Stop the Shouting

How to Stop the Shouting

Stop the Shouting
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from St. Paul’s Lutheran Church parking lot on August 16, 2020
edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions; all errors are mine. 

Matthew 15:21-28

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Looking for the way to make the shouting people go away…

Would someone please stop the shouting.  That’s what the disciples want.  They want the shouting to stop.

   

I want to tell you how to stop the shouting.  And I want to show you ways that do not work, as well, for they are all here in our Scripture.  2020 among many things is a year of shouting, and a year of people wanting other people to go away and quit shouting.

 

We have lots of shouting.  We have lots of people shouting for crumbs of compassion to come off the tables of their master.  And we have lots of people telling them to go away.  We don’t want to hear your shouting.  And they do it by curfew.  They do it by tear gas.  They do it by appealing to any authority they can:  Please, for the love of God, stop this shouting.  And the shouting doesn’t stop.  No matter how many appeals we say, no matter what we say, no matter what we do, the shouting goes on, it seems.

 

A woman of a different race says her demon daughter matters.  And Jesus says, “Oh, no.  You’re not going to trick me there.  All children matter.  Not just yours.  All children.  That’s what I’m here for.”  And then the reading ends, and everybody goes home happy.  

 

That doesn’t happen.  It doesn’t happen in our Scripture, and it certainly doesn’t happen in our country.  Shouting “Go home,” saying “All children matter,” does not stop the shouting.  It didn’t then, and it doesn’t now, even if you say it is the love of Christ that makes me tell you all children matter.  Go home.  Stop shouting.

 

How can we stop the shouting?  That is what we ask Jesus to do for us.  Strangely, we can look at the Internet.  I know that’s strange.  The Internet is more often a pooling of our ignorance.  But there is a site called Quora.  I don’t know what you spend your time on.  I’m not going to take a survey.  You can tell me in private later, maybe with confession with Pastor Chad, if you need to.  But I go to Quora to find out what people are asking and find out how people are responding.  

 

Here is how the Quora website/email subscription works: somebody asks a question.  Other people give answers.  And then here’s the key part.   The answers get voted up or down.  So the answer that makes most sense to most people bubbles up to the top.

 

And I was looking at this Scripture and looking at Quora, and there was a letter asking: “Who do I see, how do I get compensation for what happened?”  And he told a story.  He’s there at home, his home, you know, paid for, mortgage, you know, taxes paid, lawn cut, you know, everything you want in a good neighborhood and a good neighbor.  And over the hill comes this riotous noise, this thumping and banging and booming.  And up comes a helicopter, and it drops a bucket, boom, into his pool, scoops up a whole bunch of water, without a by your leave or if you please, and flies away with it.  And he says:  “Who do I see about getting paid for that water?”

 

Well, the answer, if you’re wondering, and you probably know from being in Nevada where wildfires are everywhere, those helicopters can get water anywhere they can, anytime they want, whenever they need it becausethe letter writer didn’t mention thissomething was on fire.  Maybe the entire landscape.  Maybe the entire mountain was on fire, and that helicopter was trying to save homes and lives.  Other people’s homes, not his own.  

 

BUT All water matters.  Why are you taking my water?  All waters matter.  He didn’t mention that other homes were threatened by fire and that water could make a difference between life and death, between having a home and being homeless.  No.  All water matters.

 

I was on the firefighting force in Ottawa, Ohio.  We didn’t have wildfires, thank goodness.  We just had structures, and pretty contained.  But I tell you, I am certainly thankful and glad that never, when we were going to a fire, did we find counter-protesters telling us to shut off our sirens, they were bothering them; quit the shouting; and, by the way, all waters matter.  Why don’t you top off my pool?  

 

We were going to a fire.  We’re trying to save property and lives.  People kind of understood that.

I remember growing up in Akron, Ohio, and looking down the main street of Akron, Ohio, which is called Market Street.  And I remember when a fire truck siren went, as far as you could see, and you could see a mile in each direction, every car and vehicle got off the road, let that fire truck through.  

 

In Ohio, at least when I was a firefighter back then, fire trucks had absolutely no special privileges.  They were not allowed to violate any traffic.  ALL TRAFFIC MATTERED. Fire engines did not have the right of way.  All they could do was to ask.  Said excuse me, there’s a fire.  Could you get out of the way for a minute?  And back then, people knew that even though they had the right to that road, even though all cars mattered: they saw that somebody needed that road more than them.  Someone needed help, and they got out of the way.

 

How do we stop the shouting?  Now, all allegories fail.  The children and the dogs and the puppies and all that, that doesn’t exactly match up one-to-one.  And there’s a whole lot written about that.  And neither does my firefighting thing.  That doesn’t match up one-to-one with reality.  If it was, it would be reality.  But I’m telling you to go a little bit further with this.

 

The way you stop the shouting, if you will, the way you stop the fire engine sirens, is not by telling them that all homes matter.  Turn that off.  It is not by saying you’re bothering me, shut off that siren, I have rights.  The way to stop the fire sirens, the way to stop the shouting is to put out the fire. 

