A Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas
December 30, 2007
Pastor Laura Gentry
Matthew 2:13-23
Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more." When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean.”(NRSV)
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Today, the first Sunday after Christmas, we hear the Gospel lesson known as the flight to Egypt—how the Holy Family had to leave Bethlehem to protect the Christ child. Now this reminds me of the story about the pastor who visited the Sunday school class and saw all the children’s art work up on the wall. The pastor could tell that each one depicteda Biblical scene and he went through and tried to determine what each one was. There was one with a barn and a man and a woman. It was obvious that this was Joseph, Mary, and Jesus at the manger. Another had sheep, men, and angels in the sky. The shepherd scene, he concluded. Another had a caravan with camels and a star in the sky—the wise men seeking the Christ child. They were all quite obvious.
But one puzzled him. It was an airplane with three figures going up the steps boarding the plane and one other figure in the cockpit. He thought and thought until he had to ask what it meant. The young artist spoke up, "It's Jesus' flight to Egypt." Ok said the pastor but who is that up in the cockpit? "Oh, That's Pontius the pilot."
Most of us have finished our Christmas celebrations. This is often a joyous time of year—a time of family, festive meals, gifts, carols and general merriment—certainly not a time of wailing and death. We prefer to rejoice in the birth of Jesus, rather than dwell upon suffering. But Jesus did not come into the safe and joyous setting we see in the art of our Christmas cards. In taking on human flesh, he was subjecting himself to the same risks humans face. Already as an infant, Jesus finds himself in great danger.
The today’s reading from the gospel according to Matthew, we hear how God again directed Joseph through dreams—this time, to protect his family. In the first dream, the Lord warned Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. And so Jesus is, thus, spared from an infant death. Others will not be, however. Wailing and loud lamentation are heard as all the children two and under are slaughtered. Scholars estimate that since Bethlehem was a small town, perhaps twenty to thirty children were killed. This event fulfills Jeremiah’s prophesy of Rachel’s lamentation. Jeremiah was referring to Rachel’s sorrow over her descendent being led away from the promised land in the Babylonian exile of 587 B.C. Now, as Matthew uses this prophesy, Rachel’s voice—the voice of Israel’s history—now symbolizes the anguish of these mothers whose children have been lost to the evils of Herod. Rachel’s voice carries with it the all the sorrowful weeping of the world, a world that intimately knows suffering and death.
There has been much art work done of this event, known as the “slaughter of the innocents.” Artists have tried their best to visually portray what this biblical passage presents—the brutal murder of all the babies in Bethlehem. Perhaps even the most masterful artistic depictions, however, fall short of capturing the true horror of this event. It must have been virtually unimaginable.
And yet the slaughter of the innocents wasn’t the worst thing Herod did. When he came to the throne, he assassinated the whole Sanhedrin, the supreme court of the Jews. Later, he slaughtered three hundred court officers out of hand. He murdered his wife, Mariamne, and her mother, Alexandra, his eldest son Antipater, and two other sons, Alexander and Aristobulus. Even in the hour of his death, he arranged for the slaughter of the notable men of Jerusalem. This was one seriously bad guy—no wonder he wouldn’t stand by and accept the news that a child had been born who was prophesied to be king.
What kind of place has the savior been born into? Is this really the world God has chosen to save? How can it possibly be that this world of callous ambition is the one that God loves so passionately? And why does Matthew have to ruin the beauty of the Christmas story by telling this terrible tale right after the tranquil description of Christ’s birth? This story presents more questions than it does answers.
Then moving on in the scripture lesson, Joseph has a second dream, which tells them that they can return to the land of Israel because Herod has died. Historians tell us Herod’s death happened in 4 B.C. Then, in a third dream Joseph is warned to settle in Galilee rather than in Judea, because Archelaus, the son of Herod, is king of Judea. In every case Joseph follows the Lord's guidance and keeps his family safe. These moves also fulfilled what had been predicted about Jesus by the prophets.
Yet, as I have said, it is strange that the son of God would suffer so much from the very beginning. We’re still singing the Christmas carols in church and Jesus and his family are already on the run. Surely Jesus was what Isaiah prophesied: a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief.
This reminds me of Dr. John Rosen, a psychiatrist in New York City. He is very well known For his work with catatonic schizophrenics. Normally doctors remain separate and aloof from their patients. Dr. Rosen moves into the ward with them. He actually places his bed among their beds. He lives the life they must live. Day-to-day, he shares it. He loves them. if they don’t talk, he doesn’t talk either. It is as if he understands what is happening. His being there, being with them, communicates something that they haven’t experienced in years—somebody understands them.
But then he does something else. He puts his arms around them and hugs them. He holds these unattractive, unlovable, marginalized people and loves them back into life. Often, the first words they speak are simply, "Thank you."
Christ came into a world of sorrow, suffering and danger—he literally moved into our “ward.” He placed his bed among our beds. He felt the pain of human life—even from the very beginning. He walked with the blind and the lame, he talked with the outcasts. And he stood before Pilate and said nothing in his own defense when he was accused and sentenced to death. Then, he went to the cross and rose from the dead for us. He endured all this in order to love us back to life.
And so this scripture demonstrates that Jesus is here not merely to rejoice with us. He is here not merely to commiserate. He is here to save, to call us into life, and to be irrevocably God-with-us, emmanuael. This Christmas, may we live in the reality of this glorious, good news!
Let us pray:
Oh Holy Child, we praise you that you chose to enter into our world of violence, hatred, and danger—to suffer the things which humans suffer in order to triumph over them. Allow our hearts to embrace you fully, as the God-become-flesh, who has come to save us, to call us to life and to be God with us. Amen.
Now, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
WHAT TO DO WITH A BLESSING
A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 23, 2007
Pastor Laura Gentry
Luke 1:47-55
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”(NRSV)
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
This morning, we have come to the fourth Sunday in Advent. Our Advent wreath is all aglow, save the Christ candle in the middle for Christmas eve. It’s light symbolizes how the light of Christ is coming into our world, into our darkness.
We are no stranger to this world’s darkness, are we? The darkness is all around us. It is so obvious this time of year in the over commercialism of the season. I made the mistake of trying to do a wee bit of shopping yesterday and nearly got trompled by the zealous shoppers. I heard on the radio that the number one stress of the Christmas season is finances. Instead of focusing our hearts on the coming Christ child, we worry about how we’re going to pay off the credit card bills incured in the shopping madness.
The second biggest stress of the season, I heard, is grief. People think about the loved ones they have lost and how Christmas just isn’t the same without them. Many people become overwhelmed with loneliness this time of year.
And the carols that fill the air sing of peace on earth, goodwill to all. Yet we look around and say: where is it? Where is the peace? Another Christmas and the military personelle in Iraq and Afghanistan won’t be spending it with their families. The people of the Middle East—on both sides of the conflict—have to live in fear and the constant reality of war. According to WikiPedia—the online encyclopedia, which people from around the world update regularly—there are 30 ongoing wars in the world right now, the oldest of which began in 1948.
With all of these things on top of whatever burdens we’re already bearing, it doesn’t necessarily make us feel in the Christmas Spirit, does it? Quite a few people have mentioned that to me this year. We just can’t seem to get into the Christmas Spirit, they say. We talk of Christmas being a blessing to all of us—that we are blessed with the gift of the Christ child. But how do we rejoice in this gift when we don’t feel like rejoicing?
But what does blessing really mean? Most of us understand blessing, at least on the surface, to be God answering our prayers with what we asked for, and of course we prefer the answers to be given in a timely manner. That’s what we want blessing to be. We pray to God for something, and POOF! Somehow, some way, God provides it, just like we wanted. It’s almost like we want God to be like a big cosmic Santa Claus who rides by on his sleigh showering all the good little Christians with goodies. After all, we’d like to think we’re on God’s “nice” list and so why shouldn’t we be blessed like that?
Yet if we dig into our Gospel text for today, we get a different sense of what blessing is. Mary, the mother of our savior is—we dare not forget—an unmarried pregnant teenager. She didn’t ask God for this. She never prayed to God to get pregnant and bear the Messiah. God chose this for her. This predicament could have gotten her stoned to death. That was the law of her time, and if her fiancé, Joseph, had not believe her angel story and turned her in to the religious authorities, she would have died for what would have been perceived as her sin.
