judis, writing in the New Republic, called the speech Obama’s “most significant foreign policy statement” since becoming president:
There were specific departures in the speech from positions that Obama has taken in the past. The one that will get the most attention, and rightly so, is American policy toward Iran, but the speech also included departures in American policy toward Syria, Israel and the Palestinians, and Egypt and the Arab Spring.
Judis continues:
If Obama does achieve a rapprochement between the United States and Iran, it could have repercussions throughout the Middle East. It could make a political settlement in Syria possible. It could ease negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel’s hardliners would no longer have an excuse for ignoring the West Bank occupation, and Hamas would no longer have international support in refusing to back a two-state solution. And finally, of course, a rapprochement could give the United States a strong ally in reducing the threat of terrorist movements in the Middle East and South Asia.
Obama’s speech followed a mellowing in tone and full-court PR press from Iran’s president, including (in a momentous departure from his controversial predecessor) a condemnation by Rouhani of the horrors of the World War II Nazi Holocaust. Positive signs also included Obama ordering Secretary of State John Kerry to reach out to Iran to begin negotiations around their nuclear program. And while the road toward rapprochement didn’t include a handshake between the presidents in New York City, it did lead to a phone call while Rouhani was headed to the airport.
That historic phone call calls to mind similar commitments to peace -- Nixon reaching out to Mao, Reagan chatting with Gorbachev. Moving to new relationship often means confronting those we have demonized. Yet for the first time since 1979, leaders of the United States and Iran spoke to each other. It may have been more symbol than substance -- Obama tried his hand at Farsi, and Rouhani closed with “have a nice day” -- but it is a start. On his return to Tehran, Rouhani faced supporters and opponents, including the proverbial thrown shoe.
But perhaps that shoe could be worn for the first footsteps toward peace. Whether Rouhani’s mellowing or Obama’s reappraisals will result in substantive change is not yet clear. For now, it seems as though the mustard seeds have been planted.
In the Scripture
Both the Luke 17:5-10 pericope and the text from 2 Timothy 1:1-14 offer useful connections to the news coming from the United Nations, particularly on World Communion Sunday. In Luke, Jesus reminds the disciples that there is no need to want buckets full of faith when even the smallest amount will suffice. It would be easy to see his words as shaming the disciples for not having enough -- but instead it seems Jesus is saying that they already have enough to accomplish what God is calling them to do. Jesus seems to be pushing his thumb and forefinger together, squinting his eyes as he looks at the disciples. “Even the teeniest, tiniest, puniest pint-sized faith can cause this big old mulberry tree to jump into the lake.”
He backs up his point with a strange little parable of a servant who has just come in from working at the field. Using imagery common to his audience, Jesus tells the disciples that it would be highly unlikely for a master to say, “Oh my, you’re so tired! Have a seat while I fix you supper!” Instead, the servant is called to do what is expected of him or her. As Kimberly Bracken Long notes, “Jesus changes the question from ‘How much faith is enough?’ to ‘What is faith for?’ He tells them, through image and story, ‘You already have the faith you need. Now fulfill its purpose: live it’ ” (Feasting on the Word [Year C, Vol. 4: Season after Pentecost 2]).
Living faithfully means holding firm and pursuing the holy calling of discipleship.
Likewise, when Paul writes to his beloved child Timothy, he calls him back to the primary task of his mission. Paul reminds Timothy of the great gift of faith he has received from his mother and grandmother (v. 5), and then urges him to pursue the calling to which he was ordained. In facing the long slog through faithfulness, Timothy is called to draw on the rich legacy that has nurtured him throughout his life -- his grandmother Lois, his mother Eunice, his mentor Paul. All of these “hands” have been laid on him and have imbued Timothy with “a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”
The going may not be easy, but the faith-filled are called to push ahead, relying always on the charis of Jesus Christ. Timothy may resemble a burned-out pastor, or even a discouraged national leader. The pews are not as full as they once were, and the temptation may be to hang it up or to fall prey to some quick-fix scheme. Neither, says Paul, resemble the gifts that are within us. The leader is called to rekindle the gift that has been given to him or her, trusting in the faith and love of Jesus Christ. In spite of discouragement, even outright heresy, Timothy is reminded that he doesn’t need more faith -- he needs to rely on the faith he has been given.
Of course, that is a huge risk. But as Paul concludes, it is a risk worth taking, “for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him” (v. 12b).
In light of the week’s events, these texts remind us that calling nations to take their places at the table may seem risky or even terrifying. It is not easy to reach out to those with whom we have fundamental disagreements. But perhaps even a smidgen of faith will lead us toward communion.
In the Sermon
While foreign policy speeches might make for deadly sermons -- were there three points and a poem in Obama’s presentation? -- there were indeed significant themes in the speeches offered at the United Nations that resonate with portraits of daring faith in both the gospel and epistle lessons. The openness of world leaders to seek new communion and to engage in even the smallest acts of conversation may be the mustard seed the world needs. If anything, a sermon could name the humility observed in the parable (“we have done only what we ought to have done!”) as a reminder of the justice and faithful pursuit of peace all nations are called to observe. The starting ground for building bonds of peace arises not from sizing up differences but in acknowledging our limits and setting aside destructive tendencies toward hubris.
Paul’s reminder to Timothy to push through the obstacles of life, clinging faithfully to the gifts nurtured within him, is also a call to find common ground in Christ. The risk Paul urges Timothy to take could shape the mission of our churches, especially in response to the olive branches tendered at the United Nations. World Communion Sunday, a creation of the mainline church of the 1930s, offers a positive reminder of how the church in previous generations stepped up to pursue its holy calling. It is time to reconnect with that holy calling in the same manner Timothy was called to cherish the gifts given to him by Eunice and Lois.
It may seem like such a small thing -- one Sunday, celebrated mainly among the old mainline churches that clearly lack the luster they may have once enjoyed. But communion is always a small thing. It’s just one piece of bread, a small taste of wine. When paired with new calls for peace, however, it could be the mustard seed that clears away the forest. It may be the path back to our holy calling.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Lamentations or Lemon-tations?
by Dean Feldmeyer
Lamentations 1:1-6; Lamentations 3:19-26
He introduces himself and says he’s from the Department of Health and Human Services, or something. Something in his voice makes him seem trustworthy. He sounds calm, self-assured, virile, handsome, kind, even nice. Care and compassion ooze from his voice.
“Mrs. _________, do you know what the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is? What is sometimes referred to as Obamacare?”
You want to please him. You don’t want him to think you’re senile or stupid. So you say, “Yes.”
He knows you will say yes. He knows that the ACA is complex and hard to understand and nobody knows all of it -- but he’s made this call dozens, even hundreds, of times... and he knows what he’s doing.
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Then you know that some big changes are coming in health care in 2014, and some of the biggest changes are coming to Medicare. In fact, one of the reasons that I called is that your name was flagged as one of our Medicare patients who hasn’t applied for your new card yet. Have you applied for your new Medicare card, Donna?”
Notice that he’s using her first name now: familiarity, building rapport, creating a relationship.
“You haven’t applied for a new card? Well, that’s no problem. We can rectify that right now. I can get your new Medicare card in the mail to you this afternoon. Let me just confirm some information here.”
There’s only one problem -- there is no such thing as a new Medicare card. There will be very few, if any, changes to Medicare under ACA. And one of those pieces of information he’s going to “confirm” is the number to her bank account or credit card. “Oh, that number isn’t right? Well, it’s a good thing I called today. What is the right number?”
He’s a scam artist -- a thief. And he preys on elderly people who are confused and afraid.
They are confused because the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is complex and confusing. They are confused because they’ve heard tirades and half-truths about such things as “death panels.”
And they’re afraid because our politicians have done everything in their power to make them that way. Those politicians know that fear is a powerful motivator. Listen to the rants, the harangues, the tirades; you will begin to believe that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act is going to mark the end of civilization as we know it.
These elected representatives would have us believe that their speeches are lamentations, passionate expressions of grief or mourning over the loss of values which once made America strong and proud -- but they are really just “lemon-tations,” diatribes filled with bitter, accusatory, abusive denunciation.
They are venomous philippics that terrify our senior citizens and deliver them into the hands of scammers and thieves.
Lamentations
The book of Lamentations contains a collection of five liturgical songs or poems bewailing the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 586 BCE. The poems of this book are probably meant to be representative of those songs sung on the ninth of Av in commemoration of the day that Jerusalem fell.
Each of the five laments is a tightly structured acrostic. In the first four, each line of the poem begins with a letter from the Hebrew alphabet, taken in order (i.e., A, B, C, etc.). In some of the poems the acrostic element is tighter and more evident than in others, but it is present in all five.
