Christmas Parking

 Making Room for Christmas People

Christmas Parking
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING

Audio from worship at 9:30 AM Worship Service November 7,2021
at Christ Presbyterian Church in Gardnerville, Nevada

I am wearing a mask so the deep breathing is not a sign of illness
but a sign of caring for others.

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

Luke 3:1-6

 

Sermons also available free on iTunes

Well, it’s infrastructure week in the Lectionary. That was a joke. Thank you. Thank you very much. You know, mountains made low, valleys filled up, crooked made straight. Infrastructure; right? And just like real-life infrastructure, you’ve got problems. I mean, we might say it’s bad, but it’s not that bad. We’ve got problems. They say it’s too expensive. We don’t like it when things are disrupted. We’ve got detours and construction. Who’s all this for? Who needs a roundabout? I love them. Some people hate them. Infrastructure week.

In Carson City they’ve got a couple million dollars to continue their complete street program. I don’t know if you know about this. Maybe some of you are old enough to remember. Probably not. But back before there were automobiles, the streets were for everyone. Did you know that? It was for walking, and horses and carriages, and vendors and carts, and everybody would use a street. But when the cars came along, there’s a whole campaign talking about, you know, jaywalkers. “Jay” was a slang and derogatory term for somebody that didn’t know how city lives lived. And soon the streets went back just for cars. You’d better get out of their way. You know, pedestrians, pedestrians were getting killed in New York City, and their solution was

“Get out of the way.” Streets are just for cars.

Some of that’s changed over the years. You know, that Complete Streets program, that is to actually make streets for everyone again. There are going to be walking paths, bicycle paths, you know, actual bicycle lanes that are more than a paint and a prayer. Yeah, it’s all bicycle lanes are; you know? They’re just a, [indiscernible], oh, Lord, don’t keep the car [indiscernible]. Actual curbs and things. For people to walk, crosswalks and those curb cuts with the annoying bumps for, you know, the blind and the hard sighted. Maybe little beeps with the crosswalk so people can hear if they can’t see. Actual signs to stop the cars. Crosswalks where pedestrians have the right of way. Maybe flashing lights so they could actually stop traffic to walk across. Prepare the way of the Lord where all flesh will see salvation.

It’s been a huge change in our lives. The thoughts about what streets are for, from just adding more and more lanes so more and more cars could get where they’re going faster and faster, which just brings more cars, more traffic, more jams, more problems. Infrastructure week.

How about that handicap parking? You probably remember when that came up. Remember handicap parking when it first started? It was a request, a polite thing. Please, please keep this for handicapped folks. You know? And then, you know, everybody was parking there. So they got these handicap placards in license plates and things; you know? And then people still parked there. So then now you look at it, they have humungous fines, and they’ll tow your car. And we finally were able to make way for handicapped folks to park.

Have you been to Home Depot? Have you seen there’s vet parking there? There is. There’s special parking for vets. Some places there’s stork parking for people that are expecting a child and maybe aren’t walking or running as well as they’re supposed to. You’ve got a 10-pounder coming on the way, every step counts, buddy. You know.

What would be Christmas parking? Have you thought about that? What would be a sign for Christmas parking? I kind of get it on the front. And it’s actually, this is a legit sign that says “Handicap ramp ahead,” in case you were wondering. But I kind of thought that, you know, in the mountains and the valleys and making them accessible, I kind of thought that might be the sign for Christmas parking. You know? We’re making mountains low, raising up valleys, making a crooked way straight.

Who would Christmas parking be for? We hear that the good news, it’s not for the able-bodied young white male, but for those who dwell in deep darkness, for those with sadness. Imagine if we had Christmas parking for those that were facing the mountains in the way, or those that were in the valleys, even the pits of despair. What if we made the way straight for them, or flat for them? Even though it wasn’t our mountain. Even though we weren’t in a valley. What would it be like? Too often I see people fix the problems that are out there, the people that are in the deep dip bits of valleys, and people that are facing mountains of problems and challenges, and just say, “Well, they’re not there.” Or “They should know better.”

You ever been – it’s not quite yet, but later on in the winter, you ever been driving around town, and then you see a car parked, and it’s got like a foot of snow on the roof? Have you ever seen that? There’s no snow anywhere in town, but the car has a foot of snow. You know, first of all you think, you know, you could brush that off. That’d be a good idea. But, you know, you have a foot of snow, but there’s no snow anywhere else. And I’m thinking people would say, “Well, that’s just fake snow because I didn’t experience, I don’t have any problem with snow. That’s just fake snow. That’s weather crisis actors. Can’t have problems. I don’t have problems. They don’t have problems.”

Well, I try to think, oh, my gosh, someone had a lot of snow where they’re at. They probably had a hard time getting down here. What would it be like if we had Christmas parking for all flesh? You know, that’s what it says. It says all flesh will see salvation. Not the deserving, thank God. Not the ones who work for it. All flesh. And you see how you prepare for this. John went out, and he didn’t say, let me affirm your [ware] and give you thanks and gratefulness for the life you’ve been living. John went out and said, “I’m preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

Oh, my gosh. Would he be in trouble today. Because we all know that if you dare to suggest that there is something wrong with the life that we live, we’re very angry. We want it banned. We want it out of here. You are teaching hatred to our children. You can’t possibly say anything we have done in our lives is wrong. We’ve done nothing wrong. That was all in the past, John. Don’t you dare come out here and say we have anything to repent for. You see what happens if you don’t repent. You can’t get forgiveness. It’s repentance for forgiveness, according to John. It’s only then that the mountains can be made low, the valleys raised up, the crooked paths made straight. And only then is there Christmas parking for all salvation, for all flesh. Wow, huh?

What are some of the mountains and valleys that are in the way of Christ coming? Have you ever thought about here we are, 2021, you think you’re tired of the pandemic and the mask. How about tired of waiting for Jesus? I mean, every year we throw a big party, and every year he doesn’t show up. We spend a whole month getting ready for him. Preparation, advent, he’s coming, he’s coming, and nothing. Why doesn’t he come? Why doesn’t Jesus come? Well, are there still mountains? Are there still valleys? Are there still crooked paths? Yeah. Yeah, there still is. I think Jesus might be saying, why haven’t they got that ready for me?

I mean, when Rachel came to visit, you know, oh, my gosh, every piece of furniture in the living room and most in the other rooms were put out to the garage. We had the carpets scrubbed and clean. We’re getting ready for the advent of the girlfriend. We were ready. I hope. I think. My adult daughter Rachel was whispering tips to me over the first weekend. God bless, you know how well that goes over when your kid tells you how you should, you know.

But, you know, just like those John the Baptist, I do have some things to repent for, some things I do need forgiveness. And it’s not their fault they call that up. What are some mountains that we have? How about the mountain of student debt? Let’s just pick that one. No one here has got student debt. Maybe? Anybody? No? All right. I went to college in 1977. Now it’s 2021. What percentage increase in college has happened since I went to college? Anybody got a guess how much more it is now than then?

A percentage, let’s go percentage increase.

ATTENDEE: Probably three times.

REV. CHRISTY: Three times, 300%, would be 300%, yeah, yeah. Now, strangely enough, the minimum wage nationwide has gone about 300% up. Nevada, 400% up since then. California, 500% since then. Okay. So those are that. College, thanks for answering, Jim. College has gone up 1,424.23%. 1,424.23%. Now, I don’t think that all that expense is an additional 40 years of history. I don’t think you can put that in there. So if it was 20,000 back then, it’d be $304,846.53 now. That’s from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a mountain. That’s a mountain. And then the minimum wage, I think it’s a valley. People are in the pit. Do you know that the minimum wage – how many, anybody, Jim, you want another one? How much was the first minimum wage? That was going to ruin business, destroy the economy? Anybody remember? What?