Maybe that’s why she got it out of town so quickly. She went to spend time with her relative Elizabeth. Her older, wiser family member, who also shared an unexpected pregnancy by the word of God. Maybe together they could come to figure out how in the world to deal with being a “blessed women.” Maybe Elizabeth could help her put this blessing into perspective and perhaps even help her appreciate it.
Now Elizabeth’s blessing wasn’t exactly what we’d expect a blessing to be, either. Yes, God had answered her prayers—finally! From the time she’d gotten married, she had been praying for a child. She even promised to give the child back to God for service in the Temple, if only God would grant her a child. But the years went by and no pregnancies ever happened. Elizabeth must have felt that God was not going to answer her prayers. She must have gotten used to God’s painful silence. And then suddenly, when she was way to old to get excited about a prenancy, she finds herself pregnant. Like Sarah, she found herself in a position of dealing with a blessing that was way too long overdue. So Elizabeth, like Mary, has to cope with an unplanned blessing.
The angel Gabriel said to Mary, “Do not be afraid; you will have joy and gladness; you have found favor with God. For nothing will be impossible for God.”
Stunned by the angelic visitation, stunned by the impossible message spoken by Gabriel; stunned by the absurdity of their predicaments, no doubt Mary and Elizabeth asked what it means to be “blessed.” How can something be a blessing when it raises more questions than it answers? How do you live with a blessing that creates more problems than it solves? Mary and Elizabeth, no doubt, felt contradictory emotions. Pregnancy alone does that to women. But the strangeness of their pregnancies surely flooded them with expectations and apprehension; happiness and depression; confidence and nagging insecurities; hopes and fears. Elizabeth was old enough and wise enough to know (as Luke writes in Ch. 12), those “to whom much is given, much is required.” Together, these two women grappled with the irony of being blessed by God: namely, that behind every blessing there is burden.
Both these women were to learn that the sons they were blessed with, were not their own. Both their sons gave up their lives, literally, in service to God. Both mothers suffered the unimaginable and unspeakable horror of having their sons murdered; Mary, we’re told, witnessed her son’s brutal execution. This is the burden on the other side of blessing.
The blessings these women received had two sides: joy and burden. They had been given much, and much was required of them. For them, the meaning of God’s blessing had much more depth than a “Santa Claus” idea of God tossing happy blessings at us. God’s activity in human lives always is surprising; turning up where we’d least expect it; where we’d never think to look for it. God turns the world upside down, making us think again about what’s important, what’s real, what’s valuable.
So here is the interesting thing: if God’s blessings are two-sided (both joy and burden, requiring much from those to whom they are given) then perhaps the opposite is also true: those burdens that come our way in life have the hidden and surprising potential of becoming blessing. If we struggle with our burdens and refuse to let go of them until we receive a blessing, perhaps our upside-down God will turn our burdens over, in God’s time, and bring good out of them.
I think this is what St. Paul was trying to get at when he wrote, to the Thessalonian church, “rejoice always; pray without ceasing; give thanks in all circumstances.” And to the Roman church: “All things work together for good for those who love God.” This reminds me of a poem by Jan L. Richardson from her book "Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas":
With each of our breakings you break,
and with each of our woundings your own wounds grow deeper.
Yet you hold the pieces together
till we learn to make the new connections,
and you guard each throbbing wound
till we have had enough of pain.
You remind us that it is our delight you seek, not our suffering.
And you tell us it is not the wounds that give us life,
but the tending of them in each other.
And you say it is not the breaking that makes us whole
but the mending of the pieces that brings us life anew.
As the season of Advent comes to a close, we prepare our hearts to receive the blessing of the Christ child. God has blessed us richly in this shocking birth of low estate, turning the world upside down. We must open our eyes and ears to look for God being borne in unexpected places. What is required of us is that we open our hearts and arms to receive the both the burden that comes along with our blessings as well as the blessing that comes along with burdens, laying them all, as Mary and Elizabeth did, in the hands of God.
Now, may the peace of God, which passes all understand, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
December 23, 2007
Pastor Laura Gentry
Luke 1:47-55
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”(NRSV)
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
This morning, we have come to the fourth Sunday in Advent. Our Advent wreath is all aglow, save the Christ candle in the middle for Christmas eve. It’s light symbolizes how the light of Christ is coming into our world, into our darkness.
We are no stranger to this world’s darkness, are we? The darkness is all around us. It is so obvious this time of year in the over commercialism of the season. I made the mistake of trying to do a wee bit of shopping yesterday and nearly got trompled by the zealous shoppers. I heard on the radio that the number one stress of the Christmas season is finances. Instead of focusing our hearts on the coming Christ child, we worry about how we’re going to pay off the credit card bills incured in the shopping madness.
The second biggest stress of the season, I heard, is grief. People think about the loved ones they have lost and how Christmas just isn’t the same without them. Many people become overwhelmed with loneliness this time of year.
And the carols that fill the air sing of peace on earth, goodwill to all. Yet we look around and say: where is it? Where is the peace? Another Christmas and the military personelle in Iraq and Afghanistan won’t be spending it with their families. The people of the Middle East—on both sides of the conflict—have to live in fear and the constant reality of war. According to WikiPedia—the online encyclopedia, which people from around the world update regularly—there are 30 ongoing wars in the world right now, the oldest of which began in 1948.
With all of these things on top of whatever burdens we’re already bearing, it doesn’t necessarily make us feel in the Christmas Spirit, does it? Quite a few people have mentioned that to me this year. We just can’t seem to get into the Christmas Spirit, they say. We talk of Christmas being a blessing to all of us—that we are blessed with the gift of the Christ child. But how do we rejoice in this gift when we don’t feel like rejoicing?
But what does blessing really mean? Most of us understand blessing, at least on the surface, to be God answering our prayers with what we asked for, and of course we prefer the answers to be given in a timely manner. That’s what we want blessing to be. We pray to God for something, and POOF! Somehow, some way, God provides it, just like we wanted. It’s almost like we want God to be like a big cosmic Santa Claus who rides by on his sleigh showering all the good little Christians with goodies. After all, we’d like to think we’re on God’s “nice” list and so why shouldn’t we be blessed like that?
Yet if we dig into our Gospel text for today, we get a different sense of what blessing is. Mary, the mother of our savior is—we dare not forget—an unmarried pregnant teenager. She didn’t ask God for this. She never prayed to God to get pregnant and bear the Messiah. God chose this for her. This predicament could have gotten her stoned to death. That was the law of her time, and if her fiancé, Joseph, had not believe her angel story and turned her in to the religious authorities, she would have died for what would have been perceived as her sin.
Maybe that’s why she got it out of town so quickly. She went to spend time with her relative Elizabeth. Her older, wiser family member, who also shared an unexpected pregnancy by the word of God. Maybe together they could come to figure out how in the world to deal with being a “blessed women.” Maybe Elizabeth could help her put this blessing into perspective and perhaps even help her appreciate it.
Now Elizabeth’s blessing wasn’t exactly what we’d expect a blessing to be, either. Yes, God had answered her prayers—finally! From the time she’d gotten married, she had been praying for a child. She even promised to give the child back to God for service in the Temple, if only God would grant her a child. But the years went by and no pregnancies ever happened. Elizabeth must have felt that God was not going to answer her prayers. She must have gotten used to God’s painful silence. And then suddenly, when she was way to old to get excited about a prenancy, she finds herself pregnant. Like Sarah, she found herself in a position of dealing with a blessing that was way too long overdue. So Elizabeth, like Mary, has to cope with an unplanned blessing.
The angel Gabriel said to Mary, “Do not be afraid; you will have joy and gladness; you have found favor with God. For nothing will be impossible for God.”
Stunned by the angelic visitation, stunned by the impossible message spoken by Gabriel; stunned by the absurdity of their predicaments, no doubt Mary and Elizabeth asked what it means to be “blessed.” How can something be a blessing when it raises more questions than it answers? How do you live with a blessing that creates more problems than it solves? Mary and Elizabeth, no doubt, felt contradictory emotions. Pregnancy alone does that to women. But the strangeness of their pregnancies surely flooded them with expectations and apprehension; happiness and depression; confidence and nagging insecurities; hopes and fears. Elizabeth was old enough and wise enough to know (as Luke writes in Ch. 12), those “to whom much is given, much is required.” Together, these two women grappled with the irony of being blessed by God: namely, that behind every blessing there is burden.