While Jeremiah is traditionally held to be the author of Lamentations, it is more likely that the poems were penned by anonymous worship leaders or priests to be used and read liturgically. The fact that they speak of fallen Jerusalem in fallen Jerusalem would make it unlikely that Jeremiah wrote them, as he was whisked away to Egypt by his protectors shortly after the fall of the city.
The poems of Lamentations are less theological statements or reflections than expressions of grief and mourning. They are emotional outpourings. They express not just the pain of loss, but outrage over the excess of suffering that has been pressed down upon the people.
The poets believe that the destruction and exile of 586 BCE is God’s punishment upon Israel for her unfaithfulness, but they also believe that the punishment does not fit the crime. It is excessive. It is too much. No crime could have been so heinous as to deserve what the people are now experiencing.
In his introduction to Lamentations in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Norman Gottwald writes: “In its original setting, Lamentations performed a task of communal ‘grief work.’... By linking the literary forms and themes of lament to a major historical crisis, these laments provide a paradigm for Jews and Christians to struggle with the meanings of calamity and to work out strategies for living through world-shaking catastrophes. As such, Lamentations reaches even to the wars and massacres of the world today.”
Lemon-tations
On November 7, 2012, the day after the presidential election, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, the spiritual leader of the orthodox Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey, penned an essay on his blog titled “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire.” Since then it has gone viral.
The piece, which comes in at just under 2,000 words, expresses the rabbi’s bitter disappointment in the outcome of the presidential election, draws some far-reaching inferences from Barack Obama’s defeat of Mitt Romney, and predicts some pretty horrendous consequences.
His apologists and defenders in conservative blogs and e-mails tend to refer to the good rabbi’s essay in terms of lamentation. It expresses his grief and a profound sense of despair over what he sees as the loss of “the traditional American virtues -- of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative, and aspirations to moral greatness” and the acquiescence of the American people to ignorance, sloth, and immorality.
Of course, Rabbi Pruzansky’s essay bears not the slightest resemblance to the great poetry to be found in the book of Lamentations. His is a screed, a diatribe, a harangue filled with insults and denunciations of anyone who disagrees with him as well as threatening predictions of what the country is coming to. Filled as it is with bitterness and bile, it’s more lemon-tation than lamentation.
Last week Ted Cruz, freshman senator from Texas, attempted to redefine the meaning of the word “filibuster.” Usually understood as a long speech or series of speeches designed to delay a vote, Senator Cruz’s effort, which had no chance of delaying or forestalling action, was simply a long -- a very long -- speech.
How long? Twenty-one hours and nineteen minutes, give or take.
Mostly he talked about Obamacare and his contention that it’s bad and how the American people don’t want it. But he also “read Dr. Seuss, sang the praises of White Castle hamburgers, did a Darth Vader imitation, and quoted from the reality TV show Duck Dynasty.”
It was a clever bit of theater, certainly. It was an amusing stunt that managed to get his name and picture on all of the networks -- but a lament it was not. And when he was finished, he was not one millimeter closer to thwarting the Affordable Care Act than he was when he began.
Lemon-tation, maybe. Lamentation, certainly not.
A Cry of Grief and Pain
The poems of Lamentations represent a people at worship, struggling to find meaning in the pain, grief, and sorrow that accompany genuine catastrophes.
Through these poems, the People of Faith stand before God and cry out their grief, their agony, their outrage over their suffering. The poets who wrote them are not trying to make political hay or gain some personal advantage. These poems are tightly wrapped emotional packages threatening to explode into weeping, wailing, and screams of pain.
They are genuine expressions of human suffering created for use in the sanctuary during worship. They are not political rants full of whining and carping because someone didn’t get their way. Confronted with disaster on a national scale, the ancient Hebrew people went to worship and cried their pain to their God.
Confronted with disasters on the same scale in our own time, we do not so much turn to God as on each other.
Children die in a massacre at their school, and gun opponents and gun advocates take the opportunity to square off against each other, using the deaths of the innocents to score rhetorical points. Hurricanes crush and bury our brothers and sisters, and armchair theologians use the opportunity to criticize the lifestyles of the victims. Fires, floods, wars, and whirlwinds have become little more than opportunities to score political, theological, and rhetorical points in a mean and seemingly endless dialectic.
Bitterness, resentment, disdain, and contempt are the marks of lemon-tations and have no place in the lives or worship of the People of God.
The true lamentation, however, is an honest expression of grief, pain, and despair, and is nowhere more appropriate than when we stand in the presence of our Lord.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
World Communion Sunday
Fathers’ Communion
The word “communion” shares a root with the word “common,” and this Sunday reminds us of all that we hold in common with other Christians.
In On Grief and Grieving (Scribner, 2005), Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler tell the following story of grief changed into a common bond.
Alan, 17 years old, was thrilled to go to the basketball championship that was being held downtown in the sports arena. After the game, in the parking lot, Alan walked ten feet to his car and was randomly shot and killed by a gang member.
His father Keith and his mother Donna could not understand why their son was killed. They were filled with anger as they spent their days and nights trying to raise their other kids, go to work, and follow the all-consuming ongoing investigation into the killing.
A close couple, friends of Keith’s and Donna’s, became concerned because they were not available to get together for meals or anything else. One evening the couple dropped in out of concern and said to Keith and Donna, “You have to accept this loss. Your son is gone, and none of this is going to bring him back. Haven’t you heard about the five stages? You’ve done all the others. All you need now is acceptance.”
Keith got angry with his friend and asked, “What part of Alan’s death don’t you think I accept? At his grave today I cried like a baby. If I didn’t accept it, would I go to his grave? We’re not setting a place for him at the dinner table tonight. We live in reality; his room is empty every night. How much more acceptance can we feel?”
The friend looked down and said, “I just hate to see you in so much pain.”
Keith replied, “Believe me, I hate to be in so much pain.”...
Acceptance is not about liking a situation. It is about acknowledging all that has been lost and learning to live with that loss.
After closing arguments in the murder case, it took the jury only five hours to come back with a guilty verdict. The gang member who killed Alan was sentenced to life in prison, and Keith and Donna went back to their own lives....
For Keith, no one else could know how much acceptance he was capable of or how time would affect his process. After five years, Keith felt he had found as much acceptance as was possible. Then he was notified that the shooter was up for his parole hearing. Keith felt all his hard-earned acceptance drain out of him. By the time of the hearing he was once again filled with anger. The proceedings were brief and parole was denied. Keith was struck by how quickly it happened and by the tears of the shooter’s father. For the first time, Keith realized that there were victims on both ends of the gun.
Keith walked over to him and shook his hand. At that moment, something happened for Keith as his anger was replaced by a curiosity. He wanted to know what this other father’s life was like and what led him to the same place. Over the next few years, the two men formed an alliance to help gang members stop the violence and find their place in the world. They went from school to school in the inner city with their story.
Keith’s acceptance was a journey that was deeper than he ever expected. And it happened over many years, not many months or days. Not everyone will or can fully embrace those who have hurt us, as Keith did, but there is always a struggle that leads us to our own personal and unique acceptance.
*****
Impossible Forgiveness
Echoes of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda continue to ripple through the country.
Lucky Severson reported for PBS about a program there to reconcile perpetrators and victims of the violence. At the time, he notes, “Over a million Rwandans, about an eighth of the population, were massacred in one of the worst cases of genocide in recent history.” Still, people on both sides of the conflict seek a way out the hatred.
Anglican Bishop John Rucyahana is the chairman of Prison Fellowship Rwanda, a group that works for restoration between people on both sides of the tribal divide that fueled the violence. He lost family members in the conflict, including a niece who was gang-raped and killed. Rucyahana believes that forgiveness, after repentance, benefits both the perpetrator and the victim. Rwanda’s prisons still hold tens of thousands of people who were convicted of genocide, but as many as 30,000 have been released and returned to their communities through the restorative justice program of Prison Fellowship Rwanda.
As Severson reported, “Prison Fellowship sends ministers into these penitentiaries to preach repentance, and then after a long period of counseling, if the killer repents, the victims, those who are willing, are brought into the prison to meet the perpetrators face to face. And then, if the victims can find forgiveness in their hearts, the process of redemption and healing begins.” Through that process, those who lost loved ones and those who were violent offenders now find a curious common ground, as they make their way toward a new Rwanda.