ATTENDEE: I think it was $5, wasn’t it?

REV. CHRISTY: No, no, it was 25 cents, 25 cents an hour. That was going to ruin the country.

ATTENDEE: That’s what I got for babysitting.

REV. CHRISTY: Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, back in Roosevelt, FDR? No? No, okay. So 25 cents an hour. No, that 25 cents is a little bit different now. And since then it’s only – since ‘77 it’s only gone up – it’s gone up. It’s gone up three, 400% depending on the state you were, 500. But that’s a valley. Can’t afford college. Can’t afford a house. My kids don’t have a house. They don’t plan on having a house. They don’t see how. They’re hard workers. They’re good people. My daughter’s a teacher. My son works for BMW. That’s a valley. That’s a pit. We mostly didn’t avoid it.

How about the valley of medical debt? Some of you might relate to that. How about that? Do you know we’re the only industrial civilized nation in the world, you know, we’re the greatest in the world. We’re the only ones you can go bankrupt with a major illness. My friend Eric, they don’t know how he’s going to pay his hospital bill. The longer he lives, the more he’s going to wish he didn’t, I think. That’s a pit. That’s a valley. That’s a dark place.

And on the other hand there’s a mountain. You know, you look at the pit of how much medical debt comes, you know, you don’t have – people don’t understand there’s no medical debt in any other country. Nobody has a GoFundMe in Canada to pay for their cancer treatment. Why can’t we figure that out? We’re great. We’re rich. We’re smart. We’ve got great hospitals, doctors, medicines. We could figure it out. We could move that mountain. Maybe one is because – we could raise that valley. Excuse me.

The mountain I’m thinking about is the mountain of profits from drugs. Have you been following the drug crisis? That’s a mountain. Raising the price of insulin through the roof. And how about all the Oxycontin and the painkiller and the drugs? Millions and billions of dollars. Get people hooked legally by prescription. That’s obscene. And why is it okay and accepted that the seniors get on buses and drive to Canada – before pandemic – to buy their drugs? Why is that okay? Why do we think, oh, that’s a great idea, great thing to do?

The world is dying of pandemics. And we’ve got drugs to fight it. Oh, but the patents. We can’t let other countries make it for their people. We’ve got patents. Just because the government paid for the research doesn’t mean the companies shouldn’t have their dollar. And so now we’re wearing masks. And we’re going to continue to wear masks because there’s going to be all sorts of craziness going on all over the world because they’re not going to get vaccinated, and it’s going to mutate, and we’re going to go through the Greek alphabet, the Hebrew alphabet, all the alphabets. That’s a pit. That’s a valley. And according to our scripture, Christ is saying, when you going to get that fixed? It’s infrastructure week, friends. Fix up the road so I can come.

Aren’t you glad this is my last sermon here? Whew. But you know what? We’ve done mountains. I don’t want to tell you that we can’t do stuff as a people, as a nation. We can do stuff. We set our mind to it, we can do it. How many people have polio? That used to be horrible. That used to take down a President. That used to be lifelong affliction. You used to never recover, used to be in an iron lung, which is now, you know, a ventilator. But back then you had a big old tank that you lived in. You were struggling to breathe. Finally they closed swimming pools, drained pools. They didn’t know what to do.

The vaccine came out, and every child in America sent dimes to the White House to get rid of polio. Chipping away that horrible, horrible, horrible disease. The vaccine was mandated, and people were glad to get it. And polio’s gone. People don’t have to be stumbling on the road because they have polio. That road is made straight. We can do that.

Remember drunk driving? Remember that? There used to not be any laws against drunk driving. It was pretty recent. Used to be able to get sober by driving, by just saying, “I’m good to drive,” and then you’re good. And you drive. Wasn’t any laws against driving drunk. It was accepted. I credit mostly MADD, you know, Mothers Against Drunk Driving? They banded together, said enough. There’s too many people dying. Enough of this. And they started shadowing politicians and judges and made it impossible for them to ignore that great deep pit of drunk drivers killing their loved ones, their children. Whatever you think about laws or enforcement or all that, it’s gone way down. Maybe it’ll be gone sometime. And I dare say that it’s no longer socially acceptable to drink and drive.

What about smoking? Remember smoking? Remember smoking in public places and restaurants and theaters? In planes? I remember being on a plane, I couldn’t see the plane. I couldn’t see who was sitting in the plane. It was just a big cloud in the back. My dad went to a restaurant, he was pretty sensitive to the smells of cigarettes, asked for the nonsmoking table. And so here it was. It was like all these tables were smoking, and then there was one right here that was nonsmoking, and they sat him here. And he goes, what was that? I want the table downwind of the nonsmoking table. Remember that?

I remember going with some people to a theater, to a movie, and we went in, they go, where do you want to sit? And he looked around and says, where’s the nonsmoking section? I was so thrown by that because by then there was nonsmoking in our state for theaters. We got rid of that. Whatever you think about laws and government and all that, we moved that mountain. The servers and workers that were in that space eight, 12, 10 hours a day, whatever, they don’t have to breathe that smoke anymore. Oh, yeah, people talk about their rights and freedoms and all that. Just like they talk about how upsetting it is to have a detour when there’s a perfectly good street there they tore up for some improvements. Infrastructure week is not without cost, not without inconvenience, not without actual problems in trying to get things better for most people.

Remember the seniors buying dog food, in the store anyhow? The cashier says, “Oh, what’s the name of your dog?” And they couldn’t tell her because the dog food was for them. I think that story helped make Social Security a little bit more secure. Used to be okay. Hey, don’t have money, you know, you’re old, I guess you just die somewhere. But we moved that mountain. Whatever you think about, is it adequate, did they [indiscernible], we worked on that, made room for folks.

So we can do that. It’s painful. It’s difficult. It’s controversial. It requires this inconvenience and problems as we have to go around detours as the infrastructure’s being upgraded. But you know what comes, you know, if we can move those mountains, if we can fill in those pits, if we can make the paths straight, it will be Christmas parking for all flesh to see salvation. And Christ will come. Finally. You moved everything out. You got everything ready for me. I’ll come in.

Advent is getting ready for Jesus to come. Friends, we’ve got a lot to do. Let’s hope he comes. Stays. Maybe even buys us dinner. You know. Because we’ve made the path straight for all flesh to see salvation. We’ve taken down mountains so all people can live without crushing debt, medical or college. We’ve raised up the valleys and the pits so people aren’t killed again when the medical bills come. When they look at their paycheck, realize, oh, I have to get the third job.

Thank you all for all that you’ve done. Thank you for being a witness that there’s a different way of living in the world by being here today, and by living your life as you are. By doing things that don’t profit you personally as much as they help others. For all that I’m very thankful, and I am blessed to know you, and know that you’re down here doing good work in Gardnerville and the world. So friends, keep moving them mountains, keep filling them valleys, keep straightening those paths. And we will welcome all flesh to salvation and make Christmas parking available for all. Amen.

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Christmas Parking

Going Out of Business

 Greater Service Springs from Lesser Certainity

Going Out of Business
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING

Audio from worship at 9:30 AM Worship Service November 7,2021
at Christ Presbyterian Church in Gardnerville, Nevada

I am wearing a mask so the deep breathing is not a sign of illness
but a sign of caring for others.

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

 John 18:33-37

 

Sermons also available free on iTunes

I’m wearing a thousand-dollar suit, standing on the accelerator of a quarter-million-dollar ride weighing 20 tons, trying to beat death in a race. Oh, and I can’t see a thing. The fog is so dense it’s like being in the middle of a white night. I remember this as a time I considered what business do I have being a firefighter?