Both these women were to learn that the sons they were blessed with, were not their own. Both their sons gave up their lives, literally, in service to God. Both mothers suffered the unimaginable and unspeakable horror of having their sons murdered; Mary, we’re told, witnessed her son’s brutal execution. This is the burden on the other side of blessing.
The blessings these women received had two sides: joy and burden. They had been given much, and much was required of them. For them, the meaning of God’s blessing had much more depth than a “Santa Claus” idea of God tossing happy blessings at us. God’s activity in human lives always is surprising; turning up where we’d least expect it; where we’d never think to look for it. God turns the world upside down, making us think again about what’s important, what’s real, what’s valuable.
So here is the interesting thing: if God’s blessings are two-sided (both joy and burden, requiring much from those to whom they are given) then perhaps the opposite is also true: those burdens that come our way in life have the hidden and surprising potential of becoming blessing. If we struggle with our burdens and refuse to let go of them until we receive a blessing, perhaps our upside-down God will turn our burdens over, in God’s time, and bring good out of them.
I think this is what St. Paul was trying to get at when he wrote, to the Thessalonian church, “rejoice always; pray without ceasing; give thanks in all circumstances.” And to the Roman church: “All things work together for good for those who love God.” This reminds me of a poem by Jan L. Richardson from her book "Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas":
With each of our breakings you break,
and with each of our woundings your own wounds grow deeper.
Yet you hold the pieces together
till we learn to make the new connections,
and you guard each throbbing wound
till we have had enough of pain.
You remind us that it is our delight you seek, not our suffering.
And you tell us it is not the wounds that give us life,
but the tending of them in each other.
And you say it is not the breaking that makes us whole
but the mending of the pieces that brings us life anew.
As the season of Advent comes to a close, we prepare our hearts to receive the blessing of the Christ child. God has blessed us richly in this shocking birth of low estate, turning the world upside down. We must open our eyes and ears to look for God being borne in unexpected places. What is required of us is that we open our hearts and arms to receive the both the burden that comes along with our blessings as well as the blessing that comes along with burdens, laying them all, as Mary and Elizabeth did, in the hands of God.
Now, may the peace of God, which passes all understand, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
Sunday, December 16, 2007
THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER
On Sunday, December 16th at the 9:00 a.m. worship service, the Sunday school students of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Lansing presented their annual Christmas program. This year, they acted out the story of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. This is a touching tale, which demonstrates that all of us—even the most hard-hearted with all of the mistakes of our past—can be affected and find renewal in the message of Christmas.
The program was directed by Susan Libke and Pastor Laura Gentry. A solo of “O Come, Little Children” was sung by Samantha Rosas and the entire group sang 5 other songs. Kai Timmerman was baby Jesus 3 years ago and this year, he graduated to the status of an angel.
Pictured are: (back row) Ethan Libke, Matt Endres, Samantha Rosas, Shawna Erickson, (middle row as Mary and Joseph) Mason Libke and Jazmine Rathbun, (around the manger) Emilio Rathbun, Caelin Peters, Kai Timmerman, MaKaya Peters and Shaun Peters
Sunday, December 9, 2007
THE COMING KINGDOM
A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent
December 9, 2006
Pastor Laura Gentry
Isaiah 11:1-10
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Every single Sunday as we worship, we pray the Lord’s prayer. And every time we say it, we recite the lines:
"Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven..."
We ask for God’s kingdom to come here. Now. We know that God is love. Where God is, there is hope and life. There is only light with God—there is no darkness at all. In this light, there is peace for all, just as it is in heaven.
And so we pray urgently for this kingdom to come. We know that when this ultimately happens, all that is wrong will be made right. There will not be random violent shootings like the one in the Nebraska mall last week. Injustice will be a thing of the past. There will be no more spam e-mails tricking vulnerable people into making bogus investments. No one would take advantage of the poor and dispossessed. There would not be a third world or even first world—we one world, united for the good of all God’s people.
In this season of Advent, during the darkest time of the calendar year, we light candles on the wreath to show that we still have hope. We have hope in our hearts that this world’s darkness will give way to God’s glorious light. We long for God’s kingdom to come and we believe that it IS coming!
Today, we heard the voice of John the Baptist in our Gospel reading. He comes with boldness, even rudeness, proclaiming that we all must repent of our ways. We have not been working for God’s kingdom to come as we ought. We have turned away from the hope our faith gives to us and instead embraced hopelessness. This cannot go on! The voice of the Baptizer rings down through the years and calls us again to repent for the kingdom of God is near. Though this is a demanding call, it is an exciting one. It is good news that the kingdom is near and we should be prepared to do anything necessary in order to hasten it.
We also heard from the prophet Isaiah in our Advent scriptures today. He paints a beautiful picture of the peace that Christ brings. Listen once again to the poetry of his words and and let the marvelous implications of the scene speak to your heart and mind:
The wolf shall live with the lamb...
the leopard shall lie down with the kid...
the calf and the lion
and the fatling together...
and a little child shall lead them.
The wolf is a terrifying, mortal enemy of the lamb. The lamb is no match for the wolf. A lamb could never escape the brute power of the leopard and a lion would destroy a calf in no time at all. The thought of a child at the center of these images is horrifying. A child is vulnerable and innocent. How fascinating that there is a child in the center of all this danger, providing the leadership.
And Jesus came to fulfill the prophesy—coming as a little baby, weak like you and me. He came as a child to show us the way and to lead us toward that kingdom God desires, where lion and lamb can lay down together in peace.
Jesus said that if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must be like children. I think this means that our inner child is called upon in the business of faith. We must open our hearts as children do to believe—to really believe—that a better world is possible. We are challenged to cast aside our jaded notions, our negative ideas like “there’s always been war, there always will be war, that’s just how it is.” No, we are called upon to use our childlike hopefulness and place our trust in the Christ child.
As we continue our journey through these days of preparation for the celebration of the coming of the babe of Bethlehem, our hearts, along with the hearts of God's people of every time and place long for the time when God will make all things right. We are joined in hope and expectation for the time Isaiah's words express the voice of God, "They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
But here is the catch: We have gathered here today not just to long for the coming of the kingdom of God, not simply to pray for the coming of that kingdom not just to sing the great Advent hymns about that fabulous kingdom to come, we are called to work for it’s appearance. We are the children of God and therefore ambassadors from that kingdom. We live here in this broken world, but our real citizenship is in the kingdom. We must heed John’s call to repentance so that we can turn ourselves around and get busy with the work of turning the world around. That’s our God-given responsibility.
Until Christ comes again to bring about a new and righteous world, we are those who have by faith embraced his coming as the child of Bethlehem and have been formed into the world's visible reminder of the kingdom of God: the Church, the Body of Christ in the world.
We are waiting today for the celebration of the child of Bethlehem. And as the church we wait with Christ to celebrate that day when, as Isaiah prophesied, "The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child will put his hand into the viper's nest." Advent and Christmas are for us, the promise of that God's kingdom will come indeed!
And now, may the peace which passes all understanding keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
December 9, 2006
Pastor Laura Gentry
Isaiah 11:1-10
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Every single Sunday as we worship, we pray the Lord’s prayer. And every time we say it, we recite the lines:
"Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven..."
We ask for God’s kingdom to come here. Now. We know that God is love. Where God is, there is hope and life. There is only light with God—there is no darkness at all. In this light, there is peace for all, just as it is in heaven.
And so we pray urgently for this kingdom to come. We know that when this ultimately happens, all that is wrong will be made right. There will not be random violent shootings like the one in the Nebraska mall last week. Injustice will be a thing of the past. There will be no more spam e-mails tricking vulnerable people into making bogus investments. No one would take advantage of the poor and dispossessed. There would not be a third world or even first world—we one world, united for the good of all God’s people.
In this season of Advent, during the darkest time of the calendar year, we light candles on the wreath to show that we still have hope. We have hope in our hearts that this world’s darkness will give way to God’s glorious light. We long for God’s kingdom to come and we believe that it IS coming!
