Four Julys

 Great Things Happen When We Listen to the “Other”

Four Julys
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from worship at St. Paul’s Lutheran Family Church Carson City, NV on July 4,2021

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

Mark 6:1-13

Sermons also available free on iTunes

A video version is at the end of the text

On this July 4th, I would like to talk to you about four Julys. The first July is July 1775. No, not ‘76. 1775. Did you know our Continental Congress was meeting in July of 1775? Well, 12 of the 13. Even back then, Georgia had trouble with their elections.

And that Continental Congress back there in July 2nd of 1775, or July 6th, made a declaration, but not a declaration of independence, an “Olive Branch Declaration,” as it’s called, in which they sent to King George, as loyal colonists, a request for his help, for his righting of wrongs, for justice, for restoration, to let them be a part of their own governing, to release some of the most terrible bans and injustices.

And they wrote these as colonists, and they said they were colonists, and they tried to get King George and the Britons to embrace their great heritage of justice and fair dealing, and asked for fairness and for doing the right thing. They pointed out the excesses and promised that they would, you know, abide by law and order, you know, if they had law and order. If the Crown would come and do right by them, they would do right by them. They pledged their allegiance and their fealty to the monarch and to King George.

Now, remember this was after, not just the Tea Party. That was almost a decade ago. But it was after shots were fired. It was after Lexington and Concord. It was after Bunker Hill. There’s been shots fired. There’s been riots. There’s been violence. There’s been trouble in the street. There’s been disruption of commerce, the absolute worst thing that could ever happen. You know, Bottom Lines Matter.

And after all that, in this July of 1775, they asked the powers and structures and principalities and monarchs to do the right thing, and called on them to deliver justice, to lift the burdens and the laws and the suppression, to let them vote for their own representatives and laws and not have them imposed upon them. All very reasonable requests, done in a reasonable way, in the most gracious way, especially when you remember there was rioting going on.

Well, what happened? Nothing. King George reportedly, and I believe this, didn’t even read that Olive Branch Declaration. Instead he condemned the violence, condemned them for forming a political party, for raising an army and navy. That might have been a little bit too far. He had nothing to say to these people because of their violence. Who do they think they are, going against the monarchy, taking up arms against the King’s soldiers who are there to preserve law and order, protect and serve. Not a very good July.

Second July I want to talk about is the one that you’ll probably be talking about today and over this weekend. Of course July 1776, the next year. Now, rightfully so, you might be reading the Declaration of Independence and looking at all the inalienable rights, and that’s a great thing. And there’s quite a list of grievances there. But in those things, it doesn’t say please fix them. It just says here’s what he did. And most important part of this is, well, the rights are important. The grievances are important. But the beginning and the end of that is the most important thing because at the beginning they don’t talk about being colonists anymore. And at the end they don’t say that they are 12 colonies of the United States. Georgia’s finally got there. They’re all there. Maybe we could blame Georgia on independence, I’m not sure.

But on the last part they say, “We, the United States of America.” Now, none of that’s been done. We’ve got a war to fight before that. And it’s not so sure we’re going to win. But they declared they were not colonists. They were the United States of America, where all white, landholding men are free and had rights. That wasn’t true. But it’s what they believed and what they were going to live and what they pledged their honor and their lives to in that very different summer of 1776.

We asked. We tried. We petitioned. We had examples. We had lawsuits. We had rights. But you wouldn’t listen. So we’re going to stop talking to you and start living right in the way we want to be. And if you have trouble with that, that’s okay. We’re ready to back up what we believe with our lives, our property, and our sacred honor.

Now, the third July’s a little shaky. I didn’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but the Bible’s not really good on timestamps. I don’t know when this incident happened. But go along with me. Let’s say it happened in July, somewhere around AD 33. I don’t even know the year. But I figure I’ve got about an 8% chance of being right saying it’s July. I’m going to take it. And in that July of AD 33, here comes Jesus.

Now, you may have missed the subtleness of our scripture. And God bless the gospel writers and the translators and the Church and everyone else down the age who cleaned the things up. Did you notice the place where it turned? Well, I mean, first they say Jesus is wonderful. Where did he get all this knowledge? It’s wonderful words. Look at this. He’s a power, and he’s doing it all, you know, like what you all say after I preach here, you know, that kind of stuff. And you notice the turn, and what turns a crowd against him?

Eugene Peterson in “The Message,” not really a translation, more like a commentary, running commentary on the Bible, he takes this scripture and reformats it and says, “Who does he think he is?” And everybody turned and said, that’s right, Jesus says it’s supposed to be like that. That’s not his place. That’s not the way he should be. Did you catch that weird thing? You know for us, you know, we’re looking 2,000 years down the road, and we think, what is that “Son of Mary” stuff?