Now, we may not know about kings, maybe Burger King or Carole King. But we do know about business. I think it’s helpful to look at this scripture, not about examination of how Jesus is and is not a king, but about what is Jesus’s business. We know about business. Everywhere from “That’s none of your business,” or “That’s my business,” to “The church has no business addressing anything of controversy or importance, or in contemporary thought and talk,” be it race, economics, schooling, dress codes. It’s not the church’s business. Is it?

Jesus seems to be trying to redefine what it means to be king. He both says “No, I’m not,” and “Yes, I am,” or “Not in that way.” This is a very helpful thing for us to consider in the time of pandemic. Because of all the times when we do not know where we’re going and what’s going next, in redefining what it is to be church, what it is to be Christian, now is the time. Is what is church? What is church business? We might have had a clue before the pandemic. We might have been able to say, well, the church business is to have a worship service on Sunday. The church business is to support a pastor to give comfort and challenge to the people. That’s church business.

But you all know that when the pandemic hit, you guys stopped having church services. You had to redefine what church was. You used email to connect with one another. And in a kind of a really nice spiritual technical meld, you said – Carl was saying could you all get together in your own homes and read this email, pray these prayers, sing these hymns, consider the sermon separately together in your own homes. And for a long time that was church business.

Business is difficult for us to take over as a church. If you ever heard that the church has to be run with the business, you might be thinking, well, that is just limited to generally accepted accounting principles, or that’s just limited to filling out the forms and obeying zoning laws and doing everything that a business needs to do to survive. It’s about being a good fiduciary responsibility and making sure that the money is accounted for and that the accounting is done right and that the offering is changed and that the bills are paid and the forms are filled out. Right before service I filled out another form.

So the church like a business we’d know about. But what kind of business are we in? That is a more helpful thought than what kind of king is Jesus. More and more church has been run like a business where we try to figure out exactly what our objective is, specific measurable, attainable, relevant, time-related objectives. And then we figure out the cost risk benefitting analysis. Maybe we have brainstorms. We look for expertise. We gather up data. We solve problems just like a business.

Well, that doesn’t work when everything’s changing so fast. That doesn’t work when what did happen last week, last month, last year is not guaranteed and almost certainly guaranteed not to be the same as next year. And all that process focuses on us and our expertise and our knowledge. So many churches fall into this business trap of getting the expert in. The first automatic response of any church that is looking for a minister is to say we need a pastor to bring in new people. They don’t really mean new people. They mean the same people as there are now, just 20 years younger, or 40 years younger. If you could just get us, but 40 years younger, in fact you can make us 40 years younger, that’d be okay because then nothing would have to change.

But that’s not a good way to go forward. Sure, it’s problem-solving. It’s objective. It’s brainstorming. It’s expertise-driven. It’s what everything that they teach you in business school, everything that they teach you as a way to be successful in the United States of America, salute business. But it doesn’t really serve us before or even especially during the pandemic.

Susan Beaumont wrote a really good book that is very good and somewhere here. But anyhow, ah, oh, that’s the synod executive. I brought her to help me with props. I love this. “How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going.” How to lead when you don’t know where you’re going. You know, and I’m back in that fire truck, and my wife didn’t know about this till today, so don’t tell her, but I’m in that fire truck, I cannot see where I’m going. I literally cannot see. The fog in Ohio is so thick you can almost taste it. It is right there. And I’m in a 20-ton fire truck, standing on the accelerator, racing death to the accident scene.

Because you know you get an hour from accident to hospital. You get one hour. That’s the golden hour. If you want someone to live, you’ve got to get them to the hospital in an hour. That’s just the way it is. Well, you say one hour, okay. Where we lived, the hospital was 40 minutes away. So we had 20 minutes to get there and get them in an ambulance. Twenty minutes. Not an hour. How do you go race and beat death when you can’t see where you’re going? Go faster. You get a bigger fire truck. Get more training. None of these help if you can’t see where you’re going. You don’t know what’s coming up in the road.

I remember asking John Love, strangely enough, front seat of the fire engine, Presbyterian minister and the funeral director. We showed up on an accident scene, and people just about had a heart attack. “I’m not that bad. They’re coming for me.” No, no, we’re not here for that. What do you do when you can’t see where you’re going? Going faster doesn’t help. Having more equipment doesn’t help. Having more training doesn’t help. Susan Beaumont says that, you know, maybe we’ve got to get out of this decision-making kind of mindset, where we look to ourselves for solutions to the problems. Where we define the problems by what we are and what we see and the things we see. Where we have meetings.

Have you ever noticed we have meetings that it’s like, you ever been to California, going down here? And there’s that little building, you know, and you have to drive through, and they’re checking for produce? You’ve seen that little building. And I’m thinking what in the world? They’ve never stopped us. I don’t know, maybe because of our skin color? I don’t know what’s going on. But and you just drive on through. And I’m thinking, well, that was ridiculous. That has nothing to do with where I’m going, what I’m doing, and my purpose. And I kind of think sometimes that’s like prayers before and after meetings. You know, people, come on, we’ve got to do a prayer, and then we can get through to California and do what we’re going to do.

What if we didn’t do that? What if the doing what we’re going to do was a little tiny bit at the beginning and the end of a meeting? And maybe the meeting wasn’t a meeting to decide, but a meeting, as Susan puts out, to discern God’s will, to listen to the spirit instead of the experts. To approach our time together with openness instead of advocacy, with looking for community instead of champions of a cause. That we approached it with expectation instead of expertise. That we sought completeness, wholeness, instead of the optimal solution to a set problem. What if we counted, not clock ticks, but heartbeats? That’s for all your poetry folks here, but what about the nuts-and-bolts people here? How does this work?

It’s hard to do because we keep slipping into decision-making. And decision-making is needed and useful, but it’s not a be-all and end-all, especially if the church, especially if we don’t know what’s going on. How does this discernment work? Well, it’s taking time. It’s stillness. It’s listening. It’s deciding not to decide. It’s changing meetings into retreats. You know, what’s the purpose of the retreat? What’s the outcomes of the retreat? What’s the measurable products of a retreat? Susan says that in her things, one of the things she does, she has meetings where they covenant together that they will not make decisions during the meeting. Instead they’re there to listen to the spirit and be attentive and be prayerful. It sounds crazy just because we’re not used to it.

One of the exercises I really like, and this may be concrete enough for you to decide, think about what she’s talking about and what others are talking about, and looking toward discernment as a way to figure out what to do as a church in these uncertain times as opposed to decisions and looking to the business model. And she calls it “shedding.” And shedding is a lot of things. It’s when you put your expertise aside. And what she invites everyone to do, and maybe it’s a requirement, I don’t know how she rolls, but what she says is that whatever the issue, problem, challenge is before the group, she invites everyone to write down what they’re absolutely certain of, what they absolutely know, their core understanding of the problem, to write that down on a piece of paper, their answer.

And then she invites them to fold it and place it in the offering plate. And she puts the basket there in front of the table and says, “Here are our certainties. And we’re going to leave them there in the basket during our time together. Now, they’re still there. They’re not erased or lost or negated. But they’re just going to be set aside here. We’re going to keep them safe right here. We’re all going to watch them. And at the end of our time together, you’re welcome to pick them back up. You know, it’s nothing wrong or evil. But just for this time together we’re going to set aside our certainties that we advocate and believe and try to make happen. We’re going to set them aside and listen to what God is saying, what spirit is moving among us.” Weird. Kind of feels like Pilate must have felt talking to Jesus. What are you talking about, Jesus? Are you a king or not? Why are you being so difficult? It’s a simple question. Why can’t you decide?