Today, we heard the voice of John the Baptist in our Gospel reading. He comes with boldness, even rudeness, proclaiming that we all must repent of our ways. We have not been working for God’s kingdom to come as we ought. We have turned away from the hope our faith gives to us and instead embraced hopelessness. This cannot go on! The voice of the Baptizer rings down through the years and calls us again to repent for the kingdom of God is near. Though this is a demanding call, it is an exciting one. It is good news that the kingdom is near and we should be prepared to do anything necessary in order to hasten it.
We also heard from the prophet Isaiah in our Advent scriptures today. He paints a beautiful picture of the peace that Christ brings. Listen once again to the poetry of his words and and let the marvelous implications of the scene speak to your heart and mind:
The wolf shall live with the lamb...
the leopard shall lie down with the kid...
the calf and the lion
and the fatling together...
and a little child shall lead them.
The wolf is a terrifying, mortal enemy of the lamb. The lamb is no match for the wolf. A lamb could never escape the brute power of the leopard and a lion would destroy a calf in no time at all. The thought of a child at the center of these images is horrifying. A child is vulnerable and innocent. How fascinating that there is a child in the center of all this danger, providing the leadership.
And Jesus came to fulfill the prophesy—coming as a little baby, weak like you and me. He came as a child to show us the way and to lead us toward that kingdom God desires, where lion and lamb can lay down together in peace.
Jesus said that if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must be like children. I think this means that our inner child is called upon in the business of faith. We must open our hearts as children do to believe—to really believe—that a better world is possible. We are challenged to cast aside our jaded notions, our negative ideas like “there’s always been war, there always will be war, that’s just how it is.” No, we are called upon to use our childlike hopefulness and place our trust in the Christ child.
As we continue our journey through these days of preparation for the celebration of the coming of the babe of Bethlehem, our hearts, along with the hearts of God's people of every time and place long for the time when God will make all things right. We are joined in hope and expectation for the time Isaiah's words express the voice of God, "They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
But here is the catch: We have gathered here today not just to long for the coming of the kingdom of God, not simply to pray for the coming of that kingdom not just to sing the great Advent hymns about that fabulous kingdom to come, we are called to work for it’s appearance. We are the children of God and therefore ambassadors from that kingdom. We live here in this broken world, but our real citizenship is in the kingdom. We must heed John’s call to repentance so that we can turn ourselves around and get busy with the work of turning the world around. That’s our God-given responsibility.
Until Christ comes again to bring about a new and righteous world, we are those who have by faith embraced his coming as the child of Bethlehem and have been formed into the world's visible reminder of the kingdom of God: the Church, the Body of Christ in the world.
We are waiting today for the celebration of the child of Bethlehem. And as the church we wait with Christ to celebrate that day when, as Isaiah prophesied, "The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child will put his hand into the viper's nest." Advent and Christmas are for us, the promise of that God's kingdom will come indeed!
And now, may the peace which passes all understanding keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
THE GRATITUDE JOURNAL
A Sermon for Thanksgiving Eve
November 21, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry
Luke 17:11-19
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” (NRSV)
Ah yes, on Thanksgiving Eve, it is fitting to hear the story of the ten lepers and how they responded to God’s gift. In this story is a powerful, timeless message about gratitude that can enhance our Thanksgiving holiday and our whole lives if we are open to receive it.
Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? Here we have ten people with leprosy, a terrible skin disease that causes limbs and digits to lose their circulation, deteriorate, decay and eventually fall off. Not a pretty picture, is it? What a terrible situation it would be to have this communicable disease! Not only would you experience the physical pain, but you’d also have the social stigma of being declared “unclean” and made to live outside the city along the Samaritan/Galilean border. Here, you would not only find Israelite lepers, but Samaritan ones as well, who were even more hated because they did not share the same religious values and they were of mixed heritage—and this was considered against God’s law. So in this story, Jesus is stumbling upon a group of people who are hurting, both physically and socially—abandoned by everyone they love.
And what does Jesus do with these ugly, limb-losing outcasts? Did he run away from them like everyone else did? That would be the logical thing to do. I mean, who wants to catch leprosy?
No, Jesus doesn’t follow the rules. He breaks them by coming into contact with the lepers. He breaks the rule of staying away from lepers AND he breaks the rule of staying away from Samaritans. In fact, by just speaking with them, Jesus goes against his entire tradition. His actions declare that ritual and ceremonial laws are not important issues before God. Jesus is demonstrating that God accepts each and every person, regardless of their situation, and invites us all into a relationship—a community of people in which compassion comes ahead of tradition. By healing them, Jesus pours God’s unmerited grace upon them. It must have been overwhelming for them.
But what happens to them when they see that their skin is restored and they are no longer plagued with leprosy? Doesn’t it make sense to go thank the guy who healed them, who gave them back their lives? At the very least, my mother would say, they should have send a thank you note!
What happened to nine of them, we’ll never know. They might have been so excited to be healed that they ran off to be reunited with their families and communities. All that this scripture tell us is that they didn’t bother to give thanks. They were given a miraculous gift of grace and they ran off with their gifts without so much as a thank you.
Ah, but one did. One man came back. He came back praising God with a loud voice. In my mind’s eye, he was also dancing—showing his thankfulness with great exuberance! Then, he prostrates himself before Jesus. This means he lays all the way down with his face in the dirt to show humility and gratitude. What an amazing display of thanksgiving!
Then, the gospel writer throws in this little zinger: “He was a Samaritan.” The guy an ancient audience would have voted least likely to succeed is the one who does succeed in thanking God. Who would ‘a thunk it? The one Samaritan in the bunch was the only one who came back to give thanks.
Jesus acknowledges this man and tells him “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” Your faith has made you well. So that must mean that giving thanks has something to do with faith and that the two of them together bring about wellness. The moral of the story, it seems, then, is that thankfulness is good for you.
Tomorrow, our country celebrates the national holiday of Thanksgiving. We have developed a tradition of thankfulness and feasting based upon the early European Pilgrims and their gratefulness for their survival in the new land of America, and for the kind hospitality of the natives. What the Pilgrims have given us is an awareness of how gratitude forms the basis of community and life.
Elie Wiesel, an award-winning author who survived the Holocaust, said, “when a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.” Sounds pretty important, doesn’t it? But how can we find gratitude? how can we develop thankfulness? How can we be like that one leper and like the early Pilgrims who found a way to be truly grateful for the grace of God?
Gratitude, scientists tell us, is hard to hold on to over time. We can start out feeling very thankful for something and then it dissipates like the morning dew. Members of a newlywed couple, for example, may start out really delighted with one another, infinitely grateful for one another. And then within a few years, they do nothing but grumble and complain about the other—as if they were not a blessing to one another but just another burden.
This is bad news. We need gratitude and we need it to last. You see, science proves Jesus right by demonstrating that gratitude is good for us. It is essential for a happy life. In research done by Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough, those who kept a daily gratitude journal experienced higher levels of emotional and physical well-being.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been writing a lot of newsletter articles on gratitude recently. That’s because I keep discovering the amazing power of gratitude in my own life.
In a book by Tal Ben-Shahar called Happier, I read about a gratitude assignment and decided to test it out on myself. Ben-Shahar explained that you should get a notebook to be your gratitude journal and at the end of each day, reflect back upon the day’s events and write down five things for which you feel grateful. They can be anything big or small: a meaningful conversation, an important task accomplished, a good meal. It doesn’t matter what you write, just do it—every day. Five things and as you write them down, think about them and bring to mind the positive emotions associated with those things or events. It only takes 30 days to form a new habit so in a month, you can cultivate a stronger attitude of gratitude.
I am happy to report that it worked on me! I’ve always considered myself to be a thankful person and I give God thanks daily but this exercise really did make me more grateful. It makes my mind more alert to things for which to give thanks. In my down time, like as I’m driving home, I automatically begin thinking about what I’ll write in my gratitude journal and I don’t just think of five things, I usually think of at least 25. Still, I only write down 5 things a day and it takes less than 5 minutes to do at bedtime. I keep my little journal and pen right on the night stand so I won’t forget. It is extremely easy to do.