Now, remember this “Son of Mary” phrase, this was before Mary is the woman with the most statues in the world. And I got this straight from a 1980s Trivial Pursuit game, so I know it’s right. Before the veneration of Mary, before the blue everywhere, before rosaries and all that, you’ve got to remember this is first generation. This is Jesus pre-resurrection, before everybody. That “Son of Mary” was no compliment. Remember what we’re dealing with. We’re in a patriarchal society. Oh, my gosh, the definition of patriarchal, where all that matters is who your dad is, who your father is, what your lineage is. So it’s not “Son of Joseph,” it’s “Son of Mary.” You know, he doesn’t have a father. We don’t know who that father is.

Now, my wife, God bless her, she told me I couldn’t say the “B” word that they were calling him in church. I check out things with her. I said, “Can I say this in church?” And she usually says no. And I checked out with her, and she said, “No, you can’t say that.” So they were calling him a “mustard.” So you’ve got to catch that in there. It just slides it over. But they’re saying, “You mustard. Who are you to lecture us about how to live? Who are you to tell us what we’re doing is wrong? Who are you?” And you know what, I get that same thing in church. Who are these people telling us what pronouns to use? Who are these people telling us about racism? Who are these people? They don’t belong here.

Oh, yes, friends and neighbors, there’s still honor/shame culture, alive and well in America today. You know honor and shame. Somebody gets honored, that means someone else has got reduced honor. You know how that is? Like you know when Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world – there’s a list of rich people. He’s at the top. You know, I’m looking forward when he goes out into space because you know what that means. Jeff Bezos goes out in space, every one of us moves one notch up on the wealthy list because he’s not on Earth anymore. He’s going to make us all rich, finally. Finally, a little trickle down from orbit.

That’s how honor and shame works. Everybody’s got a place on the list, and don’t you move. And that mustard son of Mary, he has no right to tell us anything. After all we’ve done for them, they dare to lecture us on critical race theory. How dare they? Don’t they know their place? That’s right. Right here we see Jesus is uppity and doesn’t know his place. What happens to this on this July? Jesus takes it pretty well. He’s astonished by it. Nothing much changed. Maybe we got used to it over the years and decades and millennia. And he could do not mighty power there.

See, just like King George, who doesn’t want to listen to those colonists, the people in Jesus’s time didn’t want to listen to that person who didn’t know their place. So what happened? Well, just like in 1776, Jesus says, okay, I gave it a good shot. I tried. I tried to tell them. And he says, we’re going to go ahead and live the way that we think we should live. We’re going to go out two by two, proclaim God’s good news, release to the captains, recovery of site to the blind, freedom. We’re going to bring out the downtrodden. We’re going to bring down the overbearing.

We’re not going to do this for profit or greed or capitalism. We’re going to do this together and rely on the good natures of others. And if they don’t want to be with us, we’re going to shake the dust off. And that was a curse. That wasn’t just, you know, personal hygiene. It wasn’t some sort of six feet, stay your social distance kind of thing back then. It was, all right, you’re on your own, and to “H” with you. I didn’t ask my wife if I could say that.

And in both those cases, 1776 and in this case, where Jesus went off alone, think about what great things happened. When people stopped worrying about being in their place and whether or not it’s appropriate and cramming that down our throats. I heard that one, too. It says we’re going to live the right way. And if you want to get onboard, you can, but we’re going to do great things. We’re going to be a great nation. We’re going to be a light of democracy and freedom. People are going to want to come here from all over. It’s hard to keep that up. But we’ve done okay so far. And it’s only if we go back to keeping people in their place that we’ll lose it. And we won’t be able to do great things like we have.

Now I’m into the fourth July. Have you been keeping track? I know there’s at least one. The fourth July. July 2021. You all have a choice. Just like they did back in that July in Nazareth, back like they did, those colonists in 1775 and 1776. And you keep hoping and asking and waiting. I mean, now is not the time. You’re too much in a rush. People aren’t ready for that yet. Can’t be that way, 1775 and the folks at Nazareth. And we won’t be able to do great works.

If we go back to saying we’ve got to get back to the way it should be, where everybody needs to be where they were in 1950, where everyone knew without a doubt which drinking fountain was theirs, you know, the good old days for white males, and not listen to anyone else. Because, you know, they’re rioting. They’re rebellious. There’s been shots fired. They have nothing to say to us. It’s not their place. They’re ungrateful for all that we have done for them. We do that, I’ll guarantee you we won’t have a great country, and we won’t have a great faith.