You’re in a great time of change where you’ve got to decide what to do. I hope you decide not to decide. I hope you decide to discern what to do. To put aside what you think has to happen. Oh, we’ve got to have a great preacher, a great minister. Got to have Christy. Right, mm-hmm. Yeah. Put it in there. Put those aside. You know? We’ve got to have someone here to get the youth back. We’ve got to have someone back here to establish Sunday School. We’ve got to have someone, I don’t know, I’m just saying these things out. I don’t know whatever certainty you have about what you need and what needs to happen. We’ve got to get back to that garage because that overhead crane is totally underused. Got to get that gone. I read that every time I come here. So put those aside.

And then, you know, when you put your certainties aside, and your biases aside, and you expertise aside, when you put those all in, there’s room for the spirit. And that’s kind of the kingship Christ was talking about. I think. I think that was a business he was about. I can’t decide. I’m hoping more light will emerge. But it’s important to be open to that. And as long as we decide that we’re going to decide, you know, your problems and ratios and data and brainstorming and cost benefit analysis and all the great tools of business, we’re looking to ourselves and our expertise instead of to God and spirits moving.

Well, how does that work out in the world? What’s an example? I belong to a service club up the road. And as many clubs, they were disrupted by the pandemic. I mean, this is a club that was like the nightmare of germ spreading. I mean, we had – it was in the rules. You got fined. You had to shake hands with everybody in the room. You had to. We had to go around and sit together. We had to – we were singing together. We were in the same room together. We couldn’t do any of that. We had board meetings. We couldn’t have board meetings where we discussed what to do and how to do it. Couldn’t do it. We had some folks that they couldn’t come – no one could come in person. Some people couldn’t do technology, and what are we going to do?

Well, I’ll tell you what this club did. Three people, three very competent, three very successful, three very expertise business people did it all. We wound up meeting at the park. They set up the park. They bought all the food. Charged the club. It was all ready for it. The first one, me being an idiot, I brought food. And they go, oh, we don’t need that. We bought it all. Oh, okay. And so slowly over the 18 months these three people did all the work of the club. They got a debit card because it was easier to bill to the club if you had a debit card. You didn’t have to go through all the reimbursement from the treasurer. And the treasurer wasn’t coming out of her house because she was immunocompromised. And so she couldn’t even make the meetings, and she didn’t have tech to be in person. They got their names on all the accounts.

I used to do the emails. I did emails out for our big fundraiser, our big thing. I did a couple, 300 emails. And so I was asking about is it time to send another email, goes no, no, we took the list, and we had our office staff do it. It’s all done. And they did a great job, those three. It was done efficiently, purposefully, and perfectly.

And then the new president came, long-time member of the club. And at the board meeting he said, “You know, we never authorized you all to do this. We never said it was okay to have a debit card. We never said it was all right to change the names on all the accounts to you three people. We never said that you could take over this. We never said you could do that.” And he got angry. How dare they go against the perfect business plan? How dare they say there was something wrong with the perfect complete work that they did? It’s successful. They kept the club going. They made money. They kept dues. So they all quit and took half the club with them. Because they saved us.

The new president, what do you think happened? The new president resigned, groveled back, asked them to come back saying, oh, it’s a big misunderstanding, let’s have a meeting, go through all that. Well, maybe some of that happened. But what happened with me, you know, he talked to me, and he said, “You know what they didn’t get, what they didn’t understand? This is a service club. We’re not a business. We’re not here to do things efficiently and purposefully and make everything exactly the way it should. We’re not here to hire people to do service and work, but they had their office staff doing all the work. We’re here for this person to do emails, for that person to bring the food, for this person to contact the businesses, for this person to do that.

“And together we do good. And we become better people. And we make relationship with other people because all of us, no one’s doing it all. Everybody’s doing their part and doing a little part. And sure, it’s not perfect. It’s not the stellar achievement of a for-profit organization with a dedicated staff. But that’s not what we’re here for. We’re a service club so people, all the people can give service and do good for the community and for each other. That’s what they forgot. We don’t hire it done, even though it could be done even better. We do it for our souls and for our community, as well as for the people we help.”

Now, there’s a club that decided not to be excellent, that decided not to solve all their problems in the best possible way, according to the business model. There’s a club that made a conscious choice, a costly choice. If we’re going to be a service club, everyone’s going to be having opportunity to do service, a good average whatever. We’re going to do this together. We’re going to go forward together. We’re going to learn. We’re going to make mistakes. But we’re going to get better. We’re going to help each other and ourselves.

I think that’s what church should be. Not about perfection, not about what we think is tradition or what we have pride in or what we remember from the past, where we seek to have the people look to the community. But a group of people getting together, stumbling at times, but lifting one another up, saying we’re here for goodness and for God. We’re here to get better, to do good, and to be better.

And that’s what I think Pilate missed, too, about how Jesus reigned, not with ordering of things to do, but with the changing of hearts and souls and minds. And that is church business. Amen.

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Going Out of Business

MINE!

 Ownership is a story, do tell.

Mine
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from worship at Christ Presbyterian Church, Gardnerville, NV on September 5,2021
I am wearing a mask so the deep breathing is not a sign of illness but a sign of healthy precaution.

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

 James 3:13-4:3

 

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 James is a strange book. Martin Luther famously called it “an epistle of straw.” He was not a fan. Now, he was okay with having it in the Bible, but he was not okay with James going against Paul’s doctrine of grace through faith. James seems to be pretty much works, that your deeds are supposed to match your faith. Now, people harmonize this and say, well, James is about after you have faith. It’s about fruits, not about seeds and growing. It’s about what you do after you come to the faith, not before. But I don’t know. James seems pretty angry to me.

I mean, maybe it’s just directness, but still, murder? We got murder in the Bible? Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on with whoever he was writing to. But to accuse them of murder, that seems a little extreme. Let’s hope he wasn’t being literal. Yeah, we may want to look at other translations on that. You want something you do not have, so you commit murder. Disputes and conflicts comes from being wrong-minded.

What about a contemporary English version? Yeah, a little better. When peacemakers plant seeds of peace, they harvest justice. Okay. But still we’ve got the killing. And that whole asking thing, you ask for it and you don’t get, I don’t understand it. But in the contemporary version it talks about when you cannot get what you want, you won’t get it by fighting and arguing. You should pray for it. Yet even when you pray, your prayers are not answered because you pray just for selfish reasons. Well, that makes more sense to me. A selfish prayer goes unanswered. Or, you know, “no” is an answer. I keep telling that to my kids growing up, you know, “no” is an answer. Doesn’t mean I didn’t answer you. It’s just no.

But there’s another Bible, it’s not a translation, like they didn’t decode it word from the Greek to English. Eugene Peterson, “The Message.” It’s kind of when the pastor reads a Bible, kind of. And when I get into trouble a lot of times I say, well, how in the world am I going to work on this? I go to good old Eugene Peterson, and I say, “Eugene, throw me a bone. Help me out here.” And he talks this way.

“You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God, and enjoy its results, only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor. Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way and fight for it deep inside yourself. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.” And later, “You are spoiled children, each wanting your own way.”

We can look at those later, as homework. It’s always good to figure out, read more than one version of the Bible because, you know, nobody owns the Bible text. You know, I’m old enough to remember the big fight over the King James version. I had one guy witness to me that the RSV was published by a publishing house that was outright owned by Hell. You know, Hell with Satan and devils and all that. They’re actually the parent company of the RSV publishing house, which is United Council of Churches. He told me their home office was Texas, which makes a lot of sense to me, but still. I said, “Nah, I don’t think Satan’s in the publishing business.”

So it’s always good not to say who owns the Bible text because even if you can say, well, you have to go back to the Greek or Hebrew, well, even then, you know, there’s the footnotes and the various readings and which one you put up, which one you don’t. So it’s good to take more than one and not just say give the ownership of the Bible text and your faith to just one authority, even if it’s Gene Peterson.