*****
Connections Across Countries
In The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want (Penguin, 2007), author Sonja Lyubomirsky tells this story:
When I was a doctoral student at Stanford, a 26-year-old woman, Amy Biehl, who had graduated with a B.A. in international relations and had taken a Fulbright scholarship to research women’s rights and fight segregation in South Africa, was pulled from her car and stabbed to death by a mob in Guguletu township, near Cape Town. It happened two days before she was coming home to be reunited with her family and her long-time boyfriend in California. She didn’t know that he was planning to ask her to marry him. It was a tragedy, one that unnerved several people close to me, especially parents of children just about her age. They tried to put themselves in the heads of her parents, an effort that was agonizing. Two years later, Amy’s parents returned to the township where she was killed and met with some of the killer’s families to console them.
To console them?
Four young men had been sentenced for 18 years for Amy’s murder. The Biehls came to witness their testimony in front of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, during which the four men expressed remorse and pleaded for amnesty. The Biehls supported their release. They were able to bury their anger, hurt, and hatred.
Amy’s father died shortly after that trip, but Amy’s mother returned to South Africa yet again, this time to forgive one of the four killers, a man named Ntobeko Peni. He saw himself as a young freedom fighter, growing up poor and segregated in South Africa’s townships, taught from childhood that whites were the enemy. But she didn’t just forgive him. She gave him a job, and with a job, a future. He works as a guide and peer educator for HIV/AIDS awareness at the Amy Biehl Foundation, which has programs in townships outside Cape Town. He also travels the world with Amy’s mother to tell their story of forgiveness and reconciliation. Amy’s mother says that Ntobeko is part of her family now.
***************
From team member Ron Love:
2 Timothy 1:1-14
For 52 years, the town of Newtown, Connecticut, celebrated Labor Day with an extravagant parade. But after the town’s traumatic experience last December, in which 20 first-graders and six administrators were murdered as a lone gunman rampaged through Sandy Hook Elementary School, the question quickly arose -- what would be an appropriate and tasteful way to observe the holiday this year, considering the community still lived in the shadow of December’s mayhem. Early in the planning stages, the organizers decided on this slogan: “We are Newton, marching strong.”
Application: With the power of the spirit, we can still march strong in the face of all adversity.
*****
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Troy Polamalu, the strong safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers, is renowned for his ferocious play -- a perennial all-pro selection and fan favorite, for ten years he has been recognized as one of the NFL’s most outstanding defensive players. But the 32-year-old Polamalu is not only known for his on-field exploits; he also has the most famous locks in football. In a tribute to his Samoan heritage, Polamalu has not cut his hair for more than a decade... and his three-feet long curls are now an indelible (and valuable) part of his public profile. Not only has he parlayed them into a shampoo endorsement deal and a starring role in several commercials, but the company even insured his hair for $1 million.
But on Veteran’s Day this year, they are coming off -- in solidarity with our veterans, Polamalu is going to cut his hair. It will be a part of the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ “Mane Event” program to raise money and awareness for veterans returning home from overseas. On Facebook Polamalu posted: “We talk about supporting veterans often, but now it’s time for all to DO something. I’m getting a ceremonial haircut this Veterans Day... I DARE you to join me.”
Application: The spirit of power is to inspire and empower us to help others.
*****
Lamentations 1:1-6
The NFL has agreed to pay $765 million to former players, and to the spouses of deceased players, who received permanent brain damage due to concussions while playing professional football. The payout comes as part of a settlement to a lawsuit in which more than 4,500 former players contended that the NFL withheld information from them on the seriousness of concussions. The players also charged that, despite realizing the medical complications resulting from concussions, team coaches and medical personnel continued to send the players onto the field of play after being injured. Tony Dorsett, one of the ten members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame who filed suit, said regarding his football contracts: “When I signed up for this, I didn’t know some of the repercussions. I did know that I could get injured, but I didn’t know about my head or the trauma of the things that could happen to me later on in life.”
Application: Because of the injustices of life, many feel they are sitting alone in a city once filled with people.
*****
Lamentations 1:1-6
Stacey Rambold, a high school teacher in Billings, Montana, was released last week after serving only a 30-day prison sentence for the rape of a 14-year-old student, in a relationship that was ongoing for several months. In defending his ruling, District Judge G. Todd Baugh said that the victim, who later committed suicide, had “as much in control of the situation” as the teacher.
Application: Individuals, families, sit alone in a city that should be filled with officials who understand justice and possess a knowledge of human behavior and development. We sit alone in cities absent of justice, equality, and fairness.
*****
Lamentations 1:1-6
Famed British broadcaster David Frost, who recently passed away, was renowned for conducting many notable interviews over the course of his career. But he’s certainly best remembered for his series of interviews with former president Richard Nixon, in which Frost got Nixon to apologize for his participation in the Watergate scandal. After 30 hours of questioning, Frost once again confronted Nixon and said, “I think people need to hear it, and I think unless you say it, you’re going to be haunted for the rest of your life.” Nixon then replied that he had let down his friends and his country, “and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life.”
Application: Because of our disobedience we often do sit alone in a city once filled with people.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Leah Lonsbury
Words for Reflection
It is the combination of both power and love which makes a community workable and sustainable. It is the combination of power and love which Christians call the Spirit, and which empowers us to shape our common future for the good of all.
-- Anne Primavesi, Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year C (Westminster John Knox, 2003), p. 260
When things go badly in the kingdoms of this world, as invariably they do, given the callous insensibility that turns human beings away from their neighbors in preoccupation with their own troubles, or with dreams of aggrandizement -- in such bad moments, many people turn from God, saying, “How could God permit such bad things to happen?” Instead of becoming alienated from their faith in God, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to become alienated from their mislaid hopes in human beings, alienated from shallow notions of automatic progress, from sentimental notions about the “nobility of man”? Of course we should love and live for one another. Not, however, because you and I are so lovable, but simply because that’s the only way we are going to become lovable. Love one another, but “in God we trust.” You couldn’t come up with a phrase more suitable for the coin of a kingdom of this world than “In God we trust.”
-- William Sloane Coffin, Credo (Westminster John Knox, 2004), pp. 13-14
Call to Worship
(based on 2 Timothy 1:1-14)
One: Grace, mercy, and peace from the One who created and redeemed you.
All: We have gathered here in gratitude to worship God, to remember how to walk the way of faith, and to rekindle the gifts of God within us.
One: For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
All: So we will not be ashamed or discouraged. We will rely on the power of God.
One: For it is God who saves us and calls us with a holy calling, a purpose and grace made clear to us in the light of Christ Jesus who brings us and makes us Good News.
All: We put our trust in Jesus, in that Good News we are and are becoming through him.
One: We will hold to the faith and love we have been given.
All: For we have the help of the Holy Spirit living in us. Thanks be to God!
Gathering Prayer
(based on Luke 17:5-10)
Like the apostles, we want to shout to you, “Increase our faith!” But you have already empowered us to love and bless and change the world -- all through this tiny mustard seed of faith that lies within us and awaits our action. Show us how to feed and water that seed. Show us how to let your light unfold its potential and power as a leaf unfurls and a branch extends toward the sun. But most importantly, show us how to simply act, to command that seed to spring forth and to grow in might through the boldness of our acts of love and mercy in the world. This is what you expect of us. This is what you have created us to do and be. Make that clear to us in this time together and in each moment of our living. Amen.
OR
Creating God, Redeeming Word, Life-giving Spirit -- Loving One...
Draw us close with hearts ready to remember and recognize how your Spirit is calling us forth in love.
Surprise and challenge us by what faith can do if we are willing and ready to act.
Teach us to be your grace and mercy to a world in need
until we are one as you are One.
Amen.
Prayer of Confession
For the seed we have planted called “injustice,” that destroys the land and community, where some have so much and others have nothing, we pray --
Forgive us, O God.
For the seed we have planted called “conflict,” that ruins the earth and the lives of the many, so only weeping silence can fully tell the story, we pray --
Forgive us, O God.
For the seed we have planted called “imbalance,” that bears the fruit of frazzled lives in which Sabbath living is neglected and restoration is unknown, we pray --
Forgive us, O God.
For the seed we have planted called “prejudice,” that disfigures the beauty of your people through what we say and don’t say, what we do and don’t do, we pray --
Forgive us, O God.
For the seed we have planted called “mistrust,” that sells short the power of your love and the power of the Spirit at work within us, that stops our acts of compassion and courage before they even begin, we pray --
Forgive us, O God.
Assurance
God sees the whole of our lives -- the brokenness and the beauty.
God is always waiting for our return and holding out hope for the days ahead.
We are loved.
We are forgiven.
We are called to be one.
This is our challenge and our joy.
Thanks be to God.