I hope all of you go forth this July 4th, remembering those four Julys. And that you would choose to follow Jesus, two by two, whatever you can do, wherever you can, not for personal profit or gain, and seek not to restore society and shut people back in their places, but seek to heal the sick, to lift up the downtrodden, to help people to cast out demons.

Perplexing. What are the demons today? What keeps people from living full and productive and happy lives? What keeps people from life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Homelessness, not having enough housing. We’ve got enough, we just don’t distribute it right. Hunger. We’ve got enough food. We just don’t give it up. Not be able to choose their representative, and taxation without representation, a common theme.

We were founded on that people choose their legislators, and not in the monarchy the legislators choose their people. Go out and fight them demons. For the answer is not to return to where everyone knew their place, and no one was uppity; but to follow that uppity savior, that mustard son of God, who shows us a new way of life, a new way of living. And we can be great as Christians and as a country. Amen.

Four Julys

Normal or Nomad

 God does call us to a Nomad not Normal life.

Normal or Nomad
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from worship at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church Carson City, NV on June 6.2021

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

1 Samuel 8:4-11, 16-20

Mark 3:20-35

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Video versions (both masked and unbasked) are at the end of the text

We have all felt like Samuel.  No, I’m not talking about being called old by the people, although we may have been there, too.  I’m talking about Samuel going crazy.  This is crazy Samuel time.  When you know what is right.  When you know what happens, and what will happen, and how the world is arranged, and you tell the people that.  In no uncertain terms, you tell them the reality of having a king, for example.  The high taxes.  The forced labor.  All the stuff.

 And the people, they don’t argue.  They don’t have a conversation, much less the compromise or consensus.  They just say, to all your wonderful reasons of how the world works, they say no.  No.  No.  All the stuff you said, all the great reasons you gave, we say no.  We want a king.  We want to be like other nations.  Did you hear it?  We want to be normal.  Who can say hallelujah to being normal?  I haven’t heard more consensus around an idea ever.  I want to be normal.  All praise to the God normal, where everything is normal.

 I want to talk to you about normal, that that isn’t normal.  And they’re proud of that.  I can tell you for sure you are not normal.  And I just have to say one day, one morning, my first Nevada Day parade.  First, we have the governor riding atop a military half-track, going down Main Street.  I go, what?  That’s not normal, the governor in a military half-track going down the main street.  That’s a little odd.  Then next, a few floats later, we have a convertible with sex workers telling us to come on down to the brothel for the Nevada Day Special.  Okay, that’s not normal for this Ohio boy.  And then, to finish up the parade, we have the synchronized shooting rifles drill team.  Okay.  We really don’t think that’s normal in Ohio or anywhere I’ve been.  We shoot guns together in a parade.  Not something we do.

 And we talk about going into a pharmacy or a grocery store, and there are slot machines, and a whole room full of them.  Now, people have told me all my life that the way I eat is a gamble, but here we have the slot machines to prove it.  Normal.  People wanting to be normal.  We want to be like the other nations.  You know, they have a king that goes out before them and fights their battles and does the things that other nations do.  We want to be normal.

 And I’m here to tell you that the Bible is against normal.  Well, that’s not totally true.  I mean, the Bible is sort of split.  The people and God come down differently because God is against normal.  The people, they’re all for it.  And you could say the whole story of the Bible could be, look at the lens between God saying don’t be normal and the people saying, yeah, we really want to be normal.  And that’s all story of salvation.  The abnormal love and grace of God calling normal people into abnormal community.

 And it’s not just the Hebrew Scriptures.  Our reading from the Gospel, we have the family of Jesus saying why can’t that kid just be normal?  Why can’t he get a normal job?  Why is he fooling around with demons?  And you see that it says “restrained.”  The family didn’t come to talk to him.  The family didn’t come to be with him in his meeting.  The family didn’t come to dinner.  They were outside.  They were there to restrain him.  Was this some kind of early intervention?  To try to convince him to change his ways?  To get him out of that cult he was starting?  They wanted him to be normal.

 Does that ever happen today?  I think if you go to any Pride event, you don’t even have to go to the parade.  You can just go to the people that came to watch the parade.  And they will tell you about their family, wanting them to just be normal.  Not be who they are, but be normal.  Not be with who they love, but be normal.  Study just came out in Canada that one out of 10 gay people up in Canada have been forced into some kind of conversion therapy.  One out of 10 in 2021.  To be normal.  Do we worship normal?