I want to talk about ownership about this. There’s a really excellent book that came out earlier this year, “Mine.” There’s a lot of YouTubes and lectures by these guys. These guys are actually professors. So you can catch a lot of that stuff on YouTube without even buying the book. They give little pieces of it through there. And their main focus is that ownership is not set. It’s a story that we tell each other.

And there’s competing stories about how we decide who gets what when. We have stories that we tell each other, and they have six that they put down, pretty much variations on the theme. But they have six stories that we tell. You ever heard “finders keepers, losers weepers”? That’s one of them. And in the Scriptures, it talks about, you know, you want things that aren’t yours. You’re willing to do violence for them. You’re asking for the wrong thing, selfishness. All this reminds me of ownership.

Now, you may say “I’m not interested in that. You know, that’s ridiculous.” Well, if you’re not paying attention to the stories of ownership that other people are pushing on us and are telling us what is owned and what is not owned and what is theirs, they’re going to write the story so that it benefits them, so that they can have ownership at our expense. We need to pay attention to this. More and more is being owned by less and less because they’re better at telling the stories, of getting the laws written, of getting over public opinion.

Forty percent of the wealth in America is owned by 1% of the people. Is that a good story? Is that what we want the happy ending to be? And it’s getting more and more. States like South Dakota leading the way, Nevada’s not too far behind, to make sure that the rich stay rich. They don’t have to even – they can protect their wealth in South Dakota and Nevada so that even law judgments against them, much less family claims or ex-spouses or children or even legal judgments cannot touch their wealth because of the stories of ownership that South Dakota’s bringing up, and Nevada in defense or jealousy, I don’t know what, is catching up with and making sure that the wealthy stay wealthy.

Well. That sounds political. Well, let’s talk about something we can probably relate to not political. Has anyone been on an airline? This is the part where you wake up and raise your hand. Has anyone been on the airline? No, no one?

PARTICIPANT: Not recently.

REVEREND RAMSEY: I mean within your life.

PARTICIPANT: Yes.

PARTICIPANT: No.

REVEREND RAMSEY: All right. Yeah, your entire life. Not yesterday.

PARTICIPANT: Yes.

REVEREND RAMSEY: Okay. So what’s your position on reclining? Huh? So what, reclining or tray table? Do you recline?

PARTICIPANT: Yes.

REVEREND RAMSEY: Yes. You’re a recliner. How many recliners have we got here? All right. All right. How many, oh, no, I’ve got the tray table, you’d better not recline on me? How many? No one?

PARTICIPANT: No.

REVEREND RAMSEY: Both. You want both. I like an honest man.

JIM WHITE: All the time.

REVEREND RAMSEY: Yeah. Okay, all right. Usually it varies half and half. Sometimes 60/40. It depends on the audience. If you get the – I have really good stuff here I can’t find. All right, here we go. The tall and tech-y versus the small and sleepy. That’s going to sell, yeah, that’s great. Whether they want the legroom and laptop or whether they want to recline and rest. Looks like we’re a recline and rest kind of people here. Maybe so. Maybe a little bit slower. I mean, there’s been outbreaks on airlines that they had to shut down the flight and make an emergency landing to get the people out over reclining.

And, you know, they have these little knee defenders. They’ve got these little clamps that you can put on your tray table so it stops the other person from reclining. You can actually buy these on the Internet. And so that just escalates everything. And people have gotten injured. People have gotten thrown off.

And, you know, well, whose is it? I mean, the author says that the theory of the recliner is that attachment. And he says, “I own something because it’s attached to something I own. There’s something that I have, and then this is attached to it.” And that’s that little button, the little button that reclines. I mean, that’s definitely on your seat. You’ve got the button. You’ve got the right to use it. So attachment. You can recline. All right. That’s one story of ownership. Things that are attached to me, things that are near me, belong to me. We tell that story all the time.

Ah, but there’s other stories. The story of possession, that if I am there, and I am occupying it, it’s mine. First come, first serve. Ever hear of that? I was there first. And so how does every airplane flight start? Keep your seats in the full upright and locked position. Right? That’s off to the races. We’re starting the thing right here. And so the possession at the beginning of the flight is the knee people, the leg people, the laptop tray people. They are the ones. They’ve got it. The flight starts. It’s theirs.

Somebody leans back, you’re taking away what I already have. I’ve already established it. I sat here. It’s me. It’s mine. And that is a huge principle in American and world law. If you make use of something long enough, it’s yours. Possession. So that’s why we have a fight between the recliners and the legroomers. Who’s right? Anybody want to vote? No one wants to vote. Looks like we’re a reclining kind of congregation. Is that right? Anybody, does anybody want to speak for the legroom people? No tall people here. Okay.

PARTICIPANT: Been short all my life.

REVEREND RAMSEY: What?

JIM WHITE: I’ve been short all my life.

REVEREND RAMSEY: Oh, have been short. So you’re cool. You’re cool with the leg. Yeah, all right, yeah. Now, you see what we’re doing here, we’re fighting among ourselves over a sliver, a wedge of space in an airline thing. And we can do that, and we can make stories that say you’re not allowed to recline. It’s my space. I am allowed to recline. I have a button. You know, I’m allowed to. And we can argue about that, and arguments get there. We can escalate and put little clamps on there. We can curse each other out. People have offered cash for not reclining, and threats. And those don’t work, by the way. They’ve studied this. People don’t go for the cash offer.

But is that what we’re talking about here? Where is the problem? The problem, if you want to look at it another way, is that airline is selling that space twice. Right? That airline is selling, renting that space to the recliner and also saying also it’s for your legroom. So there’s two people they’re trying to put in one space. And you say, oh, they’re not doing that. They’re not that bad. Well, I tell you, it used to be there was 35 inches between seats. There used to be 35. But there’s no rule saying there has to be, so over the years it’s now down to 28 inches in some airplanes – 28, from 35 to 28. And you say, well, that’s bad, but what’s the deal?

Every one inch, every inch they reduce, the airline gets to put six more seats in the airline. Now, you figure in, what, three, four, 500 bucks a seat per flight per three a day on an airplane, times six. And if you make it, most airlines, if you make coach absolutely hellish, you can ask for more money and get up to first-class, where they actually have legroom, actually have decent seating. So there’s a little more money, too. Now, you say, what about Southwest? All hail. Oh, they’ve got their hand out, 20 bucks and you get to pick a good seat. Get to be in the front of the line. Where you can get an exit row seat maybe. Or a seat up in the front of the plane.

So by telling a story of recliner versus laptop table or legroom, and say let you all fight over there, you know, the airline could solve this. They could say no reclining, or you have to ask for reclining, or they can make a rule. But then they would have to enforce it. And then it would be focused on them and not focused on the passengers. They just rather said, hey, just everybody play nice, you know. See how the story of ownership matters even in the smallest things.

Now, I have a solution. There is another way. So let’s tell another story. Has anyone ever watched “America’s Deadliest Catch,” about fishing in Alaska? I got one nod. They have a reality show that show these people going out and get crab, or maybe halibut, in Alaska. And they’re out there in the horrific weather, trying to go fishing, and laying out traps, and trying to get them back before anyone else can.

You see, as the fishing became better, and more people came to the fishing, and more and more boats came out, it became more and more intensely competitive to get fish. And so they went out there in all kinds of weather, trying to get enough fish in their catch, and other people were doing that. So it didn’t matter what the weather was. If you were allowed to go out, you went out. And so for a while it was more dangerous to fish, be a fisher person in Alaska, than it was to be on a foot patrol in Afghanistan or Iran, 2004/2005. It was the most deadliest job, even more than serving in the military in a war zone.

Well, that’s just capitalism. I mean, first come, first serve. That’s another story. First one to get the fish, that’s yours. And so you’d better be first. If somebody else is going out in hellish weather, you’d better get out there, too, because they’re going to get all the fish, and you’re not going to get any. What to do? Well, couldn’t do nothing.

