Testify

Testify

Testify
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING

Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service February 16, 2025
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church

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

  John 8:12-19

 Sermons also available free on iTunes

My pastor growing up, Dr. Paul Bauer, said “Sermonettes are for Christianettes.”  That was probably his only joke in 20 years, but it was a good one.  Good morning, Episcopalians.  They’ve got me tied to this mic today, so you’re welcome.

So today I’ve got scriptures, I love the scriptures you give me there.  Define the relationship of Jesus Christ and God the Father without straying from Episcopalian beliefs or violating your Presbyterian doctrine, and do it in 10 minutes.  Thanks.  We’ll pass on that.  I mean, there have been wars fought over this, and over a single Greek letter.  We’ll pass on that.  What we won’t pass on is the opportunity the scripture gives us to talk about testimony.

Testimony.  We need more testimony in this world.  We don’t need more arguing.  We don’t need more fact-checking.  We don’t need more gotcha.  We don’t need any snarky answers to people’s sincerely held beliefs.  What we could use is testimony.  Did you hear it in Jesus’s saying, “You don’t know where I came from or where I’m going?”  If you know where you came from, if you know where you are going, you have a testimony.  You have something to say.

And I don’t know if any of you have been preachers, weekly preachers for 40 years.  But I’ll tell you a secret.  When you’re preaching every Sunday, everything that happens is sermon-fodder.  You know, everything goes in the old chipper and comes out, I tell you.  And so I was thinking about testimony and what does it mean to – and where is the good testimony and where things are.  And would you believe it, in my inbox comes testimony from the Episcopalians.  Woo-hah.  And about 20 other denominations, including Presbyterian, about sanctuary.

Now, you all know how hard it is to keep quiet in a sanctuary.  You know how hard it is to keep me quiet in the sanctuary before service.  Well, I’ll tell you, you Episcopalians work even harder on sanctuary.  For over a quarter of the century, sanctuary has been kept in churches, synagogues, religious gathering places around the country, saying, hey, arrest people somewhere else than in church, at services, on a Sunday.  But no longer.  No longer.  And that’s what the Episcopalians testified.

Listen to this.  Sean Rowe, presiding bishop.  In the Kingdom of God as we understand it, immigrants and refugees are not at the edges, fearful and alone.  Their struggles reveal the heart of God.  We cannot worship freely if some of us live in fear.  Sean Rowe, Episcopal bishop, presiding bishop.  Even Jesus himself identifies as “stranger.”  We must proclaim, particularly in this time, that we are all welcome in the places of worship, that all have – that all are welcome in places of worship.  This seems a basic human right, one that we are called by God to serve.

In the first week of the current administration I see he arrested over 4,500 people, including 1,000 people in a Sunday immigration enforcement blitz.  At least one of these – this is from the court case that your church joined with the church I serve, and 21 other churches in testimony.  And at least one of these enforcement actions occurred at a church in Georgia during the worship service.  According to news coverage, an usher standing at the church entrance saw a group of ICE agents outside, locked the door.  The agent said that they were there to arrest Wilson Velasquez, who had traveled to the United States from Honduras with his wife and three children in 2022.  Immediately after crossing the border, they turned themselves in to U.S. authorities, requested asylum.  They were given a court date, released after federal agents put a GPS tracking monitor on Velasquez’s ankle.

After settling in suburban life, the family joined the Pentecostal Church, where they worshipped several times a week and helped with the music.  They were listening to the pastor’s sermon when ICE agents arrived to arrest Velasquez.  Although Velasquez had attended all his required check-ins at the Atlanta ICE office and had a court date scheduled to present his asylum case to a judge, ICE agents arrested him, explaining that they were simply looking for people with ankle bracelets.  The pastor, Luis Ortiz, tried to reassure his congregation.  But he said he could see the fear and tears in their faces.

And if you’re upset that people are talking in sanctuary, imagine how upset you’d be if someone came in and arrested someone during the sermon.  That should be an announcement every Sunday morning.  But we’re not saying you’re bad, or you’re awful, or you vote for this person, or it’s all your fault or blame.  We’re saying where we have been, where we came from, and where we are going, we know that, so we have a testimony.  And here’s the Episcopal Church’s testimony.  And God bless you all.  This is in the filing of the United States court system.  Because you all know where you’ve been, and you all know where you’re going, and you have a testimony.

Plaintiff, the Episcopal Church.  Recognizing the Bible’s repeated calls for God’s people to embrace the foreigner as a way of extending the work that is the heart of God in every time and place, the Episcopal Church, champions and advocates for humane policies toward migrants.  And many dioceses, parish, and Episcopal networks provide resources, support, and care for asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants, refugees, and other migrant communities.  Testimony.  Testimony.

If you don’t know where you’ve been and don’t know where you’re going, you don’t have a testimony.  But Christians know where we’ve been.  We read the scriptures every Sunday.  Hopefully more than every Sunday.  We live by them.  And we know where we’re going.  We’re going to the Kingdom of God, and we’re living in the Kingdom of God right here.  We are not living in Empire.  We do not serve the Empire.  We serve the Kingdom of God.  We know where we’ve been.  We know where we’re going.  We know what our passport says.   Our passport says “Kingdom of God.”  Not Empire.

And so we have a testimony.  You don’t have to argue with someone because they’re just not listening.  They’re just waiting for their turn to argue with you and go back and forth.  We need to have conversations.  We need to find common ground.  We need to go forward.  Yes, yes, yes, yes.  But that’s not going to come from arguing.  It’s going to come from testimony based on where we come from and where we want to go.

Brian, you got that slide up there for me?  Here’s a testimony.  Here’s a sign that doesn’t say “Vote for this” or “I voted that” or “Don’t blame me, I voted for the other one.”  This is what I believe.  In this house we believe love is love.  Testimony.  Black Lives Matter.  And if you’re racist, Black Lives Matter Too, because I have to say that or otherwise you’d think that we do a Breast Cancer Awareness or Fundraiser, we’re saying no other cancer matters.

Black Lives Matter Too.  Science is real.  Women’s rights are fundamental.  Women’s rights are human rights.  No person is illegal.  Disability rights are human rights.  Healthcare for all.  Kindness is everything.  That just says what you believe.  That’s a testimony based on where you’ve come from and where you’re going.  It attacks no one.  It should upset no one.  It goes, oh, thanks for sharing what you believe.  Now, I know you a little better.  Some of those things I believe.  Maybe we could figure out how to make that a little more true in the greater world.  It’s testimony.

I brought a prop.  My wife made this for me.  And I think I’m going to be wearing it more and more.  This might be a daily driver.  Some people are against rainbows.  But this shows where I believe.  And I think I’m going to be wearing this shirt. 

I almost wore it to preach in.  You’re welcome.  This should threaten no one.  This just gives a testimony to what I believe.  It’s perfectly okay if you pee next to me.  Now, if you want to bring a gun in, I might have an issue with that.  But you all can pee next to me.  So if you’re upset, you can say, well, at least he didn’t wear the T-shirt the whole time.