Ideas for Time with Children
Lamentations 1:1-6 (could also work for Psalm 137)
This week’s passage from Lamentations is full of imagery that lends itself to a conversation with children. In it, God’s people are like?
a princess turned into a servant;
a scorned and lonely friend or lover;
an overwhelmed refugee;
or a ghost town;
because they have turned from God and God’s ways -- from their source of life.
Children’s books and movies are filled with these images and themes. The Backyardigans do a convincing ghost town, as does many a Scooby-Doo episode. The Lorax illustrates a fall from grace -- from health and well-being to destruction and emptiness. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe tells the story of four children displaced and bewildered by war. The land they enter has those feelings as well. Show a clip or some illustrations from one of these stories, and talk with the children about what it would feel like to be in one of these situations. Ask them when these same kinds of experiences and feelings show up in our own lives. Close by reminding the children that God always offers a way back, and is always inviting us to return to God and ways of living together that bring life. Ask them about how we return to God and God’s ways in our own lives.
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Briefly tell some of your own stories or your congregation’s stories of grandmothers and mothers (and grandfathers and fathers) of faith (or invite a church member to do so), and how that faith still lives in your life and/or life of the congregation. Include visuals if possible -- who made the communion table or designed a banner in the sanctuary? What legacy did they leave alongside their creations? Are there any pictures of the founders of your congregation? If you serve a fairly young congregation, are those founders still in the pews? What impact have they had? Do you have the Bible you received from Mrs. So-and-So in 3rd grade? Why do you hang onto it? What did it and does it communicate to you? Invite the children to share similar stories.
Luke 17:5-10
Use the “little seed of faith can do big things” idea to have a conversation about what kids can do through faithful acts and living. What big message does the little act of sitting next to the new or friendless kid at school send? How can a little hug or kind word make a big difference in someone’s day? How can the $5 we waste each week on things we don’t need make a big difference in someone’s life?
Prayers of the People
Creating God, we believe this world can be a place of hope: where power is shared; where all have clean water and enough to eat; where there is concern and action to secure freedom and justice for all people. We believe in your way of love and peace. Help our words, our actions, and our whole lives to be witnesses to your way.
Jesus, God in our midst, we believe this world can be a place of peace: where love triumphs over war; where people of different faiths live together in good will; where there is unity among neighbors. We believe in your way of love and peace. Open our hearts in generosity to each other and with receptivity to your connecting love.
Stirring Spirit, we believe this world can be a place of truth: where words of honesty are heard more often than words of propaganda or manipulation; where there is honor among those who govern; where integrity guides our daily lives. We believe in your way of love and peace. Move us in ways that create healthy, honest, and abundant lives for all your children.
Creating God; Jesus, God in our midst; Stirring Spirit; you show us how to live in loving community. We believe we can be a reflection of your community here in this place and throughout our world. God of Love, hear our prayers to this end. We offer you now our silence and all those concerns and celebrations that lie quietly within us. We offer you ourselves and open our hearts to your presence. Come and fill us with your love.
(Silence)
As one family, one Body, we cry and mourn together. We laugh and celebrate together, and we know that you hold us in our crying and mourning, our laughing and celebrating. And so, in trust, in love, and in hope, we offer our prayers to you...
(Share the gathered prayers of the community)
We lift these prayers to you, knowing that a small act of faith can issue in dramatic and surprising results. We join our voices now with the one who was and is faithful in the small and the big things, Jesus...
(All join in the Lord’s Prayer)
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Blessed and blessing God, we bring you these gifts in hopes that something great will grow from the small seeds of faithfulness we sow. May they grow in your love and our action to shade, shelter, and shore up the exposed and vulnerable, the oppressed and the broken-down, the broken-hearted and the hopeless. Continue to show us how to be faithful in how we live and in what we share. Through your love and light, may the whole of our living be an offering, a glimpse of your vision and unending grace. Amen.
Hymn Suggestions
“We Are Your People”
“We Plant a Grain of Mustard Seed”
“Like a Mother Who Has Borne Us”
“I Will Trust in the Lord”
“God of Our Life”
“All My Hope on God Is Founded”
“Forgive Us Now”
“Why Do We Listen and Fail to Hear?”
“By Gracious Powers So Wonderfully Sheltered”
“Beside the Streams of Babylon” (Iona- Bell)
“By the Rivers of Babylon”
“Lord, Hear My Praying, Listen to Me” (Sorrowing Song)
“How Long Must We Cry Out?”
“Inspired By Love and Anger”
“Remember We Are Your People”
“Let Us Hope When Hope Seems Hopeless”
“God Has Not Given Us a Spirit of Fear”
“There’s a Spirit in the Air”
“Faith Will Not Grow from Words Alone”
“Here In This Place New Light Is Streaming”
“Faith Like a Mustard Seed”
“You Are the Seed”
“The Kingdom of God” (Taizé)
CHILDREN’S SERMON
But My Faith Is So Tiny!
Luke 17:5-10
Object: a mustard seed
What does it mean to have faith in something? It’s when you have a confident belief in something -- it’s kind of like trusting. I know a chair will most likely hold me up if I sit down in it. I have faith in the chair. It’s really pretty easy to believe, because I’ve sat in a lot of chairs before. I also think I know how chairs work, so that helps too. I have big faith in chairs.
Now, let me think of something a little harder to believe. I know: I have faith that the sun will rise and set each day. Even though I don’t know exactly how that happens, it’s been true all my life. There hasn’t yet been a day when the sun hasn’t risen and set. My faith in the sun isn’t as big as my faith in chairs, but my faith is still pretty big.
What about something that’s much harder to believe? It’s pretty hard for me to believe that Jesus came back from the dead. I don’t know how that could happen. I’ve certainly never seen something like that happen before. It’s also hard for me to have faith that God can do a miracle and heal someone who’s really sick. I’ve heard that it happens, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it. When it comes to sickness and death, I’d have to say that my faith is pretty small. It’s probably about the size of this mustard seed. (hold up the seed for all to see)
But in today’s lesson Jesus tells us that a faith this size is all we need. We just need to have some faith -- it doesn’t matter if our faith is huge or tiny. We just need some. He’ll take care of the rest. Sometimes we just have to believe God even when it doesn’t make sense to us. There are some things God knows that we will never understand. I guess that’s why he is God and we aren’t! Our job is to pray, to ask God for help, and to believe that he can handle whatever comes our way.
Prayer: God, sometimes it’s so hard to have faith! Help us trust you and have faith in all you say. You can do anything! Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 6, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
Of course, that’s not as easy to do as it sounds -- especially in today’s dangerous and violent world. There are so many reasons to be distrustful of those who are on “the other side of the fence” (however we define that) -- so it is difficult and risky to find comity with those who do not fit our profile of God’s children. Yet, as Chris reminds us, the faith required to do so is “our holy calling.” There were hopeful echoes of that spirit in last week’s remarkable gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly. Amid much speculation about the possibility of a thaw in relations, both President Obama and Iranian President Rouhani discussed tolerance and potential olive branches in their addresses to the UN. While there was no face-to-face contact between them, Obama announced that they had indeed spoken by phone -- the first direct conversation between leaders of both countries since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979. As Chris points out, this breakthrough -- small as it may be -- is consistent with historical precedents of our leaders sitting down with those they’ve previously demonized. And what better paradigm is there for finding peace than World Communion Sunday, as we sit down together at Christ’s table with people from all across the globe?
Team member Dean Feldmeyer offers some additional thoughts on the difference between true lamentations, such as we see in our Old Testament texts, and what he describes as “lemon-tations” -- the bitter carping and complaining of those who are deeply disappointed by events. So much of our political dialogue today is characterized by fear and the denigration of opponents’ motives... and as Dean notes, we especially see that now in the fight over “Obamacare.” Yet there is a significant difference between true lamentations -- which might be best seen in our contemporary environment in the sobs of those who have lost homes and loved ones to a natural disaster, or who are trying to survive in the living hell of a war zone like Syria -- and the faux apocalyptic rants of those who are either throwing a temper tantrum, or worse yet, cynically playing to their fundraising base. But, as Dean reminds us, God understands real expressions of grief and despair -- we just need to remember the difference.
Our Holy Calling
by Chris Keating
Luke 17:5-10; 2 Timothy 1:1-14
They came from east and west, from north and south -- not to eat at the kingdom of God, but to listen to the world’s leaders proclaim messages of diplomacy. While they weren’t yet singing “One Bread, One Body,” those attending the 68th General Assembly of the United Nations did hear remarkable calls for peace.