 Normally, in a typical year, 300 children die of ‘flu.  Every year, year in, year out, 300 children.  600 parents.  Let me see if I get my math.  Hundreds, thousands of grandparents lose a child.  Normal.  Oh, it’s normal.  But this year, with us wearing masks, keeping distance, washing our hands, zero children died of the ‘flu.  Zero.  That is not normal.  When you tell me, you want to go back to normal, I’ve got to say, hold on now.  Have you thought about what normal was?  Children dying?  You want to go back to normal?

 You know, with normal, for people of color, every time they get a traffic stop, to be in a life-or-death situation, to be somehow an unwilling participant in a murder edition of Simon Says, that if you don’t do what I say as quickly as I said in the right quickly way, your life is in danger.  That was normal.  It was normal for us white people to deny, ignore, explain away, and say, oh, they must’ve done something wrong.  Oh, if they only did things quickly, or did follow instructions, or did this.  It was just normal for people to get killed, people of color to get killed over a traffic stop, over a minor violation, over a misdemeanor.  Is that normal we want?

How about women?  This is the only year, year and a half, in the recent history of our country where women were not constantly told to smile.  They’re so much prettier when they smile.  Where men would tell women how they should feel, how they should look, how they should act.  Heck fire, you didn’t even have to wear makeup if you didn’t want to.  It used to be normal to tell people how to live and how to smile and how they should be in the world.  And now we can put the mask on.  They don’t know if we’re grimacing or whatever.  Do you want to get back to that normal?

What about us religious folks?  Yeah, maybe you’re not a person of color.  Maybe you’re not a woman.  Maybe you don’t have children young and susceptible to the ‘flu.  We’re all in church.  We know what normal is at church.  Want to get back to the normal.  Do we?  I mean, with normal, that if you are not able-bodied and could not sit quietly without interruption for an hour – hour and a half if Christy’s preaching – you weren’t allowed to be in church.  You couldn’t be there.  You couldn’t be a part of the community.  Oh yeah, we had homebound ministry.  God bless everybody for doing all that.  But you couldn’t be with the people.  Couldn’t be with the Zoom.

And you know Zoom’s in the Bible.  You all know that; right?  I’m telling you.  You know what they call the Internet?  The cloud; right?  You’ve heard that.  Cloud?  The Internet?  What’s it say in the Bible?  Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, (Hebrews 12:1) Zoom, we’re talking about you.  And if you weren’t in town, if you were visiting out of town, if you moved out of town, you were cut off from community.  If you couldn’t get it together, and you couldn’t be in the exact same time, the exact same place, you couldn’t experience worship.

And I’ll go further.  Even if you weren’t disabled visibly, some people couldn’t come to church because of social anxiety.  They didn’t like to be touched and hugged and nattered at.  Maybe there was somebody that they weren’t comfortable being around with, they didn’t feel safe with.  They had a divorce, and the other person got custody of the church.  You know how that goes.  But with Zoom online, they could come and could worship together.

I don’t like to be hugged.  I’ve got things, and I pay people to listen to.  You don’t have to.  But I don’t like to be hugged.  I’ve got arthritis.  I don’t wear a badge.  I don’t have one of those wonderful placards that people are wearing now.  But handshakes hurt me a lot of times.  You know how terrible that is for a pastor, to not be able to handshake people?  Not without a grimace?  There’s other people that have more problems than I do that don’t want to be hugged, for one good reason or bad or whatever, and so they don’t come to church.  With Zoom, they can come and be like everyone else.

Don’t be normal.  Examine the normal.  Sure, it’s great.  I mean, this year has been four times the planning, twice the effort, for one half of the results.  It is so much easier to copy and paste, whether it’s church services or our life, to just replicate from one to another, change the dates, couple things, and off we go.  It’s so much easier, and that’s why people love the normal.  But that doesn’t leave much room for God.  If you embrace the normal, and only the normal, God says you have rejected me.

And you know what normal starts with?  “No.”  You can’t have normal without “no.”  No, you can’t have your own feelings.  You’ve got to smile all the time, women.  No, you can’t be with who you love.  No, you can’t be gay.  You just decide to be gay.  Stop being gay.  No, you can’t be it.  No, you can’t be a non—hugger and be in our church.  No, you can’t be disabled and fully participate in worship.  No.  Normal starts with no.

What do you do?  What can we do?  Well, you know, God reminds us in Samuel, you know, his preference.  He says, hey, remember the normal I took you out of?  Remember the normal called slavery, and Egypt?  Remember that normal?  Oh, yes, another day of being a slave.  Well, same day as the last.  Another day of backbreaking work with no hope and no help.  Okay, normal.