So I come to thank you.  Presbyterian Church is in the pleading, too.  Eighty pages, great reading, along with Episcopalians, the spot on the Mennonites.  We can almost – we’ve got a couple atheists in there.  All testifying.  In 1993, America decided that sanctuary was a place not just to keep quiet for a few minutes before worship, but a place where humans that are fearful could come and worship God, and hear the good eternal truth in the gospel without fear of being arrested and hauled off because it’s easy to get them there.  Over a quarter of a century ago.  I don’t remember changing, that we thought as long as you’re quiet you can arrest people in our services.

Testimony.  I believe sanctuary is a place where everyone can come and worship without fear of persecution, without fear of that.  And you know, folks, I have some privileged folks in my life.  And when I start talking about that, they go, oh, you’re talking politics.  Oh, you’re just talking – we don’t talk politics.

Wilson is now not with his family.  He’s taken away from his children and his wife.  And I would challenge that person to go and explain to their children that their father is not with them anymore, that he’s in prison, it’s just politics, and they shouldn’t really care that much.  Our faith is a lot more than what is comfortable for us and for the people that we can see.  Our faith is a faith of the entire world.  We believe that Jesus Christ came, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.  It’s not a scripture, but that world means cosmos, means everything, all the relationships, and all the people in it, and the plants and the animals, and the people that come and go.  That’s what God came for, not just to make my life comfortable.  And those I can see not suffering because that’s upsetting.  It’s for everyone.

So I come here as a wandering Presbyterian to thank the leadership of the Episcopal Church in saying where they come from and where they’re going, and testifying to all that would hear, and many that don’t want to, that this is who we are.  This is who we love.  And this is where we’re going.  And we’re telling everyone.  Testify.  Amen.

Testify

Not My Job

Not My Job

Not My Job
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING

Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service January 26, 2025
for ZOOM with Lee Vining Presbyterian Church

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

  John 2:1-11

 Sermons also available free on iTunes

Should the church be run like a business?  People tell me that, throughout my career in the ministry in 40 years, and they come in, you know, church has to be run like a business.  And they usually don’t know that I have a business administration degree from Grove City College with cum laude.  So they think this is news to me, God bless ‘em.

And I was wondering, you know, when I’m in a more festive mood, with is almost always, I admit it is a problem, I ask them, well, if church is run like a business, what’s its product?  I mean, what is it selling?  I mean, that’s basic business that you know your product.  What’s a product?  You know, it gives them pause because, I mean, you all think of that, I ain’t going to put you on the spot because, you know, it’s like being in the front row at a comedy club, you know.  You know you’re going to get picked on if there’s only, like, six of you.  So don’t answer out.  I’m not putting you on the spot.

But what would you say is the church’s business?  What’s the product?  What are we making?  Oh, you’re going to – you’re going to – you’re, yeah, are we making Christians.  That’s one of the A-plus answers.  I would go A-plus on Christians, disciples, yeah.  You know, others would say, you know, Laurie, others would say, well, you’re making worship services.  You know, some people say that.  Or, well, you’ve got to maintain the building, you know.  Or some people would say, you know, you’re feeding the hungry, and Matthew 25, and the thirsty, and you’re doing that stuff.  And I don’t know if you’d get agreement from everyone in a room about what the product is for the church, if it was run like a business.

And then it gets even more complicated because then you’ve got to say, okay, we’ve got a product, maybe.  You would say, well, who’s our customer?  What’s our target audience?  Who are we working for?  And I’m sure Laurie knows the answer.  It’s always God.  God’s always the correct answer in any children’s message or sermon.

Well, some people say God’s the customer.  Okay.  Other people would say, well, the people who pay the bills.  You’ve got to keep them happy.  You’ve got to keep the people happy who’re paying the bills or you don’t have a church.  They’re the customer.  Well, sure, God, but you know, oh, I’ve got to keep the money folks happy.  Some people would say that.  Some people say, well, it’s the church board.  I mean, I don’t know if anybody would say that.  Maybe one or two would say you’ve got to go with the – or maybe a couple would say the pastor has to be happy.  That’s rare, but that could happen.  I’m sure that’s happened.  You know, who are you trying to please?  Who are you working for?  Who’s the customer?  That’s a difficult one.

What if they went beyond that and said, okay, well, now, who owns the business?  You know?  Who?  Is it a nonprofit?  That’s problematic in a church, if you don’t have profits.  If you do, well, what’s the business?  What is that customer?  Who owns it?  Who is in charge of it?  I mean, the Presbyterians have gone all the way up to the Supreme Court about who owns the church.  And the Supreme Court, way back, oh, ‘70s, said, well, that PCUSA owns the church, but please make it more clear in your constitution.  So we’ve been – we struggle with that in reality of who owns the business of the business?  That’s important, too.

Well, you know, we shouldn’t be surprised that we have these questions and answers, and that we can’t get consensus and move around because even Jesus Christ had trouble, as we saw here, skipping over the dynamic of why you’re calling your mother “women,” that doesn’t sound good to us English-speaking ears that you go “woman.”  But maybe it’s better in the Aramaic, I’m hoping.  But Jesus had some troubles about his jobs and where he was doing and what he was doing it for.  And, you know, a mother, the mother, you know, you don’t want your mother coming up to where you work and saying you’re not good at your job.  I mean, that’s not good.  That’s a bad day right there.

And, you know, and I don’t know, you know, can you imagine, I don’t know if we can be Jesus, but you’ve got these world-changing powers.  You want to change the world for good.  You want to help people, you want to get love all around, forgiveness and all that, and your mom wants you to solve the lack of wine at a three-day blowout party for people you don’t know.  You know, Jesus Christ is fully human.  I can see him being a little upset about that one.  And not just, you know, hey, bring a bottle of wine.  I mean, come on, it’s a party, bring the wine, what are you?  You know, we’re talking multiple gallons of water turning to wine.  We’re talking 20 to 30, what is it, six times 20, help me out.  It’s over 100 gallons of wine.  That’s a lot of wine.  Of course, you know, Mary didn’t say, hey, go get 100 gallons.

Is that Jesus’ job?  I don’t know.  We struggle with that in the church.  We’re struggling right now about what is the church’s job.  I mean, folks will say let’s get politics out of the church, doo to doo to doo, you know, they want to say that.  And you know what, I’ve noticed over the years, I mean, I’ve been around a little bit, politics just kept getting wider and wider and wider.  You know?  It used to be you could go buy craft supplies and not worry about politics.  Now you’ve got to say, well, that one’s Republican and that one’s Democrat.  Politics are just freaking everywhere.  You know, and people wear them, you know, as part of their clothing, their politics.  It is politics, politics, politics, politics everywhere.  And it affects – and it’s not just politics.

Politics affects our lives, affects our health, affects our neighbors, affects ourselves, affects our family.  You know, we say, well, it’s just politics.  Well, no, man, it’s morality.  It’s reality.  It’s how we live.  It’s how we structure society.  It’s how we help one another.  And even now we saw right now that a bishop, you know, we don’t have bishops.  I don’t know.  Sometimes that’s good; sometimes it’s bad.  I don’t know.  But we don’t have bishops.  But that’s like, you know, up there, you know, big hat, in charge of church and stuff.  And the bishop in the church, okay, that’s kind of a big thing, bishop in the church there actually makes it a cathedral when the bishop’s in the church.  So the bishop in the cathedral saying a sermon, you know, the bishop in the cathedral in a sermon, you think that’s religious.