The state of Alaska said. “Enough of this. We’re embarrassed by this pillage, not to mention the deaths and the overfishing.” And they said, “We’ll just – I know what we’ll do. We’ll just limit the catch. We’ll just limit it, how much they can get, to protect the overfishing and the craziness.” So they just limited the catch. And they said, “You can’t go out before this date, and we can only catch this much. And then it stops.” There you go. Problem solved.

Only problem was that just compressed the craziness because it turned out that there were so many people out there fishing, so many in competition, it was like a derby, a death derby. And they went from, in 2004, it was only three days, from the beginning, and you’d better be out there right at the starting gun, go, boom, to the time they got the amount of fish that they were allowed to get before they start overfishing. Three days. It was a hellish three days.

You try to get all your fish for the year in those three days, and guess what? You got the fish. Let’s say you were successful. You got the fish. You brought them in. So has everybody else. The entire year’s catch came into port in the market in the same day, or three days. Guess what happened to prices? They plummeted because there’s so much. And then the rest of the year is nothing. Well, what to do?

So Alaska said, “Well, we’ll try again.” They said, “Okay, we’re going to sell shares. And every boat that was out last year, whatever you caught last year, you get this much this year. So Jim, you did a thousand last year, you get a thousand this year. Betty Lynn, you did 500, you get 500 this year.” And so on and so forth until they divvied up the entire catch. Now you can go out any time you want and catch as much as you want up to that limit. So if the weather’s bad, no worries. Wait. You can’t get any more. You can’t get any – you can’t get any more if you go out in a storm. Wait for the better weather. And they were able to do this.

And so because it stretched out, and because the problem wasn’t so intense, instead of three-day season in 2004, they went to 2006 of three months. That leveled out the prices. If the prices were too low, guess what, you stay in port. You don’t go. You go later. It doesn’t matter. The fish will still be there. Your portion of the fish will still be there. And from the worst, deadliest job in America in the early 2000s, by 2014 and 2015 there was no death in the fishing industry in Alaska. The fish were preserved.

And guess what? When they had time, they had time to fish, they were able to take the immature crabs, a few other crabs, the other fish, they were able to sort that and put it back in the ocean. It was better for all, the whole ecosystem. And what it took was a change in the story of ownership in a way that stopped the selfishness. That stops getting everything they can. And you can say murder results because if you take someone out on a boat in terrible, awful weather, and they die, who’s to blame? Wasn’t necessary. We have an example right here.

Now, the reality show took a nosedive because they had to edit out all the boring parts. It’s pretty boring to go fishing now. You didn’t get swept overboard in the storm, and you weren’t out there on the icy, icy decks. You didn’t have to be.

Eugene Peterson said, “You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.” That’s how it works. Friends, we’ve got lots of challenges. I mean, this fire is, you know, a crisis right now. But it doesn’t really take a look at how we maintain and preserve our planet and our forest and climate change. How are we going to take care of that?

Are we going to keep everybody taking whatever they want, spew whatever they want in the atmosphere? First come, first pollute? Or are we going to take the time and trouble to do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other, including those grandchildren that are coming, great grandchildren that are coming along. What kind of world are we going to leave them? What claims do they have on us and on our planet?

Are we going to do the hard work, like they did up in Alaska? Slowly other fisheries are moving, and they didn’t do this in Alaska, they copied Norway. It’s slowly becoming the norm among fishers. There’s downsides to it. I mean, no system’s perfect. But there’s a lot of win-win-win in this, of getting along, of sharing, of considering others, of considering the Earth and the ocean and the planet.

Oh. How do you fix that reclining seat and tray table thing? Well, threats don’t work. Mechanical devices don’t work. If you throw yourself back hard enough, you just pop those clamps. How do I know? I read about it. I didn’t do it. So none of that stuff works. Threats, cajoling, offering money, none of that works. What worked, and this is almost an aside in one of the interviews of the book’s author, the only thing that works is, back when you could, was if you bought a round of drinks for the people around you. Or snacks. You didn’t have to buy drinks. You go, hey, you know, you gave out beverage coupons. Hey, everybody, beverage coupons. Why? Because no one wants to be a jerk in a community.

If you can create community in that airline, and the easiest way to do that is pass out liquor coupons apparently, you’ve only got a little bit of time. Then people got along, didn’t recline their seats, and asked for permission each way, and got along. So even in that little tiny, tiny, tiny example, example from the Scriptures talking about going with other people, being community, not being selfish, getting along with one another, doing the hard work of community, works, for a better life for everyone.

So James may not tell us how to get to Heaven. I mean, he barely talks about Christ. But, you know, he tells us how to avoid hell on Earth. And for that, I’m thankful. Amen.

Mine

One of Twelve

How We Count People and Sin

One of the Twelve
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from worship at St Paul’s Lutheran Family, Carson City, NV on April 11.2021

John 20:19-31

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One of the twelve. Did you catch that? There’s a lot going on in the scripture. But in the 24th verse, the first line of the second paragraph of the reading, we read this: “One of the twelve.” I caught my breath when I read that this year because I realized there wasn’t twelve. Judas was gone. Eleven. Thomas is not there. He’s absent. Ten. What about that young man that ran away in Mark? Nine. How about that rough old fisherman that denied Jesus three times? Eight. “One of the twelve.” How do you count in a fearful time? How many people are here today?

In my day job, I’m the clerk of the Presbytery of Nevada. All the Presbyterian churches in Nevada, a couple lost souls in California we took pity on and a couple others, report to me how many people came to worship last year on average. And they were calling me and say, “What are we going to put down? What’s the right answer? We haven’t met since March. Our average is zero in worship.”

What do we put down? Does Zoom count? How about if there’s two in the little boxes? What if there’s just a strange picture of Wonder Woman every week? Is that really a person? And YouTube views. Does that have to be on Sunday? Or what if we took the whole count? And then there’s Facebook. And then sometimes people do all three at once. I don’t know how they do it, but they do it. How are we going to count how many are a part of us in a fearful time?

If Jesus, and I’ve asked him, came in and could tell me the number, what would he say? What would he say here? What would he say there? How many are in the room? Scriptures, the author of John seems to think all of them were there. “One of the twelve.”

Gallup has something to say. If you know George Gallup and his organization, he’s gone, but the organization goes on. Have you seen the study that just came out? For the first time in the history of this nation church membership is below 50%. The most common membership of church, United States is “none” for the first time ever. Well, we’ve been seeing it coming. It’s been sliding on down. And it’s not just those avocado-eating, toast-eating young people. Even the greatest generations, their percentage has gone down. Every age group, boomers, you name it, everyone, church membership has gone down. We’re at 47%. 1999, not so long ago, we were at 70%.

“No religion” is getting a boost. They’ve gone from 8% up to 21%. Others are kind of in that fuzzy crazy thing of, yeah, I’m with you, but I’m never there kind of thing; you know? I don’t know, you know, you don’t have to worry. I’m not a Lutheran. But in Presbyterian church, half of people who claim they’re Presbyterian aren’t. We have no record of them. One out of two Presbyterians aren’t Presbyterian. So there’s those people.

Now, you may tell me, Christy, no one joins anything anymore. The Book of the Month Club is way far away. People aren’t joiners. They don’t sign up for things. They don’t go to clubs. I mean, look at the Grange. You know, that used to be great. Not so much anymore. Look at the Masons. Look at all the fraternal and lodges, Odd Fellows, the Moose, all those things are all having trouble. And I said, well, okay, maybe. But are you a member of Amazon Prime? That seems to be doing pretty well. Have you heard about this thing called Facebook? I think they’ve got more members than there are people in the world, sharing their lives, encouraging or discouraging one another, making connections, building up, tearing down. Sounds like something we used to do.