And God says no, no more normal.  I want you to be a nomad.  That’s a difference of being normal; right?  And that’s what we’ve been the last year and a half.  We’ve been nomads.  We don’t know where we are or where were going.  We’re saying, do we have masks?  Do we not have masks?  Is there contact?  Is there not contact?  Do we fog the place or not fog the place?  Do we have to stay away?  How many vaccines do we have?  Do we have vaccines?  Is it going to disappear?  Is it not?  Nomads.  We don’t know where we are.  We don’t know where were going.  We don’t know what’s next.  We kept planning for things, and we had to cancel them.  Where does the virus come from?  Where is it going?  What’s going on?  Nomads.

And when we’re not in our normal place, God has room to act.  God has room to do wonderful things, just in the church.  The church has made more changes and accommodations and advancements in the first month of the pandemic than we did in 20, 30 years.  Thirty years we’ve been talking about there’s a whole world outside these walls we could bring in if we just used the technology.  Oh, no, that’s not normal.

I remember – have you ever seen Father Jeff, he’s really into it.  He’s very competent.  But the day they closed church and said he had to go online, in Ohio we call it “deer in the headlights.”  You know, where the eyes get really big.  And he says, “What am I going to do?”  And I go, “I’ll be there.  I’ll be there Tuesday.  We’ll figure this out.  We can get it done.”  So I come in, and he’s just, “What am I going to do?  It’s not normal to not have church, but have church.”

And I asked him a couple of questions.  I said, “Well, do you want to talk and preach to a camera?  Because we could do it that way.  Or do you want to talk and preach to people on a screen that you can see?”  And he says, “Oh, I want to see the people.  I have to see the people.”  “All right.  We’ll get you hooked up.”  It wasn’t normal.  But it was a way during a crisis for the people of God to come together.

And we were gathered from all over.  People from all different places and times of the congregation were gathered together, and we could be together as much as we could, as cyber nomads, surfing the storms of the pandemic.  You thought that was hard.  It was.  You did well.  Some churches aren’t coming back.  I have a church that right now they’re discussing whether to close or not.  But you did well.

But good news.  Don’t rush back to normal.  Don’t rush back to normal.  Because for so many people, normal wasn’t working.  Normal didn’t let them talk to God.  And if you are honest and introspective, perhaps normal wasn’t working for you.  So don’t be too concerned if everybody around you doesn’t look at the world the way you do.  That’s a little upsetting right now.  Like Samuel, you’re going to say, “I have great reasons.  I have the facts.  I have the list.  I have all the YouTube videos that you can watch and know that I am correct.”

But God says, don’t take it personal.  We’re struggling with whether or not to go with me and be a nomad into this new world, or whether to return to Egypt and slavery and patriarchy and monarchy for the false god of normal.  Friends, be nomads.  Follow God.  Be with God in whatever crazy place you are.  Don’t try to shut down and shut out others by saying no to them, “No, that’s not normal.”  Instead say, “Come along with us.  We’re nomads on a journey together.”

Amen.

 Unmasked and Unrobed

 Masked Version with Robe

Normal or Nomad

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

Sermons also available free on iTunes

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

Bringing Forward What's Behind

Bring what is valuable about the past into a new future

Bringing Forward What’s Behind
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from St. Paul’s Lutheran Church parking lot on August 30, 2020
edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions; all errors are mine. 

Matthew 16:21-28

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Phone, glasses, Hearphones, and once my brother Tim.  That is the answer to the question, “What do you go back for?”  If I leave my phone, my glasses, or even this morning my Hearphones, my hearing aids, I go back for them and get them.  And one time, on the way to a very memorable church service, I left my brother Tim, and we went back for him.  What do you go back for?  What do you go back for to bring into the present and take with you into the future?

I gave out notecards to some of you, I hope you got them, it’s a Sankofa bird on the front.  You can take a look at it there.  It’s very small here.  But I hope you got yours.  If you look closely, it might remind you of those geese that are always over there at the high school and the park,   Oh, my gosh.  But it’s not.  It’s a Sankofa bird.  And if you see, it’s reaching back to get an egg to bring forward into the future.  It’s part of a Native American and Mexican tradition, and African.  And what it means is that it is okay to stop and go back to the past and bring something of value forward.  It also says that that is something you should do, that that is something that is noble and expected, that you will stop what you’re doing and figure out what part of the past you want to bring into the future.