But some people say, oh, no, that’s politics.  They can’t say this.  They can’t say that.  They’ve got this to do.  They’ve got this to do.  They’ve got to be in this box.  They can’t be this.  And oh, my gosh, I want to tell you about how the bishop in the cathedral preaching a sermon should be.  I say get the politics out of the church.  I say get the politics out of my life.  My life belongs to Jesus Christ.  Don’t be telling me I can’t follow Jesus Christ because you don’t like the politics.  And don’t be coming into a cathedral and telling the bishop what he can say in their own pulpit.  No.

We have trouble with jobs, with what is a job.  I mean, even today we have trouble.  You know, we say we might get upset about oh, my gosh, he should have said into this.  Oh, my gosh, that’s not her job.  Oh, she shouldn’t have made the wine.  I mean, I’m sure that there were some people, well, Jesus, you know, you shouldn’t be making that much wine for drunk people.  I mean, that is a reasonable criticism.  I mean, Laurie can help me out here, but I’m thinking that’s enabling.  I mean, that’s like master-class enabling right there.  These drunk people need more wine.  I mean, the steward flat-out said they were already drunk; you know?  And why do drunk people need more wine, I don’t know.  And people could criticize that, and I don’t even think that would be political.

But what is the job of the church?  It’s something we’re going to be struggling with, I’ll tell you.  We’re going to be struggling with that.  And, you know, between ministers, and it’s especially a struggle because, you know, when you get in a ministry you can sort of say, good, the ministry will figure that out; you know.  But when it’s just y’all, you know, you’ve got to figure out what is the church.  Does the church do this?  Does the church do that?  Is that our job?  Should we have services even though none of us lives in Lee Vining and we’ve got a lot of weather?  Should we do that?  I mean, it’d be really nice to have a minister decide that.  But you don’t, so you’ve got to decide that, oh, you know.  So what do you do?

Now, let me change gears a little bit.  Palisades Fire.  Have you heard of it?  Palisades Fire.  Now, I don’t know it you know about Palisades.  Kind of a rich people place.  But, you know, they have a severe homeless problem.  They’ve got a lot of folks there that are hungry, don’t have housing, don’t have food.  But the disaster is a disaster.  I can’t imagine losing everything you own.  I can’t imagine that.  There’s been loss of life in the double digits, I think it’s up to 23 or so.  Whole neighborhoods washed out.  I mean, one of the Presbyterian execs lost her home down there, one of my friends, Wendy.  I can’t imagine that.  Everything, you look around, everything gone.

Another one of the ministers at the Palisades church, he had time to run down – you’ve got to read it.  It’s on the PCUSA website, that Palisades fire, and was in the Presbyterian newsletter last week.  But the pastor had enough time to run from the church down to the elementary school, grab his kids, because there was just cars everywhere, nothing was moving.  There’s parents trying to get their kids.  Had enough time to go down, get his kids, take them back out to the car, and flee the church.  He didn’t take anything out of his office, and the church burned to the ground.  I can’t imagine, what a tragedy.  I want to say that, that it’s awful, it’s a tragedy, it’s a horrible thing.  Suffering is real.  And that’s one of the things the Church knows.

But I do want to tell you about jobs.  When we’re talking about jobs, for at least a little while, for at least a couple weeks, there’s no hungry person in the Palisades.  There’s no one hungry.  There is no hunger because World Food Kitchen rolled in there with the food trucks.  They rolled in, and they said anyone that’s hungry, come and eat.  And we’re not checking your ID.  We’re not seeing where you’re living.  If you’re hungry, come and eat.  We’ve got food.  Come on down.  And good food, too.  And they got stores there that are open, and they’ve got brand new stuff for babies, and clothes, and if you lost something, come on in and don’t pay.  There’s no charge.  The donations are there, and they’re here for you to pick up, and God bless.

So we can do that.  It takes a fire.  It takes a disaster.  It takes a horrible thing.  Now, in Mary’s case the disaster was we ran out of wine at a social event.  Okay, a little bit of a disaster.  But the disaster that we have here that wiped out entire communities was enough to say, oh, yeah, we can feed every person and not charge them.  We can clothe the naked and not charge them.  We can do that.  So when you say to me, oh, well, we can’t do it, you know, we’ve got to run like a business, and we’ve got to have profit and loss, so we’ve got to have [indiscernible] and negative, yeah, I’d say, well, yeah, I understand that, I mean, I did get an A in accounting.  But for at least a couple weeks we did it.  We could do it.

We could stop making billionaires and now trillionaires.  We’ve got a couple people on the way to trillionaire, hoo-hoo.  We could quit making them.  And we can start making people that are fed and housed.  We can do it.  I don’t want a fire to wipe out a whole community to figure out how we can be Christians and make sure everyone’s got fed, clothing, and housing.  I’d rather not.  I’d rather we just decided, yeah, this is something we could do.  And you know, it’s not just the church’s job.  I mean, we say, well, the church ought to do that.  They should have a lot of money and social things and all this.  You know, Matthew 25, where it talks about the naked, clothing the naked and feeding the hungry and visiting the imprisoned and all the things that folks say, oh, I don’t know if we can afford all that.

It doesn’t say the church is going to be judged by that.  It doesn’t say that individuals are going to be judged by that.  We would like it to, oh, my gosh, that’d be so much easier.  You know, oh, I’ve done good.  I’m okay.  I give things.  I’m helpful.  No.  It says the nations will be judged.  The nations of the world line up and are judged.  Our Bible says, our Savior says, our gospel good news says right there in black-and-white, that the nations will be judged by how they take care of one another.  So if you take comfort like I do, well, I’m a good person, I don’t hurt anybody, I’m nice, uh-oh.  The nations are judged by that.  

Well, that’s pretty heavy, Christy.  My gosh.  No wonder they only let you in once a month.  Hey, let’s talk about the servants.  Did you notice the servants?  It’s hard.  They don’t have any speaking parts.  I mean, that is just plain unfair right there.  Because you look at the Scripture, the servants are doing all the work.  They’re going, they get ordered over here, I mean, there’s this Mary person.  Who’s she?  She’s not part of the household.  Mary has to go over here, and he goes, talk to the stranger; you know?

And here’s the thing, you know, if I’m a servant, you know, and I’m thinking this, I’m not saying it out loud because servant, you know.  But I’m thinking, you know, we’d have the wine if this guy didn’t bring all his big burly Galilean fishermen to drink all the wine.  You know, I’m thinking that was an issue.  I don’t think they planned for that.  You know, his whole entourage comes, I mean, I’m thinking, those are some wine drinkers there, buddy.  You know?  And so makes sense to talk to this guy, do what this guy says.  And they’re saying, oh, okay, I guess we’re servants.  I guess we do that.