Heck fire, even Best Buy is rolling out a membership plan. I don’t know exactly what that would mean, but I’m signing up. And political parties? I don’t know about you, but it seems like a lot more people are joining up political parties. And youth sports. Is there any youth that isn’t a member of two, three organizations? My goodness. So I don’t think we can just say, well, no one’s joining nothing. I don’t think so.

So how do we count? You know, this Sunday we skipped over – did you notice there’s two Sundays in the scripture? It’s really unfair for a preacher to have two Sundays in one Sunday’s reading. I mean, you should separate them out because we forget about that first Sunday, and we look at the second Sunday. You know, the one about the proof and the doubt and the goriness that if we weren’t used to it would be rated “M” on the graphic novel; you know? There’s going to be some hand in the side. Ugh. We skip over that. We talk about the proof and the denial and the doubt and the faith and all this other stuff. There are plenty of sermons on that. I got a couple on the Internet, if you’re really desperate.

But I want to talk about the first Sunday after Easter. You know, today. Where the Bible says one of the twelve wasn’t there. Well, then there wasn’t twelve there, was there, Bible. Bible knows that. Bible knows that Judas is gone. Bible knows that Peter’s not out in the open. Bible knows that one of the disciples ran away. Yet the Bible still says twelve. What happened that first Sunday with the twelve? Jesus came back, and the sermon went something like this. You might recognize it. There was peace. Peace. There was ritual actions. There was joy. And there was a message.

Did you catch it? It closed the service, sermon at the end, classic structure. Jesus said, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. Of all the things to say the Sunday after Easter. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. Of all the things Jesus could tell them, coming back from hell, rising from the dead, triumphant over the worst the empire could give him, he says about forgiving sins of any, but also warns them about retaining sins of any.

Now, immediately, what did we do as a church? We immediately took this little scripture, and we made a huge big patriarchal power structure, hierarchical, ecclesiastical, with all sorts of penance and potions and indulgences and wherefore and courts and censors and discipline and all this. I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind this first Sunday after Easter. He didn’t think that we were going to make some kind of religious industrial complex out of forgiving and sinning and forgiving and penance and rules and what you have to do to get back right.

And look who was there that first Sunday? Look who was not? A denier, deserter, doubter, and all of them despairing. And to this group he says “peace.” There’s no peace, Jesus. Rome is after us. The Jewish, our own people are after us. We’re hiding here. But you see, peace isn’t the peace we think of, absence of war, safety from conflict. Peace is much, much more than that. Peace is everything is where it should be. Everything is in its place. Everything is fitting. Everything is cozy. Everything is the way that God wants it to be. Peace, peace. The twelve are here because God’s peace is here, and all is where it should be. Peace.

But if you think of peace as the way God wants the world to be, where everything is fitting, where everybody has what they need to live, where everything is cozy, if you will, then you can understand sin. Sin is not some morality play, some purity test, some list of morals or do’s and don’ts. It isn’t about a dress code. It isn’t about a date code. It isn’t about what you pledge to do or not do on a certain time and place. Sin is not doing God’s will. If you are not conforming, if you’re going against what God wants you to do, that is sin. Which is the opposite of peace. Peace is what God wants the world to be like, what relationships should be. Sin is when we don’t do that, when we rebel. When we don’t do what God wants. When we do things for selfish things. When we don’t have our place in society and with people.

And you could think of that first Sunday. You think this is a tough worship service? Mass? Social distancings? No coffee? No hugs? Imagine those people back then. That was a bad Sunday. Jesus dead. Doors locked. Fear of the authorities. Peace. To this he says “peace.” To them he says the world. Let’s not talk sin. Let’s talk about it. If you forgive the way the world is not like what God wants, if you can forgive the way people are not the way God wants them to be, well, then they are forgiven. And I think there were some uncomfortable looks around the room. Was a denier there? Did people kind of look to the side? Say that guy, that guy we have to forgive? God wants peace between me and that guy who couldn’t even say he was with us the time we needed him? Was there a couple people? You know there was. That looked at that empty chair where Judas always sat, you know, that’s where he was. He was just there last week. One of the twelve. That guy. I hate him. You tell me to forgive him? Our things will still be broken.

Or the guy who ran away, not named, in Mark. Was he there? Was the guy who locked the door, oh, we’ve got to. You never know, things are coming to get us. You know who this is. Conspiracy theory guy. He’s everywhere. Even back then. We’ve got to make up with him? What about Thomas? Thomas. He didn’t even show up. We haven’t seen that guy. He’s given up. I hear he went back to work. Him? If you forgive, that’s a lot more tough than some kind of purity test or some kind of moral law, to hear Jesus say you get right with the folks that aren’t the way God wants them to be. And that will fix things.

And then there’s judgment. He warns those folks because he knew. He could read a room. He looked around, and it’s, oh, geez, I’m going to come back next week. You guys got some homework. If you don’t do this, if you retain, if you keep this up, if you keep acting like this, the way God wants the world to be will continue to be broken. The world will continue to be in sin, meaning not the way God wants it to be. If you want to save the world, you can’t keep going after the folks and the things that don’t measure up to God, God’s will.

How do you get rid of sin? We might say repent. We might say get on the right course. We might say penance, depending on our tradition. We might say confession. We might say a lot of things. But the Bible today says the way to get rid of sin is to forgive. To forgive. And are forgiven. And if you don’t forgive, if you retain, if you’re still mad at Peter, you’re still mad at Peter for not having the guts to stand up and support you, if you’re still mad at Thomas for not showing up on Sunday like he’s supposed to, if you’re still mad at Judas, well, then, guess what? Sin’s going to continue. The world’s not going to be the way God wants it to be. And there will be no peace.

And I’ll be here next week and see how you’re doing. Somebody was listening. Somebody took it to heart. Somebody went out to Thomas. You know, they didn’t say Thomas, oh, you really missed something, Thomas. Shame on you for not showing up. Thomas, we have seen the Lord. We have seen what God wants for the world. We have seen Jesus. Here’s our faith. I know you don’t have any. Here’s some. And even though he was a jerk about it, and don’t raise a hand, but how many people you talk to are jerks about things now? Yeah, they’re out in force. Even though he was a jerk about it and says, well, I ain’t calling you a liar, but you’re lying. Unless I see it, it didn’t happen. You still invite that guy to church? They did. They listened to Jesus. And the next week the doors were shut. They weren’t locked. At least they didn’t say they locked. They were just shut. Progress, not perfection.

You know, Jesus answered him, asked him, have you believed because you’ve seen me? I wonder what Thomas would say? Because you know what, he didn’t actually, we don’t have actually that he didn’t actually poke Jesus like he said he had to. He didn’t actually slide his hand in there. At least it’s not in the Bible that he did that. I’m wondering if Thomas said, well, not because I saw you. I’m here because of these guys. Even after me being a jerk and abandoning them, they came and got me. And I didn’t see you. I didn’t poke you. I didn’t look at your wounds before I came to church.

I’m glad you’re here. But the reason I’m here, the reason I’m being faithful is because of these people around me that told me I didn’t have to be perfect, that they forgave me when I abandoned them. That they forgave me for being a jerk and not believing them. And that’s what healed me. Nothing that I did. But the love and forgiveness that the other people have shown to me, that’s what got rid of it. You know, if they didn’t go after Thomas and tell him and invite him, if they retained his behavior that God didn’t want, I wonder if the Bible would say eleven instead of twelve.

Friends, we’ve got some work to do. Going to be a tremendous adjustment as we come to something else other. Already, you’ve already done that, I applaud you. Are we retaining sins or forgiving them? Are we forgiving that things aren’t the way God wants them to be and pronouncing peace? Everyone has a place, and you fit in here somehow. We’re going to make it work. Or are we going to retain the brokenness and the way things God doesn’t want to be? Seems like it’s up to us which way we go, whether we have peace, where everyone is forgiven and loved, or we don’t have peace, where everybody is separated and not counted.