Last week’s UN meetings provide new possibilities of peace in a war-weary world. As World Communion Sunday approaches, these possibilities will resonate with people of faith. There are hopes for negotiations between the United States and Iran, desires to bring peace to Syria, and fresh commitments to pursue talks between Israel and Palestine. With panoply of crises brewing around the world, President Obama used the UN pulpit to declare these new commitments and discuss his foreign policy initiatives. And while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani wasn’t quite ready to shake Obama’s hand, it was clear that he too brought new flexibility to pursuing hopeful conversations.
Jesus’ parable in this Sunday’s Luke text reminds us of the need to take our place at the table -- something President Obama indicated the United States is willing to do. Critics see these policy initiatives as uncertain and wobbly, but others find the President’s evolving doctrine as a sign of a new commitment to peace.
If so, then this could be the mustard seed that will move the mulberry tree.
All of this is risky. But that is the message of the gospel, and also the pastoral task Paul commends to Timothy. Peace requires more than words delivered from a bully pulpit. Communion is always risky, and involves reaching across lines of disagreement. In preparing for World Communion Sunday, it is time to listen again to what Paul describes as our “holy calling,” the work of rekindling the gift of faith within us. It’s time to be servants who do the hopeful work God has commanded. It’s the pursuit of peace which will lead all nations to take their place at Christ’s table of welcome.
In the News
As he stood before the United Nations, President Barack Obama signaled a desire to give peace a chance. Some called his speech one of the most noteworthy of his presidency because of his focus on the Middle East. Having stumbled across his infamous “red line” regarding chemical weaponry in Syria, Obama seemed eager to push a new agenda designed to seek peace and build diplomatic relationships. In particular, the president set negotiating with Iran and establishing a workable solution to the Palestinian/Israeli dilemma as his administration’s primary foreign policy goals.
Missing from his speech, according to one observer, was the notorious “us versus them” approach toward other nations characterized by previous administrations. Call it a newer, humbler, more flexible Obama doctrine.
Obama’s speech was a move beyond the so-called “pivot” toward Asia which had been his administration’s focus two years earlier. He also opened himself to a possible political solution in Syria, and laid the foundation for renewed peace negotiations between Palestine and Israel. He even chided Russian Vladimir Putin by reminding him there is no longer a “great game to be won” in Syria other than creating a stable nation.
There are certainly many obstacles in the way of these peace paths. One can only imagine Obama’s aides crying out, “Increase our faith!” The tipping point, however, may come from Obama’s pursuit of new conversations with Iran.
Commentator John Judis, writing in the New Republic, called the speech Obama’s “most significant foreign policy statement” since becoming president:
There were specific departures in the speech from positions that Obama has taken in the past. The one that will get the most attention, and rightly so, is American policy toward Iran, but the speech also included departures in American policy toward Syria, Israel and the Palestinians, and Egypt and the Arab Spring.
Judis continues:
If Obama does achieve a rapprochement between the United States and Iran, it could have repercussions throughout the Middle East. It could make a political settlement in Syria possible. It could ease negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel’s hardliners would no longer have an excuse for ignoring the West Bank occupation, and Hamas would no longer have international support in refusing to back a two-state solution. And finally, of course, a rapprochement could give the United States a strong ally in reducing the threat of terrorist movements in the Middle East and South Asia.
Obama’s speech followed a mellowing in tone and full-court PR press from Iran’s president, including (in a momentous departure from his controversial predecessor) a condemnation by Rouhani of the horrors of the World War II Nazi Holocaust. Positive signs also included Obama ordering Secretary of State John Kerry to reach out to Iran to begin negotiations around their nuclear program. And while the road toward rapprochement didn’t include a handshake between the presidents in New York City, it did lead to a phone call while Rouhani was headed to the airport.
That historic phone call calls to mind similar commitments to peace -- Nixon reaching out to Mao, Reagan chatting with Gorbachev. Moving to new relationship often means confronting those we have demonized. Yet for the first time since 1979, leaders of the United States and Iran spoke to each other. It may have been more symbol than substance -- Obama tried his hand at Farsi, and Rouhani closed with “have a nice day” -- but it is a start. On his return to Tehran, Rouhani faced supporters and opponents, including the proverbial thrown shoe.
But perhaps that shoe could be worn for the first footsteps toward peace. Whether Rouhani’s mellowing or Obama’s reappraisals will result in substantive change is not yet clear. For now, it seems as though the mustard seeds have been planted.
In the Scripture
Both the Luke 17:5-10 pericope and the text from 2 Timothy 1:1-14 offer useful connections to the news coming from the United Nations, particularly on World Communion Sunday. In Luke, Jesus reminds the disciples that there is no need to want buckets full of faith when even the smallest amount will suffice. It would be easy to see his words as shaming the disciples for not having enough -- but instead it seems Jesus is saying that they already have enough to accomplish what God is calling them to do. Jesus seems to be pushing his thumb and forefinger together, squinting his eyes as he looks at the disciples. “Even the teeniest, tiniest, puniest pint-sized faith can cause this big old mulberry tree to jump into the lake.”
He backs up his point with a strange little parable of a servant who has just come in from working at the field. Using imagery common to his audience, Jesus tells the disciples that it would be highly unlikely for a master to say, “Oh my, you’re so tired! Have a seat while I fix you supper!” Instead, the servant is called to do what is expected of him or her. As Kimberly Bracken Long notes, “Jesus changes the question from ‘How much faith is enough?’ to ‘What is faith for?’ He tells them, through image and story, ‘You already have the faith you need. Now fulfill its purpose: live it’ ” (Feasting on the Word [Year C, Vol. 4: Season after Pentecost 2]).
Living faithfully means holding firm and pursuing the holy calling of discipleship.
Likewise, when Paul writes to his beloved child Timothy, he calls him back to the primary task of his mission. Paul reminds Timothy of the great gift of faith he has received from his mother and grandmother (v. 5), and then urges him to pursue the calling to which he was ordained. In facing the long slog through faithfulness, Timothy is called to draw on the rich legacy that has nurtured him throughout his life -- his grandmother Lois, his mother Eunice, his mentor Paul. All of these “hands” have been laid on him and have imbued Timothy with “a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”
The going may not be easy, but the faith-filled are called to push ahead, relying always on the charis of Jesus Christ. Timothy may resemble a burned-out pastor, or even a discouraged national leader. The pews are not as full as they once were, and the temptation may be to hang it up or to fall prey to some quick-fix scheme. Neither, says Paul, resemble the gifts that are within us. The leader is called to rekindle the gift that has been given to him or her, trusting in the faith and love of Jesus Christ. In spite of discouragement, even outright heresy, Timothy is reminded that he doesn’t need more faith -- he needs to rely on the faith he has been given.
Of course, that is a huge risk. But as Paul concludes, it is a risk worth taking, “for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him” (v. 12b).
In light of the week’s events, these texts remind us that calling nations to take their places at the table may seem risky or even terrifying. It is not easy to reach out to those with whom we have fundamental disagreements. But perhaps even a smidgen of faith will lead us toward communion.
In the Sermon
While foreign policy speeches might make for deadly sermons -- were there three points and a poem in Obama’s presentation? -- there were indeed significant themes in the speeches offered at the United Nations that resonate with portraits of daring faith in both the gospel and epistle lessons. The openness of world leaders to seek new communion and to engage in even the smallest acts of conversation may be the mustard seed the world needs. If anything, a sermon could name the humility observed in the parable (“we have done only what we ought to have done!”) as a reminder of the justice and faithful pursuit of peace all nations are called to observe. The starting ground for building bonds of peace arises not from sizing up differences but in acknowledging our limits and setting aside destructive tendencies toward hubris.
Paul’s reminder to Timothy to push through the obstacles of life, clinging faithfully to the gifts nurtured within him, is also a call to find common ground in Christ. The risk Paul urges Timothy to take could shape the mission of our churches, especially in response to the olive branches tendered at the United Nations. World Communion Sunday, a creation of the mainline church of the 1930s, offers a positive reminder of how the church in previous generations stepped up to pursue its holy calling. It is time to reconnect with that holy calling in the same manner Timothy was called to cherish the gifts given to him by Eunice and Lois.
It may seem like such a small thing -- one Sunday, celebrated mainly among the old mainline churches that clearly lack the luster they may have once enjoyed. But communion is always a small thing. It’s just one piece of bread, a small taste of wine. When paired with new calls for peace, however, it could be the mustard seed that clears away the forest. It may be the path back to our holy calling.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Lamentations or Lemon-tations?
by Dean Feldmeyer
Lamentations 1:1-6; Lamentations 3:19-26
He introduces himself and says he’s from the Department of Health and Human Services, or something. Something in his voice makes him seem trustworthy. He sounds calm, self-assured, virile, handsome, kind, even nice. Care and compassion ooze from his voice.