I got so excited about this exercise and the dramatic effects that it has, that I went out and got you each a gratitude journal! That’s right. We’re going to hand them out right now. I would like you to open to the first page and write the date at the top. Today is 11-21-07. Now quickly call to mind five things for which you are thankful and write them down so that they all fit on one page. When you’ve finished, turn to the next page and write down 11-22-07. Tomorrow night, I want you to write down five more things. Congratulations, you have just started a gratitude journal! And believe me, I AM going to be checking in with you to see that you continue this practice. I am eagerly anticipating your stories as you see what cultivating a deeper sense of gratitude will do for you.
This Thanksgiving, I’m here to tell you, we cannot afford to miss being thankful. Our hearts need gratitude—it is good for what ails us. Jesus knew this, the Samaritan leper knew this, the Pilgrims knew this and scientists know this. The question is do we want to miss out like the nine lepers or do we want to praise God with a loud voice and know that joy of being thankful for the grace bestowed upon us? It is my prayer that these little gratitude journals in your hands will be a spiritual tool to put you on the thankfulness track that you will cultivate a deeper attitude of gratitude that will transform you and those around you—not just this Thanksgiving, but always.
And now, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
November 21, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry
Luke 17:11-19
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” (NRSV)
Ah yes, on Thanksgiving Eve, it is fitting to hear the story of the ten lepers and how they responded to God’s gift. In this story is a powerful, timeless message about gratitude that can enhance our Thanksgiving holiday and our whole lives if we are open to receive it.
Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? Here we have ten people with leprosy, a terrible skin disease that causes limbs and digits to lose their circulation, deteriorate, decay and eventually fall off. Not a pretty picture, is it? What a terrible situation it would be to have this communicable disease! Not only would you experience the physical pain, but you’d also have the social stigma of being declared “unclean” and made to live outside the city along the Samaritan/Galilean border. Here, you would not only find Israelite lepers, but Samaritan ones as well, who were even more hated because they did not share the same religious values and they were of mixed heritage—and this was considered against God’s law. So in this story, Jesus is stumbling upon a group of people who are hurting, both physically and socially—abandoned by everyone they love.
And what does Jesus do with these ugly, limb-losing outcasts? Did he run away from them like everyone else did? That would be the logical thing to do. I mean, who wants to catch leprosy?
No, Jesus doesn’t follow the rules. He breaks them by coming into contact with the lepers. He breaks the rule of staying away from lepers AND he breaks the rule of staying away from Samaritans. In fact, by just speaking with them, Jesus goes against his entire tradition. His actions declare that ritual and ceremonial laws are not important issues before God. Jesus is demonstrating that God accepts each and every person, regardless of their situation, and invites us all into a relationship—a community of people in which compassion comes ahead of tradition. By healing them, Jesus pours God’s unmerited grace upon them. It must have been overwhelming for them.
But what happens to them when they see that their skin is restored and they are no longer plagued with leprosy? Doesn’t it make sense to go thank the guy who healed them, who gave them back their lives? At the very least, my mother would say, they should have send a thank you note!
What happened to nine of them, we’ll never know. They might have been so excited to be healed that they ran off to be reunited with their families and communities. All that this scripture tell us is that they didn’t bother to give thanks. They were given a miraculous gift of grace and they ran off with their gifts without so much as a thank you.
Ah, but one did. One man came back. He came back praising God with a loud voice. In my mind’s eye, he was also dancing—showing his thankfulness with great exuberance! Then, he prostrates himself before Jesus. This means he lays all the way down with his face in the dirt to show humility and gratitude. What an amazing display of thanksgiving!
Then, the gospel writer throws in this little zinger: “He was a Samaritan.” The guy an ancient audience would have voted least likely to succeed is the one who does succeed in thanking God. Who would ‘a thunk it? The one Samaritan in the bunch was the only one who came back to give thanks.
Jesus acknowledges this man and tells him “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” Your faith has made you well. So that must mean that giving thanks has something to do with faith and that the two of them together bring about wellness. The moral of the story, it seems, then, is that thankfulness is good for you.
Tomorrow, our country celebrates the national holiday of Thanksgiving. We have developed a tradition of thankfulness and feasting based upon the early European Pilgrims and their gratefulness for their survival in the new land of America, and for the kind hospitality of the natives. What the Pilgrims have given us is an awareness of how gratitude forms the basis of community and life.
Elie Wiesel, an award-winning author who survived the Holocaust, said, “when a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.” Sounds pretty important, doesn’t it? But how can we find gratitude? how can we develop thankfulness? How can we be like that one leper and like the early Pilgrims who found a way to be truly grateful for the grace of God?
Gratitude, scientists tell us, is hard to hold on to over time. We can start out feeling very thankful for something and then it dissipates like the morning dew. Members of a newlywed couple, for example, may start out really delighted with one another, infinitely grateful for one another. And then within a few years, they do nothing but grumble and complain about the other—as if they were not a blessing to one another but just another burden.
This is bad news. We need gratitude and we need it to last. You see, science proves Jesus right by demonstrating that gratitude is good for us. It is essential for a happy life. In research done by Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough, those who kept a daily gratitude journal experienced higher levels of emotional and physical well-being.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been writing a lot of newsletter articles on gratitude recently. That’s because I keep discovering the amazing power of gratitude in my own life.
In a book by Tal Ben-Shahar called Happier, I read about a gratitude assignment and decided to test it out on myself. Ben-Shahar explained that you should get a notebook to be your gratitude journal and at the end of each day, reflect back upon the day’s events and write down five things for which you feel grateful. They can be anything big or small: a meaningful conversation, an important task accomplished, a good meal. It doesn’t matter what you write, just do it—every day. Five things and as you write them down, think about them and bring to mind the positive emotions associated with those things or events. It only takes 30 days to form a new habit so in a month, you can cultivate a stronger attitude of gratitude.
I am happy to report that it worked on me! I’ve always considered myself to be a thankful person and I give God thanks daily but this exercise really did make me more grateful. It makes my mind more alert to things for which to give thanks. In my down time, like as I’m driving home, I automatically begin thinking about what I’ll write in my gratitude journal and I don’t just think of five things, I usually think of at least 25. Still, I only write down 5 things a day and it takes less than 5 minutes to do at bedtime. I keep my little journal and pen right on the night stand so I won’t forget. It is extremely easy to do.
I got so excited about this exercise and the dramatic effects that it has, that I went out and got you each a gratitude journal! That’s right. We’re going to hand them out right now. I would like you to open to the first page and write the date at the top. Today is 11-21-07. Now quickly call to mind five things for which you are thankful and write them down so that they all fit on one page. When you’ve finished, turn to the next page and write down 11-22-07. Tomorrow night, I want you to write down five more things. Congratulations, you have just started a gratitude journal! And believe me, I AM going to be checking in with you to see that you continue this practice. I am eagerly anticipating your stories as you see what cultivating a deeper sense of gratitude will do for you.
This Thanksgiving, I’m here to tell you, we cannot afford to miss being thankful. Our hearts need gratitude—it is good for what ails us. Jesus knew this, the Samaritan leper knew this, the Pilgrims knew this and scientists know this. The question is do we want to miss out like the nine lepers or do we want to praise God with a loud voice and know that joy of being thankful for the grace bestowed upon us? It is my prayer that these little gratitude journals in your hands will be a spiritual tool to put you on the thankfulness track that you will cultivate a deeper attitude of gratitude that will transform you and those around you—not just this Thanksgiving, but always.
And now, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
Sunday, November 18, 2007
KEEP AWAKE
A Sermon for the 24th Sunday after Pentecost
November 18, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry
2 Thessalonians 3
Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right. (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
The passage from Second Thessalonians reminds me of the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ants. When the weather was fine, the ants did toil hard to obtain and store up as much food as possible that would sustain them during the winter months. The Grasshopper, watching the ants labor diligently only poked fun at them. The grasshopper preferred to waste time making music, dancing and enjoying the warm weather.
One ant stopped to ask the grasshopper, "Aren't you going to store up for the winter, what will you eat?" The grasshopper just laughed and said, "I do not need to work all day, I just want to dance and play." So the ants left the grasshopper alone.