And he goes, go fill up those big old honkin’ jars.  I mean, you know, it’s like 55-gallon drums, if you can imagine.  Not quite that big, but, you know, roll them around and fill them up with water.  I mean, who knows where that water is?  Could have been, you know, a couple blocks away; you know?  Lot of work there.  They do all that.  And they’re thinking, this guy’s nuts.  Why is he giving water?  We’re out of wine.  We should be going around and getting some wine, and now he’s having us do this busywork and then go do that.  And then they go, they bring that.  And then Jesus says, “Go take the water to the chief steward to inspect for wine.”  They go, what craziness is this?  They’re going to yell at us.  This is ridiculous.  Why are we bothering the stewards?  I don’t want to get involved.

And the guy, the steward said, you know, this is really good wine.  And, you know, the servants are going, “Crazy white people,” you know.  What?  What?  We put that in there.  It’s water.  We know.  And they go, oh, yes, it’s great wine.  And they tell one another, you know, should we say something?  Should we tell them?  No, we shouldn’t say anything.  I don’t want to say anything.  We’ll get along just fine.  And then says the disciples believe.  I think the servants just thought he was crazy, crazy folks.  But, you know, where are the servants?  You know?  You know, he says, go do whatever Christ told you to do.  Even though it’s crazy.  Even though it can’t possibly work.  Even though we know better.  Even though we know it’s going to fail terribly.  Go ahead and do it anyway.  Go ahead and do it anyway.

What if Jesus says go over to Palisades and feed all the hungry over there?  Oh, that’s not going to work.  I can’t possibly do that.  That’s ridiculous.  Go do it anyway.  That’s where we’re at.  You know, we’re not around, sitting around saying, oh, let me think about what Jesus should be doing, what the job of the church is, and where are we going, and what’s our profit and loss, and what’s our five-year plan?  What’s our objectives, you know, specific measurable attainable and time-related.  What should we do?  It’s to follow Jesus and do whatever he tells you.  That’s our job.  That’s our job.  If we do that, Jesus will be revealed, and people will believe.  Amen.

Not My Job

This Little Light of Mine

This Little Light of Mine

This Little Light of Mine
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING

Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service December 29, 2024
at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Carson City

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

  John 1:1-18

 Sermons also available free on iTunes

Akron, Ohio, my hometown, has a Main Street that follows the river.  It was a river, and then it was a canal, and then it was road. Then came a flood, and then became a river again because you’ll have that.  Goes through – Main Street goes through the lowest part of town because that’s where the river was.  That’s where commerce was.  That’s where the canal was.  And so Main Street goes right like this all the way through town, and it’s the lowest part of town.  Over here we have Goodyear Heights.  And it’s high.  It goes right up.  It’s like in the middle of the valley.  Goodyear Heights is over here.  That’s where the factories are.  That’s where the rubber was made, the smokestacks, the work crews, all are up here.  And it’s high.  It is high up.  And in the space of about a mile or two, 10 blocks, you can see it.  It goes down to Main Street, and then it goes up to the outside.

 

The outside is West Hill.  West Hill’s on the other side of Main Street.  Market connects the two.  You could, up at West Hill, you can see, and see the whole town.  West Hill was where all the rich people lived, the factory owners, the management, because, you know, smoke was all over there, and in the valley it didn’t get up to West Hill.  So that’s where West Hill was.

 

Now, my family, my grandma, grandpa, and my brother, my uncle, good people, they were the factory people.  They lived over here on the East Side, on Goodyear Heights.  And over here is where we moved on up, you know, like that song, “Movin’ On Up” to the West Side.  So we moved over here.  So we were constantly going from the West Hill down the valley on Market.  [Indiscernible] to go visit the family and connect up in church and all that.  And so we did that a lot.  At one time, I don’t know, late ‘60s probably, we were just at the crest of West Hill where we could see the entire traffic of Akron.  We could see Main Street going along the canal.  We could see Market Street.  And Market, busy, busy throughfare.

 

And I remember one day we were at the crest of the hill, looking down, and we stopped.  We pulled over to the side of the road.  And I looked, and all through Market Street, 10, 20 blocks, down to Main Street and back up, traffic was frozen.  Everything was moved up to the side of the road and stopped.  I thought, well, that’s odd.  But then I looked, and I saw the flashing lights of a fire engine coming down Market Street.  And everybody had stopped and got out of the way and made way for those flashing lights.

 

Fast-forward 30 years, and some of you here know what that’s like.  You know, you turn around, suddenly it’s 30 years later?  Thirty years later I’m driving those flashing lights on the fire engine, faking it till I make it because no one else would get in the seat, so I did.  I’m driving.  And I’m learning about flashing lights and about fire department. 

 

They tell me, you know, you’re not allowed to go through red lights in a fire truck in Ohio.  It’s against the law.  You know you don’t have the right of way in Ohio with the flashing lights and sirens.  All that is, is a request for the right of way.  All that light and shining big red truck is just saying, please, please let us go by.  It’s just please, it’s just a request.  And we are responsible as firefighters to be driving with due regard as opposed to the rest of the people that have reasonable care.  They just have to be reasonable.  We’ve got to have due regard.

 

And so they don’t have to get out of the way.  They can just go on with their life.  They can ignore the light.  You know, that light says someone’s in trouble.  Someone needs help now.  Could you move out of the way?  Could you stop just a moment thinking of yourself and of where you’re going and what you need to do?  Can you stop, give way, so somebody else could get the help they need?  It’s just an ask.

 

And I was new guy there, even though I was older than most of those guys.  Oh, that was not – they were very kind to me, you know.  But, yeah, on the training events, you know, where they did training, they assigned me the role of “guy who died.”  And so they would put me out in a field, and they’d come rescue me so I could just, you know, relax, kind of chillin’.

 

So, but, you know, I try to measure my questions.  You’ve been in a new job, you don’t ask every question the first day.  I mean, that’s just annoying.  You know, you just try to get what you need to get through the day.  But there was this one thing, right here in the firehouse garage, right back here, you know, seven feet up, or eight, I don’t know, right here.  There was, you know, one of those old metal box light switches like you’ve got in a garage.  It was rusty.  You remember those things?  The conduit came down, it wasn’t pretty.  And it was a switch, and there was this old, yellow, brown, moldy paper curled up over it, and you could just make out it said this, in big block letters:  “DO NOT USE.”  Don’t you want to?  Don’t you want to?

 

So I asked one of the old guys, I said, “Hey, what is that?  Roger, Roger, what’s with that switch?”  He goes, “Oh, that switch.  That switch turns every traffic light in town red.”  I go, oh.  “But we don’t use that anymore.”  Yeah, yeah, I saw the sign, yeah.  He goes, “Yeah, the right turn on red, nobody stops anymore.”  No one follows the lights.  They just keep moving.  Christ the light of the world came into the world.  And what does light do?  Light shows you there’s other people beside yourself.  Light can show you, reveal that there’s more people than just you here.  And sometimes, yes, sometimes those people need help that you don’t need, but they need.

You know, when I think back at that time in Akron, that really impressed me, to see all the traffic in the city stopped because some stranger somewhere was in trouble, and everyone agreed that that traffic mattered.  Not all traffic mattered.  That traffic mattered because they needed help.  And because they were in trouble, and because they were hurting, we could step by and allow them to get the help they need.