We are at an amazing, unique time.  I don’t know, I hope I can say this in front of you all, but it was official church communication.  I wanted to go to one of the churches in our denomination, not the Lutherans – God bless the Lutherans.  I went and I said, “Hey, can I come to your church?”  And they took it to the committee, and the committee’s first question was, will he sanitize the bathrooms?  Apparently they have laid off their custodian, and anybody that goes in, it’s do-it-yourself cleaning.  What a strange and wonderful time we are living in, to get that question when you want to go to church. 

It used to be that the status quo, the way things always have been, was the one thing that could not be vetoed.  That’s the one thing that could not be changed.  You almost have to have a unanimous – a consensus to do anything different.  You know this is difficult in churches, even in society.

But the coronavirus and the quarantine has vetoed the status quo.  Something that we said was impossible has been done.  I remember driving by closed casinos in Nevada.  Oh, my gosh.  You know, snowballs in hell are nothing compared to a dark casino in Nevada.  Who would believe such a change?  This is the time where we pause, like the bird, in going forward, and look into our past and say, “Well, that’s all messed up. The way of the future is not the old ways. What are we going to bring forward into the future?”

These are very challenging verses we have today, as much as they were [horn honking].  Thank you, amen.  As much as they were back in the time of Jesus.  Imagine, if you will, not the hospitality of Romans being preached.  And you say to yourself, well, that’s hard to do.  That’s difficult to do.  All these people with the politics and the division and the different ideas and the fights over the mask and the statues and the marches and the counter protests and the shootings.  How can we be hospitable?  And gentle?  And welcoming?  God just doesn’t know what we face.

But remember when these were written.  The folks reading this were under armed occupation as a conquered people by a foreign power.  I don’t know what you think the level of our situation is now, but it’s not that bad.  And yet the Scripture still was written, these directives still were given to those people.  If they could do it, we can do it.

Have you thought about what this would play out with, like today?  I mean, if Peter and Jesus were here today and had this discussion, how would it work out?  Have you guys heard of Facebook?  I am convinced Facebook has both brought together and blown apart more relationships than five generations of gossips.  It is an amazing engine to both bring people together! I mean, I’ve got high school friends that comment on my stuff.  I haven’t seen them in, well, a long time.

It also blows people apart.  You know that meme they shared about the politician that you liked?  Remember that mean thing they said about people you care about?  Amen.  Have you unfriended a friend on Facebook over that?  I can imagine it would go something like this with Peter and Jesus on Facebook.  You know, it’d be Facebook.  It’d be Jesus’s page.  You know, I imagine it’d be very pastoral, lot of pastel colors maybe, maybe a sunrise.  Couple hills maybe in the background.  He’d be there smiling.  And his post might be, “Taking the Jerusalem challenge.  I know, I know it’s difficult.  But I’m going to J-Town.  It’s tough, but it’s something I need to do.  I’m going to go there and protest.  And come with me, I’m going to make them hear what I have to say.”

Have you seen that post?  Can you imagine Peter – and God bless Peter, he didn’t post directly on the wall.  That’s not good.  Don’t do that, folks.  He did a message to Jesus, you know, with the little Messenger app that pops up on your phone.  You say, what is that thing?  He says, “Hey, Jesus, I forbid you to go to J-Town.  That’s not a good idea.  Have you heard what’s going on there?  Have you heard about the protest?  Have you heard about the violence?  People getting killed there, Jesus.  Don’t go, Jesus.  You shouldn’t be going there.”  And Jesus, I imagine Jesus does this.  Maybe he doesn’t, but I’m thinking.  Jesus sends him one of them little faces, one with the devil horns on it; you know?  And that’s it.  Just devil get behind me.

Have you had awkward, perhaps relationship-breaking Facebook conversations about what to bring forward?  We can’t leave this behind.  We’ve got to leave this brutality.  We’ve got to leave this racism.  We’ve got to leave the Confederate statues.  We’ve got to leave this oppression.  We’ve got to leave this two system where there’s one justice for those that are white; and those that are not, they get another system.  We’ve got to leave that all behind.  And then you’ve got other people saying, no, no, no, we’ve got to bring that forward.  That’s our heritage.  That’s part of what makes our country great.  You’re wrong.  Things are great.  Things are wonderful.  We need everything.  We’ve got bring that forward.  And there’s a great tug of war, just like that bird, about what to bring forward and what to leave behind.

We make these choices all the time.  All the time.  And it’s not about erasing history.  It’s what we choose to bring forward.  Imagine, if you will, after – I don’t know, I don’t want to get in trouble here.  But a year, a year out of the church?  I don’t know.  Don’t quote me on this.  It’s going to be a while.  But at the church, you went in there, and you found out that some people were honoring your heritage by putting up a statue of Judas, and another great big statue of Satan in the church because, you know, that’s history.  That’s heritage.  That’s in the Scriptures.  We can’t forget that.  I think you’d say we don’t need to bring that forward, brother.  Sister, I don’t think we need that in the church.  We remember Satan.  We see him a lot out in the world every day.  We don’t need a big old statue of him in our faith.