When winter approached, as winter always does, the ants were deep underground with their summer's harvest. The grasshopper unable to find a blade of green grass, cried out at the entrance of the ants' underground nest. The ants' reply was harsh, “When the weather was fair and food was plentiful you wanted to play, now you must dance hungry to bed each night."
Regardless of which version you’ve heard, the story of the ants and grasshopper is clear. Idleness may be fun at the time, but it has its price in the end. We must work and prepare ourselves, so as not to end up being caught by surprise in the future.
I place this well-known fable in beside Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, because he is responding to reports that certain members of the new church at Thessalonica are starting to abandon their jobs in anticipation of the final judgment. They are hanging around laughing and talking, sure that they do not have to work, as the day of the Lord is going to happen at any minute, they think. Therefore, they feel that working is a complete waste of their time. Paul says that they are “playing truant,” that they are, in essence, playing hookie from work that must be done. So Paul reminds the church at Thessalonica that when he was among them his example was one of work, not leisure like these busybodies. He maintains that he did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it. Not only did he do the work of an evangelist, but he did manual labor to make a living as well.
Idleness was a grave sin in ancient Jerusalem. All citizens were charged with learning a trade, even the Rabbis were not paid for their teaching but earned their living at another occupation. A wise saying once stated, "He who does not teach his child to work, teaches him to steal." It was very important that all people be active in a trade—and not just any trade, but a trade that would enhance the life of the community.
We do not hear near enough about Jesus' trade as a carpenter. We know that he received this training from Saint Joseph and the bible doesn’t tell us what kind of carpenter he was, but legend holds that Jesus made the best ox yokes in all of Palestine. People came from afar to obtain his work. Of course, this should does not surprise us. Since Jesus was the son of God, I imagine anything he crafted would be the finest in all of Palestine. Nevertheless this legend demonstrates that Jesus not only had a trade but was well-practiced at his craft.
So Paul is found urging the believers at Thessalonica to do the same. He condemns the people who are content with their idle behavior. These busybodies seem to have more time to meddle in the affairs of others rather than see to their own work, and it is doing much harm. Paul points out that it is a great error and abuse of religion, to make it a cloak for idleness or any other sin.
Why is having a task to do so important? Why do Paul and Jesus require believers to keep their hand at positive work? Well, we have heard the saying that idleness is the devil's playground. People with not enough to do soon find themselves making sport and entertainment out of the affairs of others. These things are not conducive to religious life, they are not sympathetic to the Gospel. Both the New Testament readings of today speak to the need for people to continue living their lives in the manner which keeps them productive and witnessing for God. They cannot grow tired and weary and cease doing what is right, they must wake up and do the work of a true Christian for we do not know when the final judgment will be.
When faced with the question of the final judgment our response should not be fear or panic. When asked what he would do if the world ended tomorrow, Martin Luther responded, "I would plant an apple tree," signifying that the news of all things coming to an end should not cause us to lose hope nor act in a fashion that is out of our ordinary character. We should be able to act as we always act: with confidence and with hope.
I heard an old story about a man, who was negotiating to buy a house and bought it without even seeing it. He was asked why he took such a risk; his answer was, “I know the man who built that house and he builds his Christianity in with the bricks.” The Christian should be a more conscientious worker than anyone else. Do you build your Christianity into the bricks of your work? Does your faith reflect in the way that you do your job? Is your conscientiousness evident in the way you farm your land or labor in the factory or heal patients or cut hair or process data or teach students or answer telephones or raise your children? No matter what occupation you hold, you should be doing it with all your heart and soul and in doing such quality work, you are being a faithful witness to the Lord whom you serve.
Mother Teresa was a great example of such faithful witness through service. In 1970, Malcolm Muggeridge, a European TV anchorman, went to Calcutta to do a special documentary on Mother Teresa. When met first her, she was working out in the streets with sick and poor people in a ghetto like he had never seen before—amid stench, filth, garbage, disease, and poverty that was just unbelievable. But what struck Muggeridge more than anything else, even there in that awful squalor, was the deep, warm glow on Mother Teresa's face and the deep, warm love in her eyes.
"Do you do this every day?" he began his interview.
"Oh, yes," she replied, "it is my mission. It is how I serve and love my Lord."
"How long have you been doing this? How many months?"
"Months?" said Mother Teresa. "Not months, but years. Maybe eighteen years.
"Eighteen years!" exclaimed Muggeridge. "You've been working here in these
streets for eighteen years?"
"Yes," she said simply and yet joyfully. "It is my privilege to be here. These are my people. These are the ones my Lord has given me to love."
"Do you ever get tired? Do you ever feel like quitting and letting someone else take over your ministry? After all, you are beginning to get older."
"Oh, no," she replied, "this is where the Lord wants me, and this is where I am happy to be. I feel young when I am here. The Lord is so good to me. How privileged I am to serve him."
Later, Malcolm Muggeridge said, "I will never forget that little lady as long as I live. The face, the glow, the eyes, the love—it was all so pure and so beautiful. I shall never forget it. It was like being in the presence of an angel. It changed my life. I have not been the same person since. It is more than I can describe." By the way, after Muggeridge made those comments, Mother Teresa continued to serve in that sacrificial way until the end of her life nearly twenty-seven more years. Yes, I realized that you and I are not famous nuns working in India, but we too, can work with that kind of spirit, putting our whole selves into the work that we do.
The day of the Lord will come one day and we, like the ants in the story of the Grasshopper and the Ants, must be prepared. Since know not the day nor the time, Paul's advice is to keep ourselves active in serving the kingdom with our respective gifts, keeping awake and not becoming idle as people are prone to do. We must not only labor with integrity at our profession, but we are to practice our faith daily in order to be the best possible witnesses for Jesus Christ. And this will keep us from the dangers of being busybodies—of meddling in other people’s affair when we ought to be concentrating on our own lives. May we awaken to the work before us and may our hearts be motivated to bear the best witness for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And now, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
November 18, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry
2 Thessalonians 3
Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right. (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
The passage from Second Thessalonians reminds me of the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ants. When the weather was fine, the ants did toil hard to obtain and store up as much food as possible that would sustain them during the winter months. The Grasshopper, watching the ants labor diligently only poked fun at them. The grasshopper preferred to waste time making music, dancing and enjoying the warm weather.
One ant stopped to ask the grasshopper, "Aren't you going to store up for the winter, what will you eat?" The grasshopper just laughed and said, "I do not need to work all day, I just want to dance and play." So the ants left the grasshopper alone.
When winter approached, as winter always does, the ants were deep underground with their summer's harvest. The grasshopper unable to find a blade of green grass, cried out at the entrance of the ants' underground nest. The ants' reply was harsh, “When the weather was fair and food was plentiful you wanted to play, now you must dance hungry to bed each night."
Regardless of which version you’ve heard, the story of the ants and grasshopper is clear. Idleness may be fun at the time, but it has its price in the end. We must work and prepare ourselves, so as not to end up being caught by surprise in the future.
I place this well-known fable in beside Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, because he is responding to reports that certain members of the new church at Thessalonica are starting to abandon their jobs in anticipation of the final judgment. They are hanging around laughing and talking, sure that they do not have to work, as the day of the Lord is going to happen at any minute, they think. Therefore, they feel that working is a complete waste of their time. Paul says that they are “playing truant,” that they are, in essence, playing hookie from work that must be done. So Paul reminds the church at Thessalonica that when he was among them his example was one of work, not leisure like these busybodies. He maintains that he did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it. Not only did he do the work of an evangelist, but he did manual labor to make a living as well.
Idleness was a grave sin in ancient Jerusalem. All citizens were charged with learning a trade, even the Rabbis were not paid for their teaching but earned their living at another occupation. A wise saying once stated, "He who does not teach his child to work, teaches him to steal." It was very important that all people be active in a trade—and not just any trade, but a trade that would enhance the life of the community.
We do not hear near enough about Jesus' trade as a carpenter. We know that he received this training from Saint Joseph and the bible doesn’t tell us what kind of carpenter he was, but legend holds that Jesus made the best ox yokes in all of Palestine. People came from afar to obtain his work. Of course, this should does not surprise us. Since Jesus was the son of God, I imagine anything he crafted would be the finest in all of Palestine. Nevertheless this legend demonstrates that Jesus not only had a trade but was well-practiced at his craft.