 

I had a hard time with the sermon today because you know I’m going to be political.  You know what the difference between political is for – political is other people.  When it affects me, that’s morality.  That’s important.  When it affects other people, well, that’s politics.  I don’t have to worry about that.  Don’t talk or bother me about it.  I only want to talk about me, me, me.  That’s morality.  That’s right and wrong.  Did you know that fire trucks and fire engines and fire departments used to be politics? Fire insurance the politics in that.

 

Because you see, back in the day, I know it’s hard to imagine, but see if you can wrap your heads around this concept, that lifesaving care of the fire department was dependent on insurance companies.  I know, who would have thought such a thing?  If you did not have insurance, your house burned down.  You could die.  Your possessions were gone.  If you didn’t have any a fire insurance mark.  Such a thing shouldn’t exist.  If you go to some old fire departments, maybe even here in Carson, you can see what they called fire insurance marks, a metal plaque. 

What they were, they were these big metal plates, usually some kind of star shape, was fastened on the front of the house displaying which insurance company the fire department covered for this house.  And if you didn’t pay your money, you didn’t get signed up during open enrollment, had a pre-existing conditions, you can’t pay the fire department at the fire.  They’ll come for the fire, would put out your neighbor’s fire that had insurance, but you just burned down.  You could be out there crying, offering to pay.  No.  No, you didn’t buy the insurance.  You just burned down.  That’s the way it is.  That’s the way it is.  That’s fair.  That’s law.  That’s the rules.  That’s the way it is.  Back then there’s no other way to imagine.

 

Luckily, we thought that was silly.  We thought that was immoral.  We thought people that were in trouble, people that were going to go bankrupt, people that were facing financial ruin from fire’s destruction, we think, no, that will not be dependent on whether or not they paid their insurance premium.  They’re our neighbors everybody here needs to be safe, regardless, so their house doesn’t burning down from a neighbors fire, or if they’re not safe, at least there’s help on the way.  And we’re not going to check the insurance rolls and get preauthorized approval before we put wet stuff on the red stuff.  No matter who you were, no matter what your morals were, no matter where you were in the country.

 

When I was on the fire department, if you were in trouble, we came, and we did all we could to save your life and your property.  We came with those lights that showed that there’s other people in the world that need help, that there’s other traffic that mattered.  Those lights that showed that there are some people hurting. 

 

Can you please just get out of the way and let us help them?

 

I don’t know what’s coming up.  No one knows what’s coming up.  But I’m going to say there’s going to be a lot of fights over light.  Over light.  We’re not the light.  We’re not Jesus Christ.  We’re not the light of the world.  We bear witness to the light.  We say Lord Jesus Christ comes to bring light to the world.  Everyone.  We’re not going to keep things in the dark because that’s not what our Christ says.  Our Christ is the light of the world, not the dark of the world.

 

So when people said, we’re not going to report maternity deaths anymore, we’re not going to report them, we’re going to put them under the dark, we’re going to [indiscernible] light of the world.  We want to know about those people.  We want to know if they need help.  We want to turn on the light and go to them if they need it with sirens blazing, no matter who they are, [indiscernible] been, what the color of their skin is, what their nationality is, how much their income is, what their employment status.  Turn on the lights.  Christ is the light of the world, and we don’t abide by keeping people in the dark.

 

I’ve only been in the ministry for 40 years.  I can remember, I remember when there was a school shooting, everything stopped.  We had special church services, and we had special prayers, and we knew the names, and we said the names, and we prayed for the people.  We even wrote, in one church I had, to the people that were there.  And I also remember that a church I was in, when someone stood up a couple years later to pray for the latest school shooting, and the leader says we can’t pray for that.  That happens all the time.  It’s not special.  The number one killer of children in America, our country, is gun violence.  Number one.  If anyone from a foreign country or any other force came and killed our children like guns are, we would stop it the next day.  But it’s in the dark.

 

Did you know it’s illegal for Congress to spend money to study gun violence as a health issue?  It’s not allowed.  Keep that stuff in the dark.  We’re not people of the dark.  We’re people of the light.  And we say the light comes to everyone of the world, not just some people in the world.  It comes to all.  It’s right there in John.  We read it today.  We believe it.  We’re the ones that are going to come out and say, oh, no.  We follow the light of the world.  You’re not going to cover up all these things in the dark.  We’re here to tell you.  And if someone needs help, we’re at least going to get out of the way.  And we might even be on that truck with lights and sirens.  Get out of our way.  We’re helping people that need help.  And no, we’re not checking their insurance cards.  That’s what it means when the light of the world comes into the world.

 

Now, it’s not without controversy and upsets and changing this back to the way things were, you know, and that’s it.  That’s the only thing that can happen.  Not even from other Christians.  Have you heard about Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps?  They’ve kind of not been around as much.  But it used to be a big thing.  They’d go to funerals and protest and curse people at funerals of veterans, and veterans coming home.  They go to churches and demonstrate.  They go everywhere and demonstrate and make things about how terrible and awful the people were who were trying to go to a funeral or trying to have a service.

 

They went to Chicago to the Trinity UCC Church, who are unashamedly Christian and magnificently black [indiscernible], that’s their motto up there.  Trinity UCC Church, a great history.  And Dr. Morris was there, and Moss was there, and comes to church.  I don’t know if he walked the labyrinth before church, or maybe they gave him a key, I don’t know.  Could happen.  But he was there early, and they were there, Westboro Baptist Church, cursing people going to church, calling them horrible awful names.  Imagine, if you will, coming to church, coming to the official church, and it’s kids, it’s old ladies and good people and maybe some people that are hurting.  Who knows? 

 

People come to church when they’re hurting, sure.  And they get cursed at.  They get damned.  They get yelled at on the way.  And Dr. Moss, like a lot of good pastors do in big churches, went to the choir because that’s where you go because you know the choir, they’re kind of the zealous of the church.  If you had a choir, you would know this.  Don’t be messin’ with the choir.  You know.  These are the shock troops of the church.  And he went to the choir, and they had a hundred people in the choir, robed choir, hundred people.  They rocked and rolled it.

And he told them there’s people out there cursing our people coming into church.  They’re cursing the small children, the little children.  They’re yelling at the old ladies.  They’re making things – they’re going through hell, and they need protection.  They need help.  I want you to go out there.  I want you to robe up.  And I want you to go out there, and I want you to sing so loud that they cannot hear those curses.  I want you to sing so loud that they come in to praises and not to curses.  I want you to sing “This Little Light of Mine.”

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna let it shine.

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna let it shine.

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna to let it shine,

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

 

And they sang that song and overwhelmed the chants, and people coming to church were protected.  People that were vulnerable were shielded from the hate and from the awfulness that was there.  And they didn’t just do it and ignore the people that were saying the curses and the things.  They offered to pray for them.  And when they were turned down, you don’t get in the way of the choir.  When they were turned down, the choir went ahead and prayed for them anyway, right there out in front, so it was in the midst of the cursing and the damnations and the awfulness and the racial things was prayer and praise.  That’s light.  That’s light.