Well, Christy, you gave us the problem, didn’t give us any solution.  Hate when that happens.  What are we going to do?  How can we do this?

Short Wave is a wonderful daily podcast about science, very entertaining, about 10 minutes long.  I just binge through them, read, listen to them while I’m driving somewhere.  I don’t go anywhere anymore, but so 10 minutes takes me a couple trips.  But they said to get yourself out of this depression and get yourself out of this funk, and to get yourself out of the terrible place that you might be in in this time, two things are important:  control, and recognizing that the present times or situation is temporary.  Control and temporary.  So you focus on what you can do.

What is in my control?  What can I do?  I can’t stop the pandemic, but I can help other people.  I can make masks.  I can give money to the folks that don’t have it.  I can go out and support the workers that are out of work by going through all the rigmarole to do carryout and try to give them some money.  If I have a place, I can maybe help out somebody that doesn’t have a place.  Maybe I don’t collect the rent this month if I’m a landlord.  Maybe I support a little help for those that are helpless.  What is in my control?  What can I do?

In Jesus’s case, he says, you know, there’s a lot of evil out there.  There’s a lot of trouble out there.  There’s a lot of oppression out there.  There’s a lot of sin out there.  I can do something about that.  I can go and proclaim God’s love, God’s compassion, God’s inclusion.  And I can tell it and tell it until I’m dead.  That’s what I can do.  I can’t stop all evil.  I can’t control other people.  But I can live a worthy life full of service and healing and love, as long as I’m here.  That’s in my control.  That’s where God wants me to go.  So the one is control.  What is God calling me to do, not what God is calling those other folks to do.  Not what I think they ought to do.  It’s with God, what is God calling me to do?  I can do that.  What can I do?  Get some control in your life by that.

And remember this is temporary.  As Christians we know that we have a heavenly home that is eternal in the heavens, and we’re just here temporarily.  So everything that happens is temporary, and most temporary is this time of pandemic.  There will be a time when this pandemic is over.  I don’t know when.  It’s a race between when the pandemic is over and Jesus comes.  I don’t know which is going to come first.  What I’m thinking is that it’ll be a sure sign, if the Overby House opens, that’d be the end times.  That I’m sure of.  Jesus has a reservation there first night.

It’s temporary, friends.  And you know, Jesus did this with Peter, too.  I don’t know if you’ve been doing a friendship study, looking at the timeline between Jesus and Peter on Facebook.  But my gosh, those two are always getting into it.  You know, they need some couples counseling, those two.  You see them going back and forth.  You know, because Peter is showboating.  Just last week, jumping off the boat, or a couple weeks ago, jumping off the boat, walking on that water like showboating around.  Come on, Peter, give it a rest.  This is Jesus’s moment.  You know, why are you horning in on that?  You don’t even do it well.  And Jesus sighs and picks him up afterwards.

And then he had a good time, a good spot.  He says, “Jesus, you are the Messiah.”  He confessed him as Lord.  Good times.  And now we’ve got this one, where he stops him from doing what he needs to do, what he wants to do, what he’s called to do, and gets in his way and tries to control Jesus.  Have you done that?  Have you tried to control Jesus and say, “That’s not the way, Jesus.  Oh, no, no, no, no.  We’re not going there.  We’re not going out in the parking lot.”  Heck, no.  I love the Lord, but not that much.  I need my pew and my cushion and my roof.  Can somebody get a roof.

Have you had days like that?  Maybe over more significant issues?  But Jesus sticks with him and even sticks with him when he betrays him and denies him.  Spoiler alert, this is coming up.  Peter denies Jesus, betrays him.  “I do not know the man.”  Right when he needed a friend, someone to stand with him.  Through all that drama, through all that back and forth, Jesus stays with Peter.  Because he knows that bad days are temporary.  And somehow he saw good in Peter.  And the last time we see them together they reconcile, where Jesus asks him if he loves him three times, bringing back the three times Peter denied him.  And Peter says, “You know I do.  I love you, Lord.”  And Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

So you had a bad time.  So maybe you denied Jesus.  I don’t know.  Maybe.  Maybe you did some things you weren’t supposed to do.  Maybe you have some regrets.  I’m telling you now, the answer, the way out is to recognize that was temporary, and that you have control to do good and to be better.  You can be like Jesus and Peter.  And even though you had ups and downs and troubles and upsetness, if you love the Lord, there’s a way out.  If you love the Lord enough to take care of other people.  If you love the Lord to take care of those he cares about.  If you love the Lord enough to be as hospitable as we hear Paul telling the folks under Roman rule to be hospitable, and kind, and to forego vengeance, but leave room for God.