“Mrs. _________, do you know what the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is? What is sometimes referred to as Obamacare?”
You want to please him. You don’t want him to think you’re senile or stupid. So you say, “Yes.”
He knows you will say yes. He knows that the ACA is complex and hard to understand and nobody knows all of it -- but he’s made this call dozens, even hundreds, of times... and he knows what he’s doing.
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Then you know that some big changes are coming in health care in 2014, and some of the biggest changes are coming to Medicare. In fact, one of the reasons that I called is that your name was flagged as one of our Medicare patients who hasn’t applied for your new card yet. Have you applied for your new Medicare card, Donna?”
Notice that he’s using her first name now: familiarity, building rapport, creating a relationship.
“You haven’t applied for a new card? Well, that’s no problem. We can rectify that right now. I can get your new Medicare card in the mail to you this afternoon. Let me just confirm some information here.”
There’s only one problem -- there is no such thing as a new Medicare card. There will be very few, if any, changes to Medicare under ACA. And one of those pieces of information he’s going to “confirm” is the number to her bank account or credit card. “Oh, that number isn’t right? Well, it’s a good thing I called today. What is the right number?”
He’s a scam artist -- a thief. And he preys on elderly people who are confused and afraid.
They are confused because the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is complex and confusing. They are confused because they’ve heard tirades and half-truths about such things as “death panels.”
And they’re afraid because our politicians have done everything in their power to make them that way. Those politicians know that fear is a powerful motivator. Listen to the rants, the harangues, the tirades; you will begin to believe that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act is going to mark the end of civilization as we know it.
These elected representatives would have us believe that their speeches are lamentations, passionate expressions of grief or mourning over the loss of values which once made America strong and proud -- but they are really just “lemon-tations,” diatribes filled with bitter, accusatory, abusive denunciation.
They are venomous philippics that terrify our senior citizens and deliver them into the hands of scammers and thieves.
Lamentations
The book of Lamentations contains a collection of five liturgical songs or poems bewailing the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 586 BCE. The poems of this book are probably meant to be representative of those songs sung on the ninth of Av in commemoration of the day that Jerusalem fell.
Each of the five laments is a tightly structured acrostic. In the first four, each line of the poem begins with a letter from the Hebrew alphabet, taken in order (i.e., A, B, C, etc.). In some of the poems the acrostic element is tighter and more evident than in others, but it is present in all five.
While Jeremiah is traditionally held to be the author of Lamentations, it is more likely that the poems were penned by anonymous worship leaders or priests to be used and read liturgically. The fact that they speak of fallen Jerusalem in fallen Jerusalem would make it unlikely that Jeremiah wrote them, as he was whisked away to Egypt by his protectors shortly after the fall of the city.
The poems of Lamentations are less theological statements or reflections than expressions of grief and mourning. They are emotional outpourings. They express not just the pain of loss, but outrage over the excess of suffering that has been pressed down upon the people.
The poets believe that the destruction and exile of 586 BCE is God’s punishment upon Israel for her unfaithfulness, but they also believe that the punishment does not fit the crime. It is excessive. It is too much. No crime could have been so heinous as to deserve what the people are now experiencing.
In his introduction to Lamentations in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Norman Gottwald writes: “In its original setting, Lamentations performed a task of communal ‘grief work.’... By linking the literary forms and themes of lament to a major historical crisis, these laments provide a paradigm for Jews and Christians to struggle with the meanings of calamity and to work out strategies for living through world-shaking catastrophes. As such, Lamentations reaches even to the wars and massacres of the world today.”
Lemon-tations
On November 7, 2012, the day after the presidential election, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, the spiritual leader of the orthodox Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey, penned an essay on his blog titled “The Decline and Fall of the American Empire.” Since then it has gone viral.
The piece, which comes in at just under 2,000 words, expresses the rabbi’s bitter disappointment in the outcome of the presidential election, draws some far-reaching inferences from Barack Obama’s defeat of Mitt Romney, and predicts some pretty horrendous consequences.
His apologists and defenders in conservative blogs and e-mails tend to refer to the good rabbi’s essay in terms of lamentation. It expresses his grief and a profound sense of despair over what he sees as the loss of “the traditional American virtues -- of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative, and aspirations to moral greatness” and the acquiescence of the American people to ignorance, sloth, and immorality.
Of course, Rabbi Pruzansky’s essay bears not the slightest resemblance to the great poetry to be found in the book of Lamentations. His is a screed, a diatribe, a harangue filled with insults and denunciations of anyone who disagrees with him as well as threatening predictions of what the country is coming to. Filled as it is with bitterness and bile, it’s more lemon-tation than lamentation.
Last week Ted Cruz, freshman senator from Texas, attempted to redefine the meaning of the word “filibuster.” Usually understood as a long speech or series of speeches designed to delay a vote, Senator Cruz’s effort, which had no chance of delaying or forestalling action, was simply a long -- a very long -- speech.
How long? Twenty-one hours and nineteen minutes, give or take.
Mostly he talked about Obamacare and his contention that it’s bad and how the American people don’t want it. But he also “read Dr. Seuss, sang the praises of White Castle hamburgers, did a Darth Vader imitation, and quoted from the reality TV show Duck Dynasty.”
It was a clever bit of theater, certainly. It was an amusing stunt that managed to get his name and picture on all of the networks -- but a lament it was not. And when he was finished, he was not one millimeter closer to thwarting the Affordable Care Act than he was when he began.
Lemon-tation, maybe. Lamentation, certainly not.
A Cry of Grief and Pain
The poems of Lamentations represent a people at worship, struggling to find meaning in the pain, grief, and sorrow that accompany genuine catastrophes.
Through these poems, the People of Faith stand before God and cry out their grief, their agony, their outrage over their suffering. The poets who wrote them are not trying to make political hay or gain some personal advantage. These poems are tightly wrapped emotional packages threatening to explode into weeping, wailing, and screams of pain.
They are genuine expressions of human suffering created for use in the sanctuary during worship. They are not political rants full of whining and carping because someone didn’t get their way. Confronted with disaster on a national scale, the ancient Hebrew people went to worship and cried their pain to their God.
Confronted with disasters on the same scale in our own time, we do not so much turn to God as on each other.
Children die in a massacre at their school, and gun opponents and gun advocates take the opportunity to square off against each other, using the deaths of the innocents to score rhetorical points. Hurricanes crush and bury our brothers and sisters, and armchair theologians use the opportunity to criticize the lifestyles of the victims. Fires, floods, wars, and whirlwinds have become little more than opportunities to score political, theological, and rhetorical points in a mean and seemingly endless dialectic.
Bitterness, resentment, disdain, and contempt are the marks of lemon-tations and have no place in the lives or worship of the People of God.
The true lamentation, however, is an honest expression of grief, pain, and despair, and is nowhere more appropriate than when we stand in the presence of our Lord.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
World Communion Sunday
Fathers’ Communion
The word “communion” shares a root with the word “common,” and this Sunday reminds us of all that we hold in common with other Christians.
In On Grief and Grieving (Scribner, 2005), Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler tell the following story of grief changed into a common bond.
Alan, 17 years old, was thrilled to go to the basketball championship that was being held downtown in the sports arena. After the game, in the parking lot, Alan walked ten feet to his car and was randomly shot and killed by a gang member.
His father Keith and his mother Donna could not understand why their son was killed. They were filled with anger as they spent their days and nights trying to raise their other kids, go to work, and follow the all-consuming ongoing investigation into the killing.
A close couple, friends of Keith’s and Donna’s, became concerned because they were not available to get together for meals or anything else. One evening the couple dropped in out of concern and said to Keith and Donna, “You have to accept this loss. Your son is gone, and none of this is going to bring him back. Haven’t you heard about the five stages? You’ve done all the others. All you need now is acceptance.”
Keith got angry with his friend and asked, “What part of Alan’s death don’t you think I accept? At his grave today I cried like a baby. If I didn’t accept it, would I go to his grave? We’re not setting a place for him at the dinner table tonight. We live in reality; his room is empty every night. How much more acceptance can we feel?”
The friend looked down and said, “I just hate to see you in so much pain.”
Keith replied, “Believe me, I hate to be in so much pain.”...
Acceptance is not about liking a situation. It is about acknowledging all that has been lost and learning to live with that loss.
After closing arguments in the murder case, it took the jury only five hours to come back with a guilty verdict. The gang member who killed Alan was sentenced to life in prison, and Keith and Donna went back to their own lives....