 

When someone’s hurting, when someone’s vulnerable, when someone’s being attacked, the people of the light are there.  It could be a choir singing “This Little Light of Mine.”  It could be people on the fire truck with lights and sirens.  It could be people in the courtroom saying we want to know how the health of our mothers are doing and whether what we’re doing is killing them.  We want to know what’s going on in our schools and our children and are they safe, and what’s going on with that?  Why do they die so much, and no other nation has this trouble?  Don’t sweep it under the rug.  Shine the little light on it.  We’re going to be light shiners.  We’re going to be looking for those that are in the dark and bring them into the light and say we are here to help you.

 

You don’t have to.  You don’t have to give out the right of way.  But man, it’s great when we can look out for one another and refuse to accept a city that’s on fire because someone didn’t pay their insurance, because someone didn’t have the right placard up.  We said no, we’re not going to let you lose everything and die because you didn’t pay the insurance premium.  You know, that’s one step away from “A nice little house you got here.  Too bad if anything would happen to it.”  Little protection money over there.

 

Friends, we can be different.  John says the world is different because Jesus Christ came into the world.  The light came into the world, and darkness fled.  Let us be the little light.  Let us be the light that helps those that are in the dark and are hurting.  Amen.

This Little Light of Mine

Thorns and Crosses

Crosses and Thorns

Crosses and Thorns
a sermon homily by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service September 15, 2024
at St. Peters Episcopal Church at Carson City, Nevada

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

  Mark 8:27-38

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This is a homily, not a sermon.  Father Mike was very emphatic on that fact.  You may not know the difference.  Michael was concerned that I did not, that somehow, three years of seminary, that didn’t come up.  But for the rest of you, let me see how I can explain this.  A sermon would be a segment on “60 Minutes.”  You know?  And a homily would be a Public Service Announcement.  The more you know.  For those of you under 50, thanks for coming.  A sermon would be a YouTube video by MrBeast, and a homily would be a TikTok video.  I worked all night on that.  Okay.

Another thing that people get confused is between thorns and crosses.  Now, thorns we find in 1 Corinthians 12, and of course crosses that we bear are here in Mark 8.  People get those confused.  They think a thorn is a cross, and that’s not true.

Now, a thorn in the side of Paul is something annoying.  It could be a physical malady, some kind of sickness, some kind of chronic thing.  Or it could be a person, you know who you are, don’t look around.  Could be that, too.  But something that annoys you, that puts you off, that reminds you that you are not in control of everything, and basically you’re not God, and that there’s other things going on than you.  For those that aren’t God people here, it’s not – the world does not revolve around you.  That’s a thorn.  Something annoying, something painful, something that puts you off – you, you, you, you, you – that tries to remind you you’re not all that.  That’s a thorn.

A cross, totally different.  Have you ever seen those ads that say whatever, and then it goes “Serious inquiries only”?  That’s what cross says.  Cross is serious inquiries only.  It’s not about suffering.  It’s not about pain.  It’s not about discomfort.  This is not that idea of the cross.  That is not what Christianity, Jesus Christ is about healing, reconciliation.  It’s about making the world better, about redeeming creation on God.  It is not about the pain and the suffering and hard.  That’s a thorn.

If you see what I mean, if you go with the cross and the pain, you’re still about you, you, you, my pain, my upset, oh, oh, oh.  That’s not a cross.  And also notice that the cross is something you pick up.  It’s not something that picks up you.  Something that you choose.  It’s a vocation, a choice, something that you want, you’ve decided to do.  There’s going to be troubles, there’s going to be suffering, it’s going to be long term, sure.  But it’s not a thorn.  It’s not something that’s done to you.  It’s something you do for others.  And there’s a test.  If it’s about you and yourself, it’s a thorn.  If it’s about others and creation, the community, and the kingdom of God, then it’s a cross.

Elizabeth Johnson said it this way: 

Jesus speaks of losing our lives for his sake and for the sake of the gospel.  Taking up a cross means being willing to suffer the consequences of following Jesus faithfully, whatever those consequences might be.  It means putting Jesus’s priorities and purposes ahead of our own comfort or security.  It means being willing to lose our lives by spending them for others using our time, resources, gifts, and energy so that others may experience God’s love made known in Jesus Christ.  Elizabeth Johnson.

Hamilton City, California.  Jose has a thorn.  Every time it rained, being fire chief, he got out, out of his bed, and went out to the levee because it was a hundred years old, and every rain threatened to undermine it and flood the town.  And he was out there stacking the sandbags, hoping that this wouldn’t be the time that the levee failed.  That’s a thorn.  That’s a pain.  That’s annoyance.  That’s interruption to your life.  That’s a reminder that you are not in control.  Thorn, thorn, thorn, thorn, thorn, all the way down.

Jose decided to stop the flooding.  He got the Army Corps of Engineers out there.  He got the project done, how to restore the wetlands, how to make a floodplain so that it could flood without destroying the town.  He had all this done.  It only took him 25 years.  Hundreds of tamales to raise money to hire the experts that they needed to get the  environment.  It only took him multiple cross-country trips on the red-eye there and back to save a hotel room night, to lobby it, to go every year to try to get and do the budget.  It only took him 25 years of working so closely with others, he actually married the one that was working on it.  And I don’t know, I think their time together might have been reduced.  25 years.

He was asked, other people come and say – because it was finally done.  Finally, after 25 years, it was done.  The floodplain was restored.  The wetlands were there.  The river was tamed again, and the levee was gone from a hundred years ago, and the town was protected.  And from all over people came and said, “Jose, how did you do it?”  And he goes, “Are you sure?  Are you sure you want to know?  Because I tell you, 25 years ago, if someone had told me what it would take to get this done, I don’t know if I would do it.”  That’s cross.  That’s vocation.  That’s giving yourself, your time, your life for others, for the restoration of creation, for building community and healing.  That’s taking up the cross.  Throwing another sandbag on the riverbank is a thorn.  But now, when the rains come, Jose and the rest of town can turn over and go back to sleep.  That’s what happens when you bear a cross.

Now, this suffering isn’t suffering for pain or for heartache or anything like that.  It’s suffering of the consequences of restoring creation, of giving yourself and your life for others.  September 11th was about a year or two after Mr. Rogers did his final show of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.  He didn’t have a farewell tour, a closing finale or anything.  It’s just another day, and he didn’t want to upset the children.  And he just left it, and lights were turned off, and the set torn down and delivered to the Children’s Museum in Pittsburgh.

But then came 9/11, and the country was at a loss.  And Mister Rogers came back to TV with a PSA.  Even in the aftermath of 9/11, Mister Rogers maintained his fidelity to his principles that drove him:  Love your neighbor and love yourself.  Here’s the inspiring words of Mister Rogers after September 11th:  “No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we are all called to be tikkun olam, repairers of creation.  Thank you for whatever you do, wherever you are, to bring joy and light and hope and faith and pardon and love to your neighborhood and to yourself.

Crosses and Thorns

Retaining Sin

Retaining Sin

Retaining Sin
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service April 7, 2024
at St Peter’s Episcopal Church in Carson City, Nevada

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

Acts 4:32-35 ⟡ 1 John 1:1-2:2 ⟡ John 20:19-31

 

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Welcome to Mirror Easter. Last week, who was here last week? No one. Okay, a couple people. All right. So last week, the varsity team was up front, and the spectators were in the pew. All right. So this week, the spectators are up front leading the service. You all coming here on the second Sunday of Easter? You’re the varsity team. You show up the second Sunday of Easter where the substitute for the substitute is leading the service. Ah, commitment. Thank you very much. That’s right, Christy has risen. Is that blasphemy? I don’t know. He’s not here. And we’re all surprised, just like, you know, the other guy. Okay.