I had a friend.  His name’s Randy.  Randy was in Kiwanis with me in Akron, Ohio.  And that guy had a heart that would not end.  I mean, he was the one, if you had a Kiwanis service project, he would come two days early and prep it and bring supplies that he bought out of his own pocket, wouldn’t take money.  The day he was there he would come early and stay late.  And he would bring his entire family and friends to help.  And then he would clean up afterwards and come back the next day and finish up what wasn’t done.  

But then Facebook.  I swear every Russian meme that ever came across that was heartless and mean and untrue, Randy had to repeat and had to post.  The first couple dozen times I said, “Randy, what are you doing, dude?”  I would say, “Hey, check this out, this article.  It’s just not true.  It’s not at all.  It’s just trying to make you angry.  If you’re angry when you see a meme, stop and think that the purpose of this meme and this post is not for information.  The purpose of this post is to make me angry.  And don’t let it do that.”  We had some back and forth, and he says, “I just can’t help it.  I just can’t help it.”  So I unfriended him.  I just – my blood pressure couldn’t take it.  And I didn’t want to keep going after him and arguing with him.

But what I’m going to do today, these are little cards, these little note cards.  And I’ve got some homework for you.  I mean, you’ve got time; right?  Everything’s crazy.  Everything’s closed.  I’m going to write Randy.  I’m going to write Randy and see if we can get some relationship back.  Because that was temporary, you know.  Those posts were maybe even unthinking.  And I know he’s a good and kind man, although his choice in candidates is just godawful.  But he’s a good guy.  He’s a loving father, faithful husband, hard worker in his own business, and generous to a fault.

I’m going to write him this card, and I’m going to try to get back with him because I think this is what the Scripture says to us.  Leave room for God to take vengeance.  Leave room.  Welcome everyone, and let God correct them and get them right.  Don’t tell Jesus not to go to somewhere he’s not welcome.  Don’t tell Jesus you shouldn’t be concerned about those people.  You should stay away from them.

Do you have a Randy in your life?  Maybe family?  Maybe a friend that, in this time of division and polarization and every issue under the sun – who would have thought we’re arguing about the Post Office?  Can you give me a break?  Can we just get a buy on the Post Office this year.  Anyone you having problems with?  Maybe you have a problem with me.  Maybe have a problem with Chad.  I don’t know.  Maybe you’re here because you have a problem with your church or pastor.

I’m telling you, I’m a Stated Clerk of the Presbytery, and I sort of have my eyes on the churches throughout Nevada.  And pastors are quitting.  Pastors are going in the hospital with stress diseases.  It is a horrible, awful time to be a pastor.  You think you’re upset about the way the church is going?  Imagine if you were the pastor.  Maybe if you’ve got no one in your life that you want to reconcile with, no one in your life that you think you need a better relationship with, write it to Chad.  I write to Pastor, and I get a note back, “Oh, thank you, you don’t know how much I needed that.”  You know, what a difference it made.

Our Scriptures today say that we can make room for others that disagree with us.  Our Scriptures today say even when they’re going the wrong way and we’re absolutely convinced that they’re going the wrong way, they can still be related to us.  And what a message, what a time for us to hear that.

Friends, what are we going to bring forward in the future?  This is something that we need to reflect on.  We need to consider.  We need to talk together.  We need to make room for one another.  What are we going to turn back and bring forward?  How is our church life and our church worship going to be different going forward?  Is it going to be more technology?  Are we going to have more opportunities for people to gather, rather than at a certain time and place in a certain building in a certain seat in a certain location?  Is this going to be a great renaissance for the church?  A great awakening and expansion?  A transformation of what it means to be God’s people?  I hope so.  I hope so.

It’s up to us what we bring forward.  We have a great opportunity now to take stock of, well, what is essential?  What is necessary?  What is loving?  What makes room for people?  What does hospitality look like in this day and age?  My first boss in a spiritual position as a chaplain left to move on, and she said this:  “I do not go alone, and I leave no one behind.”  I do not go alone.  I leave no one behind.  As we go through this time, into a new time, imagine what you want to bring forward, who you want to bring forward.  And remember you do not go alone.  And remember to leave no one behind.

Amen.

Bringing Forward What's Behind