So Paul is found urging the believers at Thessalonica to do the same. He condemns the people who are content with their idle behavior. These busybodies seem to have more time to meddle in the affairs of others rather than see to their own work, and it is doing much harm. Paul points out that it is a great error and abuse of religion, to make it a cloak for idleness or any other sin.
Why is having a task to do so important? Why do Paul and Jesus require believers to keep their hand at positive work? Well, we have heard the saying that idleness is the devil's playground. People with not enough to do soon find themselves making sport and entertainment out of the affairs of others. These things are not conducive to religious life, they are not sympathetic to the Gospel. Both the New Testament readings of today speak to the need for people to continue living their lives in the manner which keeps them productive and witnessing for God. They cannot grow tired and weary and cease doing what is right, they must wake up and do the work of a true Christian for we do not know when the final judgment will be.
When faced with the question of the final judgment our response should not be fear or panic. When asked what he would do if the world ended tomorrow, Martin Luther responded, "I would plant an apple tree," signifying that the news of all things coming to an end should not cause us to lose hope nor act in a fashion that is out of our ordinary character. We should be able to act as we always act: with confidence and with hope.
I heard an old story about a man, who was negotiating to buy a house and bought it without even seeing it. He was asked why he took such a risk; his answer was, “I know the man who built that house and he builds his Christianity in with the bricks.” The Christian should be a more conscientious worker than anyone else. Do you build your Christianity into the bricks of your work? Does your faith reflect in the way that you do your job? Is your conscientiousness evident in the way you farm your land or labor in the factory or heal patients or cut hair or process data or teach students or answer telephones or raise your children? No matter what occupation you hold, you should be doing it with all your heart and soul and in doing such quality work, you are being a faithful witness to the Lord whom you serve.
Mother Teresa was a great example of such faithful witness through service. In 1970, Malcolm Muggeridge, a European TV anchorman, went to Calcutta to do a special documentary on Mother Teresa. When met first her, she was working out in the streets with sick and poor people in a ghetto like he had never seen before—amid stench, filth, garbage, disease, and poverty that was just unbelievable. But what struck Muggeridge more than anything else, even there in that awful squalor, was the deep, warm glow on Mother Teresa's face and the deep, warm love in her eyes.
"Do you do this every day?" he began his interview.
"Oh, yes," she replied, "it is my mission. It is how I serve and love my Lord."
"How long have you been doing this? How many months?"
"Months?" said Mother Teresa. "Not months, but years. Maybe eighteen years.
"Eighteen years!" exclaimed Muggeridge. "You've been working here in these
streets for eighteen years?"
"Yes," she said simply and yet joyfully. "It is my privilege to be here. These are my people. These are the ones my Lord has given me to love."
"Do you ever get tired? Do you ever feel like quitting and letting someone else take over your ministry? After all, you are beginning to get older."
"Oh, no," she replied, "this is where the Lord wants me, and this is where I am happy to be. I feel young when I am here. The Lord is so good to me. How privileged I am to serve him."
Later, Malcolm Muggeridge said, "I will never forget that little lady as long as I live. The face, the glow, the eyes, the love—it was all so pure and so beautiful. I shall never forget it. It was like being in the presence of an angel. It changed my life. I have not been the same person since. It is more than I can describe." By the way, after Muggeridge made those comments, Mother Teresa continued to serve in that sacrificial way until the end of her life nearly twenty-seven more years. Yes, I realized that you and I are not famous nuns working in India, but we too, can work with that kind of spirit, putting our whole selves into the work that we do.
The day of the Lord will come one day and we, like the ants in the story of the Grasshopper and the Ants, must be prepared. Since know not the day nor the time, Paul's advice is to keep ourselves active in serving the kingdom with our respective gifts, keeping awake and not becoming idle as people are prone to do. We must not only labor with integrity at our profession, but we are to practice our faith daily in order to be the best possible witnesses for Jesus Christ. And this will keep us from the dangers of being busybodies—of meddling in other people’s affair when we ought to be concentrating on our own lives. May we awaken to the work before us and may our hearts be motivated to bear the best witness for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And now, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
Sunday, November 11, 2007
UP A TREE
A Drama for the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
November 11, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry
Luke 19:1-10
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost." (NRSV)
The following is a dramatic presentation for the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost. It was written by Pastor Gentry and performed at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Lansing, Iowa in a "tree" by Mr. Gene Scott.
Good morning! I hope you don’t mind this tree in front of me. I just had to come here and tell you my story and I wanted to tell it from this tree, I guess, because this is the place, the very place where it all happened. Oh, excuse me, I haven’t even introduced myself yet. I’m Zacchaeus, tax collector. Ah, well, I used to be before my life was changed.
So let me start at the very beginning. As I told you, I was a tax collector here in the city of Jericho. I worked for the Roman government—you know, the big occupying force that has taken us over here in Israel. They have really made our way of life difficult and they tax us so hard. We’ve all been grumbling about it. But I was offered a job to collect tax for the Romans. Sure, it’s a stupid job and it makes everybody hate you but wow, did they ever offer me a great salary. There is no way I could make that kind of cash doing anything else!
Well, needless to say, I took the job. I could not resist the money it would put in my pocket. And once I got into the work, I found out the whole system is totally corrupt and pretty much all the tax collectors skim a little off the top for themselves because who’s gonna point the finger? I mean, come on! They are all doing it. And Rome’s too big to know just how much they’re being cheated.
After being a tax collector for a while, I became very wealthy and very unpopular around here. People couldn’t stand me. Said I was a sellout. And they had even worse things to say about me that I wouldn’t dare repeat. I guess you could say I was kinda getting miserable. I really think I was lost. But I was sort of locked into that lifestyle and it’s pretty hard to get out once you’ve become a tax collector.
Then, all of a sudden everybody in town was talking about this Jesus guy from Nazareth. Who was he? I didn’t have any idea. Some kinda prophet, I guess. He had been roaming around the country with giant crowds following him all over. It sounded ridiculous to me. I mean, why would people want to traipse all through the desert just to listen to some teacher?
Last week, word was buzzing that the guy was heading to Jericho and that he’d be here that day. You know, I had pretty mixed feelings about it. I didn’t care all that much about hearing some religious teacher. It’s not like I was leading a moral life. I figured he’d condemn me for collecting tax for the Romans. But there was something kinda irresistible about him. Gosh, I don’t know what it was but when everybody else was getting so hyped up to see him, I got really curious.
I got so curious, in fact, that I came up with a plan. I decided I’d show up and just sneak a peak at the teacher to see what the fuss was all about. I figured he wouldn’t notice me in the big crowd. But when I got here, the crowds were so thick! It was outrageous. You might have noticed, but I’m not the tallest man, and...well, I couldn’t see anything through the mass of people that were gathering. I was so frustrated.
So I darted ahead. I may not be tall, but I’m pretty fast. And I’m pretty agile. So when I saw this tree, I jumped up and grabbed that low limb down there and swung myself up into this spot right here. Ah, this was the perfect spot. I could see the whole scene from here and I didn’t have to worry about getting trampled by the crowd. This is the main street of the city so we all knew that when the teacher got to Jericho, he would be coming this way.
Sure enough, he appeared on the horizon. He looked so normal, just like you or me or anybody else. What was the hype all about? I still couldn’t tell but I sure could see the crowds going nuts for him. And sure enough, he came right down the main road and right past my spot in this tree. He was so close I could have reached down and grabbed his head. But I stayed pretty hidden in the leaves of this sycamore tree and I was sure he couldn’t see me, especially with the distraction of the crowds.
Then out of the blue, the teacher turned and looked right up at me. Me! He saw me! I was terrified. But he didn’t yell at me or anything. He pointed at me and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” Did you catch that? He knew my name. I don’t know how he knew it, but he did. He called me by name and I felt so important. And not only that, but he’d invited himself to my house! He was coming to my house! Thank goodness my wife had cleaned the place up!
I scurried down from this tree and I was beaming that he had chosen me. It was the first time I’d felt happy in a long, long time. I don’t live far from here so we walked over to my place. The crowd hardly knew what to do. The people who know me twisted up their faces, like how does this guy rate? I could hear their fussing and grumbling.