I know every one of you read the scripture before you came to church today. You’re probably waiting for a doubting Thomas sermon. Those are great. I love those. Not having a church for a while, I’m always preaching second Sunday of Easter. In fact, I looked at the prayer book earlier. My marks from last year were still there. Second Sunday of Easter. And if you want to look at that sermon, Cathedrals and Measles, on the website ExtraChristy.com, go look at that great sermon, Doubting Thomas. Woo boy, good.

Not today. This is a varsity group here. We’re going to get a varsity sermon. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take that little bitty crazy scripture that’s in the gospel. That you probably just went over, because I don’t want to think about it, but we’re going to think about it. You know the one? The one with your namesake, the Saint Peter one? If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. What in the world does that mean? Is there some kind of ginormous ATM? Can we log in on our web and say, I would like to deposit some sins, and I’d like to withdraw some sins? What in the world are they talking about?

Now some people say, well that means that, you know, if you’ve been gluttonous or wrath – oh, let’s read them off, I have my list here. Sermon notes: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, sloth. So some people say that if you have any of those, you can get them forgiven. But why in the world would we want to retain them? Okay, maybe gluttony. Rest. What is this? This is a strange scripture on a strange Sunday. Bizarro Mirror Easter Sunday, where the varsity people are in the pews, and the spectators are upfront.

It only makes sense if you know that it is plural. That’s right, it’s not singular sense, not just you and me, itty bitty, 10 Commandments, four spiritual laws, kind of individual, you and me, God, we’re here, checklist, I got whatever I want. It is plural. If you all – I used to translate Greek, you all. I got in trouble in seminary all the time, and I argued with them. But if you all retain the sins, they are retained. And if you all forgive the sins, they’re forgiven. Okay, so it’s a community thing.

So we get along and get together like Presbyterians and have a committee and vote whether or not someone sinned? I don’t know. That doesn’t sound right, either. But I want to tell you something, this is John. This is the Gospel of John. We even got a little bit of 1 John over there. And for John, that list of sins, not sin, not at all. Sin is not individual moral failings. It is not characteristics. It is not individual behavior. That is not sin. Sin is when you don’t do what God wants you to do. And that’s your whole life. That’s not just in moments of temptation in front of that cookie drawer. Or special magazine. Or website. I guess I should update.

But for John, sin is corporate and communal. J.B. Phillips back in 1953 had a book that was really important when I was growing up called “Your God is Too Small,” and every now and then people rediscover it, and it blows their mind. But I want to tell you that it’s not just your God is too small, your sin is too small. We’re not talking about little bitty sins. This is the varsity group. We can handle it. We’re not talking about individual sins on individual Sundays and individual days. We’re talking about great corporate. And, you know, this makes more sense for 1 John. Did you listen to 1 John? Was anybody else upset? You are all sinners? What kind of scripture is that for church? You are all sinners. And you say, “Well, no, I’m not,” and it comes right back. And if you say you’re not, you’re a liar. Oh, I’m a sinner and a liar? How come we didn’t all get up and leave? Were you listening?

I’ll make it more homely. You’re racist. And if you say you’re not racist, you’re a liar. Now we’re getting some of the feeling back. I’m not racist. I don’t say the N-word. I have not fired anyone on the basis of their race or creed or color. I don’t have any slaves. I’m not racist. We’re back to that, are we? Back to the individual understanding of sin. Back to the me and God and nobody else. When it’s plural, when it’s corporate, when it’s John, and when things aren’t right in the world, that is the sin, not what any individual may do.

I had a good childhood and upbringing. Middle-class life. We didn’t want for anything. Had a big house. Even got air conditioning when it came in. That was a big deal. My parents both had college educations and good jobs. Their parents were able to work in Akron, Ohio, in the rubber companies and got good pay and good money so that they could send their kids to college so that I could have a better life. Well, what’s that about racism, Christy? My grandpa, Christy Ramsey, had to join the Ku Klux Klan to get a job at Goodyear. Because only the Klan members worked in the rubber company. You see the difference between I’m a racist and racism? I’m a benefit of that. I’m benefiting of racism. That got my family out of the West Virginia hollows and into colleges and nice middle-class home in the Highland Square area of Akron. See the difference? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t benefit from racism. John knew that. Now you do.  

What are we to do? What are we to do? We’ve got to quit thinking that sin is something we do in private. It’s just between me and God or go in a box and confess it, and we’re good to go. Because sin is communal, sins in society.

Let’s talk about my parents again. My parents both went to college. Books cost 10 bucks for their semester. Ten dollars. They went to a state school, a university school. Remember back then when the governments actually paid for higher education, actually supported higher education? It’s flipped now. Now the individuals have to pay and not the corporate. And now because it’s an individual choice they have to compete for students and get those out-of-state tuition bucks in there, so they have to put the rock climbing walls and have the sous chef and the other chefs in the back and raise their tuition so they compete against the market pressures on that because the government says we don’t have the money for higher education.

And yet people say, “I paid for my college education. Why don’t those young people pay their loans?” You didn’t pay for it. The state paid for it. The government paid for it. Our taxes paid for it. But that has changed and flipped around. Eighteen year olds, we do not allow them to choose to have an adult beverage because their minds just aren’t ready for it. They can’t handle that kind of responsibility of getting a beer. But we let them sign up for a $100,000 debt that’s going to haunt them the rest of their lives. I’d rather risk a beer on them. You hear the sin?

In my tradition, every Sunday we say forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Gets really quiet. About half the congregation drops off at that point. Come back for the next one. Corporate sin. That’s not God’s will. John would say, there’s sin right there. We got racism, we got sin. But that savior guy we follow. Remember him? Came back from the dead last week. Big news. Remember? You know, you know he was born in a homeless shelter. There was no room for him. There was no inn. There was no place for him. Public camping was outlawed back then. He was born homeless. It wasn’t too much longer he had to be a political refugee, fleeing across borders against a government that wanted to kill him. Have you read that in the paper lately? Have you seen it on the web? Got to update my notes.

They’re sin. That is the sin. And we’ve got a choice. Now you can see the choice. Before it made no sense. But now you see, yeah, we have a choice whether we’re going to fund public education or put our kids into generations of debt. We have a choice. We can retrain that. Or we, what, forgive debt? It’s our choice. Okay? You’re forgiven. That’s the way it’s going to be. It’s up to you, Christians. You can have homeless, or you can house people.

What kind of society have we constructed just in my lifetime? That we have revised the tax code and the way we reward people for the work. And that it used to be when they grew up, if you were making a million dollars, every dollar you made at that top end was 90 cents to the government, 90% to the government, we had, oh that’s wrong, take it on down. Now we’ve got millionaires that can go to outer space, while we got millions that don’t have space to live for the night. If you forgive the sins of any, or if you retain them, they will be retained. So when you look around, and you say why does God do this? Why does God do this?