For Keith, no one else could know how much acceptance he was capable of or how time would affect his process. After five years, Keith felt he had found as much acceptance as was possible. Then he was notified that the shooter was up for his parole hearing. Keith felt all his hard-earned acceptance drain out of him. By the time of the hearing he was once again filled with anger. The proceedings were brief and parole was denied. Keith was struck by how quickly it happened and by the tears of the shooter’s father. For the first time, Keith realized that there were victims on both ends of the gun.
Keith walked over to him and shook his hand. At that moment, something happened for Keith as his anger was replaced by a curiosity. He wanted to know what this other father’s life was like and what led him to the same place. Over the next few years, the two men formed an alliance to help gang members stop the violence and find their place in the world. They went from school to school in the inner city with their story.
Keith’s acceptance was a journey that was deeper than he ever expected. And it happened over many years, not many months or days. Not everyone will or can fully embrace those who have hurt us, as Keith did, but there is always a struggle that leads us to our own personal and unique acceptance.
*****
Impossible Forgiveness
Echoes of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda continue to ripple through the country.
Lucky Severson reported for PBS about a program there to reconcile perpetrators and victims of the violence. At the time, he notes, “Over a million Rwandans, about an eighth of the population, were massacred in one of the worst cases of genocide in recent history.” Still, people on both sides of the conflict seek a way out the hatred.
Anglican Bishop John Rucyahana is the chairman of Prison Fellowship Rwanda, a group that works for restoration between people on both sides of the tribal divide that fueled the violence. He lost family members in the conflict, including a niece who was gang-raped and killed. Rucyahana believes that forgiveness, after repentance, benefits both the perpetrator and the victim. Rwanda’s prisons still hold tens of thousands of people who were convicted of genocide, but as many as 30,000 have been released and returned to their communities through the restorative justice program of Prison Fellowship Rwanda.
As Severson reported, “Prison Fellowship sends ministers into these penitentiaries to preach repentance, and then after a long period of counseling, if the killer repents, the victims, those who are willing, are brought into the prison to meet the perpetrators face to face. And then, if the victims can find forgiveness in their hearts, the process of redemption and healing begins.” Through that process, those who lost loved ones and those who were violent offenders now find a curious common ground, as they make their way toward a new Rwanda.
*****
Connections Across Countries
In The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want (Penguin, 2007), author Sonja Lyubomirsky tells this story:
When I was a doctoral student at Stanford, a 26-year-old woman, Amy Biehl, who had graduated with a B.A. in international relations and had taken a Fulbright scholarship to research women’s rights and fight segregation in South Africa, was pulled from her car and stabbed to death by a mob in Guguletu township, near Cape Town. It happened two days before she was coming home to be reunited with her family and her long-time boyfriend in California. She didn’t know that he was planning to ask her to marry him. It was a tragedy, one that unnerved several people close to me, especially parents of children just about her age. They tried to put themselves in the heads of her parents, an effort that was agonizing. Two years later, Amy’s parents returned to the township where she was killed and met with some of the killer’s families to console them.
To console them?
Four young men had been sentenced for 18 years for Amy’s murder. The Biehls came to witness their testimony in front of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, during which the four men expressed remorse and pleaded for amnesty. The Biehls supported their release. They were able to bury their anger, hurt, and hatred.
Amy’s father died shortly after that trip, but Amy’s mother returned to South Africa yet again, this time to forgive one of the four killers, a man named Ntobeko Peni. He saw himself as a young freedom fighter, growing up poor and segregated in South Africa’s townships, taught from childhood that whites were the enemy. But she didn’t just forgive him. She gave him a job, and with a job, a future. He works as a guide and peer educator for HIV/AIDS awareness at the Amy Biehl Foundation, which has programs in townships outside Cape Town. He also travels the world with Amy’s mother to tell their story of forgiveness and reconciliation. Amy’s mother says that Ntobeko is part of her family now.
***************
From team member Ron Love:
2 Timothy 1:1-14
For 52 years, the town of Newtown, Connecticut, celebrated Labor Day with an extravagant parade. But after the town’s traumatic experience last December, in which 20 first-graders and six administrators were murdered as a lone gunman rampaged through Sandy Hook Elementary School, the question quickly arose -- what would be an appropriate and tasteful way to observe the holiday this year, considering the community still lived in the shadow of December’s mayhem. Early in the planning stages, the organizers decided on this slogan: “We are Newton, marching strong.”
Application: With the power of the spirit, we can still march strong in the face of all adversity.
*****
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Troy Polamalu, the strong safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers, is renowned for his ferocious play -- a perennial all-pro selection and fan favorite, for ten years he has been recognized as one of the NFL’s most outstanding defensive players. But the 32-year-old Polamalu is not only known for his on-field exploits; he also has the most famous locks in football. In a tribute to his Samoan heritage, Polamalu has not cut his hair for more than a decade... and his three-feet long curls are now an indelible (and valuable) part of his public profile. Not only has he parlayed them into a shampoo endorsement deal and a starring role in several commercials, but the company even insured his hair for $1 million.
But on Veteran’s Day this year, they are coming off -- in solidarity with our veterans, Polamalu is going to cut his hair. It will be a part of the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ “Mane Event” program to raise money and awareness for veterans returning home from overseas. On Facebook Polamalu posted: “We talk about supporting veterans often, but now it’s time for all to DO something. I’m getting a ceremonial haircut this Veterans Day... I DARE you to join me.”
Application: The spirit of power is to inspire and empower us to help others.
*****
Lamentations 1:1-6
The NFL has agreed to pay $765 million to former players, and to the spouses of deceased players, who received permanent brain damage due to concussions while playing professional football. The payout comes as part of a settlement to a lawsuit in which more than 4,500 former players contended that the NFL withheld information from them on the seriousness of concussions. The players also charged that, despite realizing the medical complications resulting from concussions, team coaches and medical personnel continued to send the players onto the field of play after being injured. Tony Dorsett, one of the ten members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame who filed suit, said regarding his football contracts: “When I signed up for this, I didn’t know some of the repercussions. I did know that I could get injured, but I didn’t know about my head or the trauma of the things that could happen to me later on in life.”
Application: Because of the injustices of life, many feel they are sitting alone in a city once filled with people.
*****
Lamentations 1:1-6
Stacey Rambold, a high school teacher in Billings, Montana, was released last week after serving only a 30-day prison sentence for the rape of a 14-year-old student, in a relationship that was ongoing for several months. In defending his ruling, District Judge G. Todd Baugh said that the victim, who later committed suicide, had “as much in control of the situation” as the teacher.
Application: Individuals, families, sit alone in a city that should be filled with officials who understand justice and possess a knowledge of human behavior and development. We sit alone in cities absent of justice, equality, and fairness.
*****
Lamentations 1:1-6
Famed British broadcaster David Frost, who recently passed away, was renowned for conducting many notable interviews over the course of his career. But he’s certainly best remembered for his series of interviews with former president Richard Nixon, in which Frost got Nixon to apologize for his participation in the Watergate scandal. After 30 hours of questioning, Frost once again confronted Nixon and said, “I think people need to hear it, and I think unless you say it, you’re going to be haunted for the rest of your life.” Nixon then replied that he had let down his friends and his country, “and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life.”
Application: Because of our disobedience we often do sit alone in a city once filled with people.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Leah Lonsbury
Words for Reflection
It is the combination of both power and love which makes a community workable and sustainable. It is the combination of power and love which Christians call the Spirit, and which empowers us to shape our common future for the good of all.
-- Anne Primavesi, Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year C (Westminster John Knox, 2003), p. 260
When things go badly in the kingdoms of this world, as invariably they do, given the callous insensibility that turns human beings away from their neighbors in preoccupation with their own troubles, or with dreams of aggrandizement -- in such bad moments, many people turn from God, saying, “How could God permit such bad things to happen?” Instead of becoming alienated from their faith in God, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to become alienated from their mislaid hopes in human beings, alienated from shallow notions of automatic progress, from sentimental notions about the “nobility of man”? Of course we should love and live for one another. Not, however, because you and I are so lovable, but simply because that’s the only way we are going to become lovable. Love one another, but “in God we trust.” You couldn’t come up with a phrase more suitable for the coin of a kingdom of this world than “In God we trust.”
-- William Sloane Coffin, Credo (Westminster John Knox, 2004), pp. 13-14
Call to Worship
(based on 2 Timothy 1:1-14)
One: Grace, mercy, and peace from the One who created and redeemed you.
All: We have gathered here in gratitude to worship God, to remember how to walk the way of faith, and to rekindle the gifts of God within us.
One: For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
All: So we will not be ashamed or discouraged. We will rely on the power of God.
One: For it is God who saves us and calls us with a holy calling, a purpose and grace made clear to us in the light of Christ Jesus who brings us and makes us Good News.