There’s a poem by Ruth Etchells, found it on Facebook. You know, that membership thing.

The Ballad of the Judas Tree

by Ruth Etchells

In Hell there grew a Judas Tree
Where Judas hanged and died
Because he could not bear to see
Hs master crucified

 Our Lord descended into Hell
And found his Judas there
For ever hanging on the tree
Grown from his own despair

So Jesus cut his Judas down
And took him in his arms
‘It was for this I came’ he said
‘And not to do you harm

My Father gave me twelve good men
And all of them I kept
Though one betrayed and one denied
Some fled and others slept

In three days’ time I must return
To make the others glad
But first I had to come to Hell
And share the death you had

My tree will grow in place of yours
Its roots lie here as well
There is no final victory
Without this soul from Hell ‘

So when we all condemn him
As of every traitor worst
Remember that of all his men
Our Lord forgave him first.

From the Church of Scotland website for Easter Day

The audio and transcript are from the Saturday version. Here is a YouTube of the Sunday Service

One of the Twelve: Counting People and Sins

Unity

When Rights Are Left To Others

Unity
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from Zoom worship for Lee Vining & Bishop Valley Presbyterian Church February 7, 2021

I Corinthians 9:16-23

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When Larry King asked the comedian George Carlin about the humor of Andrew Dice Clay, the Diceman, that made fun of women, ethnic minorities, queer folk, anyone that was not white, male, abled-bodied, heterosexual. He talked how he was different than the vulgar humor Andrew Dice Clay provided. Carlin believed that comedy was about “punching up”, not punching down. He prefers to make fun of the white, abled-bodied, rich, privileged, powerful men in the world. Punch up the social economic scale.

The punching down starts at 8:57 (should begin there) and ends about 90 seconds later. (The interview continues.)

That was 30 years ago.

We seen a lot of change in the last year. As Joey Lee, the EP of San Jose Presbytery observed in April 2020, churches have made more changes in the last month then he could get them to do in 30 years. I am reminded of a sweet 80-year-old who proudly told me when I commented that she had seen a lot of change in her life, “Yep, seen a lot of change and I was against every one of them!”

One of the changes for me as I’ve been out of my regular circles of friends and good church people is to consider the folks not like me. Me, a white, male, cisgender, married, fairly able, employed person and consider the experience of those not like me.

I used to hear in our Corinthians reading unity and how we are all the same. Maybe even be like Stephen Colbert’s character on “The Colbert Report” who would declare “I don’t see race.” But this year, the reading changed…or more accurately I changed. I thought about what groups Paul, the freeborn, educated, privileged Jewish male Roman citizen chose to list in his unity….

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

A slave, an immigrant Jew, an outsider, and a person with disabilities walk into a scripture. Sounds like the setup for a Diceman quadruple play for some punch down humor. Paul could have chosen other folks to highlight unity if that was the message: Romans, the rich, the strong, or just “I don’t see race-we are all the same.” If all lives matter is all that matters, did it matter that Paul chose those suffering and outcasts as the other to become as one with?

Some have seen approbation in Paul here, claiming another group’s experience as one’s own. If you reject approbation as a made-up liberal problem stay with me, I have an option. Just think of stolen valor when a person claims military service or honors they have not earned. Try to imagine folks valuing their experience and struggles just as folks rightly value the sacrifice of those who have served their country. Same issue, the only different is how we value what is stolen.

In context this identification with the downtrodden follows Paul’s claiming he has every right to be paid for his preaching. (YAY!) even though he declines to be compensated. (rats—so close) In our time, we might raise at least an eyebrow at the privilege of the wealthy Paul to choose not to be paid for the labor, like unpaid internships at Wall Street firms, that’s free labor is an option most people cannot afford to give or have taken. Is it noble to give up what you do not need or even miss? Maybe it is just not being greedy. Avoiding a vice is not a virtue.

Throughout this section of Corinthians Paul claims his privilege while rejecting it. Paul tells the Corinthians that I could, I should, I have every RIGHT to be paid…but I do not charge. I am freeborn…but I choose to be a slave. I have a get out of jail free card signed by Christ…but I choose to be under the law. I am part of the in crowd…but I choose to stand outside. I am healthy and hardy…but I choose to be with the weak or we might say disabled.

Paul could preach that all he is as fans of the Expanse might say, the boss man not the slave of all, that he is the Jew of Jew, Times Pharisee of the Year, that the law did not apply to him, he could do anything because when you are faithful: they let you. Paul could say we owed him for his great work. Some would cheer this Glory Gospel of Superhero Paul who is Big Time.

These Anti-Paul folk would preach about their own rights for their great accomplishments not their responsibilities to the needs of others. The Anti-Pauls would grumble about the disabled getting the best parking, about affirmative action hires, about being forced to give up their FREEDUMB by wearing a mask because others might get sick or die.

• Yet none would trade reliable limbs for better parking.
• No white person seeks a skin treatment to be black to get that sweet affirmative action.
• No one refuses a ventilator because of freedom from obedience to those medical meddlers. A vent down your throat is a worse than a mask over your nose and mouth. I know.

I don’t get out much so took to twitter to see what folks are saying. I did not even search before I found someone who has met some Anti-Paulites and writes:

I was not prepared for how many people are willing to let others die rather than suffer even a moment’s inconvenience. I have always known these people existed. I have always understood that this sort of callous cruelty was as much a part of human nature as is nobility and sacrifice. I was not prepared for how many of these people there are.

It’s been almost a year. I’ve watched former friends, neighbors, acquaintances evidence this complete inability to comprehend why we should engage in communal self-sacrifice for the sake of one another. I am still reeling. I have had ample time to absorb it. I still can’t.

Joseph Brassey

I hope we never do absorb Anti-Paul thinking.

What would Paul’s attitude look like? Where even cats can put their rights aside for their responsibilities to others. Watch the give and take in this video.

How about a human example? Well, we can find grace anywhere. As Mr. Rogers’ mother advised children in crisis, “Look for the helpers.” There is grace even in Zoom glitches: the blessing and curse of this pandemic liturgical season. Zoom is limited to 100 connections under their standard license. St. Peter’s Episcopal knew that the online funeral of their beloved deacon Betty would draw over 100 from their congregation, family, and all the communities she had blessed in her life. So they bought the 500 person license…and were unaware that they had to enable it online. The funeral came and hit 100 just minutes before the start, and Zoom was closed to others.

Now everyone was invited to the service: technically they had the link and passcode, and emotionally they had the relationship with Betty to be there. EVERY RIGHT to stay…but when folks realized there were people outside who could not get in…without being asked folks unmuted and used Betty’s signature phrase, last heard from her hospice bed, LOVE ALL Y’ALL to say goodbye and log off to make room for someone else. A staggered chorus arose of folks giving up their rights to make room in that sacred privileged space for strangers. So Betty. So Paul. I checked back later to see if there was room and pushed the count from 99 to 100. I got off again. I realized that the good folks were committed to keeping one space open, like Elijah’s empty chair at Seder, so that if someone who needed to be there, they could be. Every time the count got to 100, someone gave up their privileged place and logged off. “LOVE ALL Y’ALL” in word and deed.

For the Sake of the Gospel, for the good news to be good news, for Christianity to be a blessing and not a curse Paul tells us that and lives out a freedom and privilege that is not for him and his but for others, the wage slave, society’s outcasts, a Jews a religious minority-immigrants kicked out of Rome, the disabled. Losers by society standards that Paul calls us and shows us to use our power, our privilege, our birthrights to include. We are blessed so that others can win those blessings as well.

Unity: When Rights Are Left