Jesus told us. Second Sunday of Easter, varsity team was there, but not everybody. Wasn’t a packed church. He said, you know, it’s up to you. You’ve got a choice. You can retain sins, or you can forgive them. Now, some people listened to him. Some people decided that we ought to try this. You know, Jesus. We heard about it today. People sold their houses, brought their money and gave it to those that need. 100% capital gains taxed? Agh! Right there in the Bible. Right there in the Bible. But I already paid the taxes on the house. If we read a little bit more in the scriptures, we’d find out that that impressed the community so much the community grew and grew. People looked at them and said, wow, those Christians have got something going on there. Look at how they take care of each other. Look at how much they love each other. Look at how much there’s no one in need among them. What kind of craziness is this? It’s Christianity. That’s what it is.

You know, when it was time to get us straightened around, God didn’t send us down the checklist. He didn’t send us down the Ten Commandments and saying “Don’t do these things and you’re cool.” He doesn’t send down and say that these are the seven deadly sins, don’t do them and you’re good with me. He didn’t even send down four spiritual laws. He didn’t send down the sinner’s prayer. None of that stuff. Zero paperwork, obviously. I’m afraid God is not a Presbyterian or there would have been more paperwork involved. He sent a person. He sent a person to show us how to live, how we should live with one another.

Did you know that Jesus healed people with preexisting conditions? How un-American! I hate to even ask if they were employed, and if it was an employer’s plan or not. He healed people that didn’t deserve healing. He healed the Roman servant, the occupier. Because guess what? It’s not God’s will that anyone suffers from lack of health care. And that’s up to us. We can retain that sin in our society, or we can get rid of it. Other countries have. Are we worse than other countries? I think we’re better than everybody because I was born here so obviously we’re best. Why can’t we get this done?

You know, we’ve just got used to children dying in massacres by guns. By mass shootings. Remember when we used to be all upset, and we prayed at church, and we stopped church, and we had special prayers and services. And now it’s just another one. Because we decided to retain that sin and not get rid of it. Again, other countries have. Other countries had one, one mass shooting and said, that’s it, everybody brings in your gun. They go, well, yeah, of course, you know, because why? Because guns don’t die, children do. And they brought them all in, turned them all in. Said no, we’re not going to retain that sin. We’re going to forgive it. We can do it. Or we can pray, oh, please, mental health people, not be mental healthy, little individual sins on individual people who, why doesn’t it stop? Unh-unh.

That’s not for this varsity group. We can take on the big game. We can say we’re going to get rid of sin. We’re going to make it safe to go to the mall, go to school, without being in a fortress. It’s our choice. Jesus said that. He came back from the dead to tell us that. We should listen. That wasn’t an easy trip. I think it was something important he had to tell us. Oh yeah, I forgot about the sin thing. I’ve got to go back. And he comes back, and he tells us, and what do we do? Um, I had lustful thoughts. I had an extra cookie. I murdered. Okay, that one. Don’t murder people. That’s a bad thing. But maybe not make it so easy to murder people. He came as a person, and people kept wanting lists from him, and rules. And he kept showing them how to live, over and over again.

Remember that woman caught in adultery? That’s in John, too. I’ll go over there. Remember they brought her. This woman was caught in adultery. Okay, time out, time out. Caught in adultery? Where’s the other person? I don’t know. I don’t want to get graphic. Family show. But it should be two people. So there’s a woman caught in adultery, and with some reason the other person’s gone. Don’t know what happened there. But here it is. Let’s stone her. Let the one without sin throw the first stone.

What does that mean about our punishment system, our penal code? What does that mean about cash bail? Why do we have cash bail? Only rich people get to get out of jail. Poor people, you go right in jail, and we’ll get around to you someday. It doesn’t have to be that way. Some states have abandoned cash bail. And guess what? Everything’s fine. Most people show up, same as much as cash bail. But think of this, not in terms of politics, but in terms of retaining sin and forgiving sin.

And another good thing about this, you know with the individual sin you can feel bad about yourself and be all upset and say, “Oh, oh, I’m just a weak person. I’m not a good person. I’m a sinful person. I’ve done these sins.” But if you’re understanding sin as like understanding that, if you’re a fish, you’re wet. To say we’re without sin is like a fish saying, what’s water? I’m not wet. It’s all around us. At one time it is comforting, and the other time it’s also challenging. And we’re just the people to meet that challenge.

Imagine, if you would, if people would look to us and say, “Look at those Christians, how they take care of people. Look how they’re doing nights off the streets. Look how they’re doing that.” Why can’t we be more like that as a society and say no. No one sleeps outside. No. And I’m not telling just pass the law saying it’s against the law to sleep outside. And it’s fair because, you know what, rich and poor are both banned from sleeping under the bridge. Fairness, American style.

What do we do? Acts gave us a taste. Acts gave us a taste of what it meant to care and love one another. Imagine people giving up their homes to make sure everybody had enough to eat and a place to sleep and a place to live. Imagine that. It can be that way. We’re so wrapped up in the sin, we can’t even see it. Like that fish in the water doesn’t realize they’re wet. Like me, who doesn’t understand that my privileges come from racism going back generations, when only white people were allowed to have good jobs.

But we don’t have to stay that way. We can’t give up. Jesus Christ offers us a way out. We celebrate that in communion. We say that the difference of sin, the way to get out of sin is to live a different way of life. To live in community. To live in love. Christ upon the cross. He looks down. He sees his mother Mary, and he sees who’s going to be destitute, and he sees the beloved disciples. And he said, “Behold your mother. Mother, behold your son.” What does that say about how we take care of the poor and elderly in our country? It says we take care of them like they’re our own because they are.

Way back in the Old Testament, in Leviticus 19:33, it’s a scripture. Look it up. It’s actually in the Bible, and it says you shall treat the foreigner in your soil as if they were native-born. Right there in scriptures, 19:33. If you don’t like a little rule thing, and you want a story, read Ruth. “Your people shall be my people. Where you go, I will go.” What does that say about immigration and refugees? It says a lot about what you believe are the privileges and rights of the native-born. There are responsibilities, not just rights.

Jesus comes to tell us how we live. And only by living in love, only living in community can we ever hope to get out of the sin that we all swim in, that’s been forced down to us by the institutions and the generations and the choices of others throughout time and space that’s made our society the way we are. They have chosen to retain sin instead of to let them go. But we don’t have to do that. We can be different.

There is a TV series, “Fargo.” I beg you do not watch it. It is terribly awful, violent. Don’t do that. I love it. And this, I’m going to spoil the ending for you. Because I would love if this was a spoiler for our society, too. We have the killer, the one that has been pursuing her all the whole series, the one that kills and maims without remorse or hesitation, with efficiency so cold it will give you nightmares, who comes into her house to kill her. And she invites him to dinner.

MAN: But the food was not food.

WOMAN: What was it?

MAN: It was sin. The sins of the rich. Greed, envy, disgust. They were bitter, the sins. But he ate them all. For he was starving. From then on, a man does not sleep or grow old. He cannot die. He has no dreams. All that is left is sin.

WOMAN: It feels like that, I know, what they do to us. Make us swallow like it’s our fault. But you want to know the cure? You’ve got to eat something made with love and joy.

Retaining Sins