All: We put our trust in Jesus, in that Good News we are and are becoming through him.
One: We will hold to the faith and love we have been given.
All: For we have the help of the Holy Spirit living in us. Thanks be to God!
Gathering Prayer
(based on Luke 17:5-10)
Like the apostles, we want to shout to you, “Increase our faith!” But you have already empowered us to love and bless and change the world -- all through this tiny mustard seed of faith that lies within us and awaits our action. Show us how to feed and water that seed. Show us how to let your light unfold its potential and power as a leaf unfurls and a branch extends toward the sun. But most importantly, show us how to simply act, to command that seed to spring forth and to grow in might through the boldness of our acts of love and mercy in the world. This is what you expect of us. This is what you have created us to do and be. Make that clear to us in this time together and in each moment of our living. Amen.
OR
Creating God, Redeeming Word, Life-giving Spirit -- Loving One...
Draw us close with hearts ready to remember and recognize how your Spirit is calling us forth in love.
Surprise and challenge us by what faith can do if we are willing and ready to act.
Teach us to be your grace and mercy to a world in need
until we are one as you are One.
Amen.
Prayer of Confession
For the seed we have planted called “injustice,” that destroys the land and community, where some have so much and others have nothing, we pray --
Forgive us, O God.
For the seed we have planted called “conflict,” that ruins the earth and the lives of the many, so only weeping silence can fully tell the story, we pray --
Forgive us, O God.
For the seed we have planted called “imbalance,” that bears the fruit of frazzled lives in which Sabbath living is neglected and restoration is unknown, we pray --
Forgive us, O God.
For the seed we have planted called “prejudice,” that disfigures the beauty of your people through what we say and don’t say, what we do and don’t do, we pray --
Forgive us, O God.
For the seed we have planted called “mistrust,” that sells short the power of your love and the power of the Spirit at work within us, that stops our acts of compassion and courage before they even begin, we pray --
Forgive us, O God.
Assurance
God sees the whole of our lives -- the brokenness and the beauty.
God is always waiting for our return and holding out hope for the days ahead.
We are loved.
We are forgiven.
We are called to be one.
This is our challenge and our joy.
Thanks be to God.
Ideas for Time with Children
Lamentations 1:1-6 (could also work for Psalm 137)
This week’s passage from Lamentations is full of imagery that lends itself to a conversation with children. In it, God’s people are like?
a princess turned into a servant;
a scorned and lonely friend or lover;
an overwhelmed refugee;
or a ghost town;
because they have turned from God and God’s ways -- from their source of life.
Children’s books and movies are filled with these images and themes. The Backyardigans do a convincing ghost town, as does many a Scooby-Doo episode. The Lorax illustrates a fall from grace -- from health and well-being to destruction and emptiness. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe tells the story of four children displaced and bewildered by war. The land they enter has those feelings as well. Show a clip or some illustrations from one of these stories, and talk with the children about what it would feel like to be in one of these situations. Ask them when these same kinds of experiences and feelings show up in our own lives. Close by reminding the children that God always offers a way back, and is always inviting us to return to God and ways of living together that bring life. Ask them about how we return to God and God’s ways in our own lives.
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Briefly tell some of your own stories or your congregation’s stories of grandmothers and mothers (and grandfathers and fathers) of faith (or invite a church member to do so), and how that faith still lives in your life and/or life of the congregation. Include visuals if possible -- who made the communion table or designed a banner in the sanctuary? What legacy did they leave alongside their creations? Are there any pictures of the founders of your congregation? If you serve a fairly young congregation, are those founders still in the pews? What impact have they had? Do you have the Bible you received from Mrs. So-and-So in 3rd grade? Why do you hang onto it? What did it and does it communicate to you? Invite the children to share similar stories.
Luke 17:5-10
Use the “little seed of faith can do big things” idea to have a conversation about what kids can do through faithful acts and living. What big message does the little act of sitting next to the new or friendless kid at school send? How can a little hug or kind word make a big difference in someone’s day? How can the $5 we waste each week on things we don’t need make a big difference in someone’s life?
Prayers of the People
Creating God, we believe this world can be a place of hope: where power is shared; where all have clean water and enough to eat; where there is concern and action to secure freedom and justice for all people. We believe in your way of love and peace. Help our words, our actions, and our whole lives to be witnesses to your way.
Jesus, God in our midst, we believe this world can be a place of peace: where love triumphs over war; where people of different faiths live together in good will; where there is unity among neighbors. We believe in your way of love and peace. Open our hearts in generosity to each other and with receptivity to your connecting love.
Stirring Spirit, we believe this world can be a place of truth: where words of honesty are heard more often than words of propaganda or manipulation; where there is honor among those who govern; where integrity guides our daily lives. We believe in your way of love and peace. Move us in ways that create healthy, honest, and abundant lives for all your children.
Creating God; Jesus, God in our midst; Stirring Spirit; you show us how to live in loving community. We believe we can be a reflection of your community here in this place and throughout our world. God of Love, hear our prayers to this end. We offer you now our silence and all those concerns and celebrations that lie quietly within us. We offer you ourselves and open our hearts to your presence. Come and fill us with your love.
(Silence)
As one family, one Body, we cry and mourn together. We laugh and celebrate together, and we know that you hold us in our crying and mourning, our laughing and celebrating. And so, in trust, in love, and in hope, we offer our prayers to you...
(Share the gathered prayers of the community)
We lift these prayers to you, knowing that a small act of faith can issue in dramatic and surprising results. We join our voices now with the one who was and is faithful in the small and the big things, Jesus...
(All join in the Lord’s Prayer)
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Blessed and blessing God, we bring you these gifts in hopes that something great will grow from the small seeds of faithfulness we sow. May they grow in your love and our action to shade, shelter, and shore up the exposed and vulnerable, the oppressed and the broken-down, the broken-hearted and the hopeless. Continue to show us how to be faithful in how we live and in what we share. Through your love and light, may the whole of our living be an offering, a glimpse of your vision and unending grace. Amen.
Hymn Suggestions
“We Are Your People”
“We Plant a Grain of Mustard Seed”
“Like a Mother Who Has Borne Us”
“I Will Trust in the Lord”
“God of Our Life”
“All My Hope on God Is Founded”
“Forgive Us Now”
“Why Do We Listen and Fail to Hear?”
“By Gracious Powers So Wonderfully Sheltered”
“Beside the Streams of Babylon” (Iona- Bell)
“By the Rivers of Babylon”
“Lord, Hear My Praying, Listen to Me” (Sorrowing Song)
“How Long Must We Cry Out?”
“Inspired By Love and Anger”
“Remember We Are Your People”
“Let Us Hope When Hope Seems Hopeless”
“God Has Not Given Us a Spirit of Fear”
“There’s a Spirit in the Air”
“Faith Will Not Grow from Words Alone”
“Here In This Place New Light Is Streaming”
“Faith Like a Mustard Seed”
“You Are the Seed”
“The Kingdom of God” (Taizé)
CHILDREN’S SERMON
But My Faith Is So Tiny!
Luke 17:5-10
Object: a mustard seed
What does it mean to have faith in something? It’s when you have a confident belief in something -- it’s kind of like trusting. I know a chair will most likely hold me up if I sit down in it. I have faith in the chair. It’s really pretty easy to believe, because I’ve sat in a lot of chairs before. I also think I know how chairs work, so that helps too. I have big faith in chairs.
Now, let me think of something a little harder to believe. I know: I have faith that the sun will rise and set each day. Even though I don’t know exactly how that happens, it’s been true all my life. There hasn’t yet been a day when the sun hasn’t risen and set. My faith in the sun isn’t as big as my faith in chairs, but my faith is still pretty big.
What about something that’s much harder to believe? It’s pretty hard for me to believe that Jesus came back from the dead. I don’t know how that could happen. I’ve certainly never seen something like that happen before. It’s also hard for me to have faith that God can do a miracle and heal someone who’s really sick. I’ve heard that it happens, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it. When it comes to sickness and death, I’d have to say that my faith is pretty small. It’s probably about the size of this mustard seed. (hold up the seed for all to see)
But in today’s lesson Jesus tells us that a faith this size is all we need. We just need to have some faith -- it doesn’t matter if our faith is huge or tiny. We just need some. He’ll take care of the rest. Sometimes we just have to believe God even when it doesn’t make sense to us. There are some things God knows that we will never understand. I guess that’s why he is God and we aren’t! Our job is to pray, to ask God for help, and to believe that he can handle whatever comes our way.
Prayer: God, sometimes it’s so hard to have faith! Help us trust you and have faith in all you say. You can do anything! Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 6, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