“He’s a corrupt old tax collector!”
“What a sinner!”
“Why would Jesus be hanging out with him?”
The insults kept coming. Frankly, I didn’t know why this famous teacher was hanging out with me but I didn’t care. I was just so delighted that he was.
I don’t understand what came over me, but I was suddenly sorry for how much I’d been cheating the people of Jericho. I suddenly wanted to do God’s will. I can hardly believe it yet but I stopped and put my hands up and said to Jesus, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much."
Four times as much! That is a pretty steep promise because I knew I’d defrauded lots of people. I was going to owe a lot. But I didn’t care anymore. I was so thrilled to have the attention of this remarkable man.
Then Jesus said to me, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."
I was lost. I was so lost that I hardly knew what to do anymore. I’m sure you’ve felt that way at times. But I’m telling you, this Jesus doesn’t hold back his love. It seems like the more lost and wrong you are, the more he seeks you out.
He changed me that day. He changed me entirely and now I will never be the same. I can’t go back to tax collecting. I can’t go back to being a corrupt man. Now, I actually want to do God’s will. I want to be a person that I can be proud of—and that God can be proud of.
I know some of you today doubt God’s power. I know I did. You wonder who is within God’s power to save. There are so many people out there doing wrong things. I, myself, was a very bad man. And yet, Jesus singled me out and called me back into God’s fold. If he could save me, then I assure you, he could save anyone! I’m serious. I am evidence that God wants to save everybody. We’re all children of Abraham.
Last week, you had your All Saints Day celebration and it’s fun to think about all the saints who are doing God’s will and those wonderful saints who have gone on to be with God in glory. But do you think about the fact that there are saints like me? There are saints that don’t have a lick of good in them except the grace that God has given them. It is God’s all embracing love that transforms us into saints. So you can hold your heads up high and declare with me that you are a saint. So let’s shout it out together so we can really believe it: I AM A SAINT! I AM A SAINT! I AM A SAINT!
That’s right. Wow! I’ve gotta get out of this tree and go do God’s will. So long!
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
November 11, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry
Luke 19:1-10
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost." (NRSV)
The following is a dramatic presentation for the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost. It was written by Pastor Gentry and performed at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Lansing, Iowa in a "tree" by Mr. Gene Scott.
Good morning! I hope you don’t mind this tree in front of me. I just had to come here and tell you my story and I wanted to tell it from this tree, I guess, because this is the place, the very place where it all happened. Oh, excuse me, I haven’t even introduced myself yet. I’m Zacchaeus, tax collector. Ah, well, I used to be before my life was changed.
So let me start at the very beginning. As I told you, I was a tax collector here in the city of Jericho. I worked for the Roman government—you know, the big occupying force that has taken us over here in Israel. They have really made our way of life difficult and they tax us so hard. We’ve all been grumbling about it. But I was offered a job to collect tax for the Romans. Sure, it’s a stupid job and it makes everybody hate you but wow, did they ever offer me a great salary. There is no way I could make that kind of cash doing anything else!
Well, needless to say, I took the job. I could not resist the money it would put in my pocket. And once I got into the work, I found out the whole system is totally corrupt and pretty much all the tax collectors skim a little off the top for themselves because who’s gonna point the finger? I mean, come on! They are all doing it. And Rome’s too big to know just how much they’re being cheated.
After being a tax collector for a while, I became very wealthy and very unpopular around here. People couldn’t stand me. Said I was a sellout. And they had even worse things to say about me that I wouldn’t dare repeat. I guess you could say I was kinda getting miserable. I really think I was lost. But I was sort of locked into that lifestyle and it’s pretty hard to get out once you’ve become a tax collector.
Then, all of a sudden everybody in town was talking about this Jesus guy from Nazareth. Who was he? I didn’t have any idea. Some kinda prophet, I guess. He had been roaming around the country with giant crowds following him all over. It sounded ridiculous to me. I mean, why would people want to traipse all through the desert just to listen to some teacher?
Last week, word was buzzing that the guy was heading to Jericho and that he’d be here that day. You know, I had pretty mixed feelings about it. I didn’t care all that much about hearing some religious teacher. It’s not like I was leading a moral life. I figured he’d condemn me for collecting tax for the Romans. But there was something kinda irresistible about him. Gosh, I don’t know what it was but when everybody else was getting so hyped up to see him, I got really curious.
I got so curious, in fact, that I came up with a plan. I decided I’d show up and just sneak a peak at the teacher to see what the fuss was all about. I figured he wouldn’t notice me in the big crowd. But when I got here, the crowds were so thick! It was outrageous. You might have noticed, but I’m not the tallest man, and...well, I couldn’t see anything through the mass of people that were gathering. I was so frustrated.
So I darted ahead. I may not be tall, but I’m pretty fast. And I’m pretty agile. So when I saw this tree, I jumped up and grabbed that low limb down there and swung myself up into this spot right here. Ah, this was the perfect spot. I could see the whole scene from here and I didn’t have to worry about getting trampled by the crowd. This is the main street of the city so we all knew that when the teacher got to Jericho, he would be coming this way.
Sure enough, he appeared on the horizon. He looked so normal, just like you or me or anybody else. What was the hype all about? I still couldn’t tell but I sure could see the crowds going nuts for him. And sure enough, he came right down the main road and right past my spot in this tree. He was so close I could have reached down and grabbed his head. But I stayed pretty hidden in the leaves of this sycamore tree and I was sure he couldn’t see me, especially with the distraction of the crowds.
Then out of the blue, the teacher turned and looked right up at me. Me! He saw me! I was terrified. But he didn’t yell at me or anything. He pointed at me and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” Did you catch that? He knew my name. I don’t know how he knew it, but he did. He called me by name and I felt so important. And not only that, but he’d invited himself to my house! He was coming to my house! Thank goodness my wife had cleaned the place up!
I scurried down from this tree and I was beaming that he had chosen me. It was the first time I’d felt happy in a long, long time. I don’t live far from here so we walked over to my place. The crowd hardly knew what to do. The people who know me twisted up their faces, like how does this guy rate? I could hear their fussing and grumbling.
“He’s a corrupt old tax collector!”
“What a sinner!”
“Why would Jesus be hanging out with him?”
The insults kept coming. Frankly, I didn’t know why this famous teacher was hanging out with me but I didn’t care. I was just so delighted that he was.
I don’t understand what came over me, but I was suddenly sorry for how much I’d been cheating the people of Jericho. I suddenly wanted to do God’s will. I can hardly believe it yet but I stopped and put my hands up and said to Jesus, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much."
Four times as much! That is a pretty steep promise because I knew I’d defrauded lots of people. I was going to owe a lot. But I didn’t care anymore. I was so thrilled to have the attention of this remarkable man.
Then Jesus said to me, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."
I was lost. I was so lost that I hardly knew what to do anymore. I’m sure you’ve felt that way at times. But I’m telling you, this Jesus doesn’t hold back his love. It seems like the more lost and wrong you are, the more he seeks you out.
He changed me that day. He changed me entirely and now I will never be the same. I can’t go back to tax collecting. I can’t go back to being a corrupt man. Now, I actually want to do God’s will. I want to be a person that I can be proud of—and that God can be proud of.
I know some of you today doubt God’s power. I know I did. You wonder who is within God’s power to save. There are so many people out there doing wrong things. I, myself, was a very bad man. And yet, Jesus singled me out and called me back into God’s fold. If he could save me, then I assure you, he could save anyone! I’m serious. I am evidence that God wants to save everybody. We’re all children of Abraham.
Last week, you had your All Saints Day celebration and it’s fun to think about all the saints who are doing God’s will and those wonderful saints who have gone on to be with God in glory. But do you think about the fact that there are saints like me? There are saints that don’t have a lick of good in them except the grace that God has given them. It is God’s all embracing love that transforms us into saints. So you can hold your heads up high and declare with me that you are a saint. So let’s shout it out together so we can really believe it: I AM A SAINT! I AM A SAINT! I AM A SAINT!
That’s right. Wow! I’ve gotta get out of this tree and go do God’s will. So long!
© 2007 Laura E. Gentry
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