  

I’m telling you, as long as that fire was going, there were sirens.  If we couldn’t get it the fire out, we called in more and more people, more and more sirens, until the fire was out.  We didn’t shout and say, oh, all homes matter.  We didn’t say turn off the sirens, we can’t keep bothering people.  We put out the fire.

 

What about now?  What’s the allegory here?  What’s it doing here?  Because the disciples tried to say shut up.  They tried the curfew.  They tried the tear gas.  They tried the appeal to authority.  They tried to get the people in to haul them out and take them away, send them away, put them back, get them out of here, clear the plaza.  

 

It didn’t work.  Sound familiar?  And then Jesus himself, and for the love of Jesus, it says that he said he is here for all the children of God, not just a demon daughter.  I mean, why do we care? We had nothing to do with her demon daughter.  We didn’t possess them.  We didn’t send the demon on them.  We didn’t sic the demon on her.  We didn’t tell her to live in the demon place.  We didn’t do any of that.  We’re here for all the good children of God. You know, people who look like us and demon free.

 

Even when it’s said by Jesus himself, it is not enough.  I don’t know why then we think it makes a difference if we correct people with a lie saying all matters in theory when it is not true in reality. It didn’t work for JESUS, why do we think it will make a difference for us? 

 

What makes a difference?  What stops a fire of fear?  It is faith.  It is faith.  

 

The Faith I’m talking about, the faith that Jesus sees is not found listed in “The Book of Confessions,”  Al. We are not talking about “The Book of Covenant,” for all the Lutherans here.  Not even “The Sinner’s Prayer.”  I’m not talking about the “Five Fundamentals of Faith.”  Because this woman knew nothing of those.  Yet still Jesus said, “You have faith.”  And what was that faith?  The faith was there is a relationship with all people.  With children and dogs that you call them, and those inside and outside, all are at the table.  There’s relationship.

 

And Jesus saw that.  Oh, woman.  When you can see past my disciples sending you away, when you can see past me even telling you that I’m not here for you, when you can see past the divides of gender and divides of race and the divides of culture and the divides of country, and you can see past all that and say we are all related at the table of the master, that is faith that goes to the heart of the Triune God that is based, is essence of relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, twirling and dancing, and relationship in Eternity.  You have faith that that relationship will go through everyone on the world, including you.  And that is what’ll bring healing.  That is what will put out the fire.  And when the fire is out, the sirens stop, and not until then.

 

Louis C.K. has made some very poor choices in his life.  I’m not holding him up as a moral example or exemplar for you and your relationships with others in every aspect.  But there is something I really like that he said to his children.  I don’t know if you have been a parent – I think most of you have been children.  You know how children like to make sure they get their fair share, whether it’s desserts or ice cream or cereal or, oh my gosh, the fights over the backseat, who had the middle line and the hump and back and forth.  I don’t know, flick your lights you are listening to yourself.  Is there anybody here that has children that looked at other to check out who had more?  Is anyone asleep?  Do we need an amen?  We’ve got a couple of hands up.

 

Louis C.K. had it up to here when they started comparing the amount of cereal in their bowls.  He said, and this is what he said to them, and the rule in his house: 

 

The only time, the only time you look in your neighbor’s bowl
is to make sure they have enough.  

 

The only time you look in your neighbor’s bowl is to make sure that they have enough.  You don’t look in your neighbor’s bowl to see if you have as much as they do.

 

Put out the fire and stop the shouting.  There’s no other way to live out the faith that we’re all in this together.  Amen.

Stop the Shouting

Well, It’s Blursday, the Upteenth of Meh…Again

How to be faithful when days blur into weeks and months.

Well, It’s Blursday, the Upteenth of Meh…Again
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from an empty sanctuary and full zoom on a laptop at St. John’s Presbyterian in Reno, Nevada lot on August 23, 2020. Originally given at Lee Vining/Bishop Zoom on July 19

Genesis 28:10-19a

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 Looking for the way to be faithful in the world without gathering with the saints

Two sisters were terrors at home, school, neighborhood, everywhere but church. There they were angels because that was God’s house. Well, with the school and church building closed and the parents were stuck with them day after day without any away time or church angel hours. 

So they do what parents do when they are at their wits end, they called the pastor and asked her to do put the fear of God in them. So the pastor said, “Let me talk to the oldest.” 

The parent handed the phone to the oldest and the pastor quizzed her, “WHERE IS GOD?” and the oldest said, “At God’s house!” The pastor continued, “Ok, No body is at God’s house, where is God?” The child didn’t know the answer but knew she was in big trouble. She froze. 

 

Her sister asked, “What’s wrong?”

 

The oldest pushed mute and answered her: “The Pastor Can’t Find God! She Thinks We Stole Him!

 

Where is God is the question of 2020. Since March we have been spread abroad from west to east to north and south. To homes, laptops, phones, tablets, zoom, YouTube, Facebook. And we wonder, “Where is God when God’s House is Closed?” 

 

James Goff had a cartoon in April where the devil is bragging that he closed every church. God is next to him saying, I opened a church in every home.

 

The wave of blogs virtual worship guides and the stream of emails with requests for rulings about what was real worship or real communion flooded the web, twitter, emails and Facebook posts. 

 

Christians of a certain age will hear the lament in the question from “On The Willows” from Godspell. Psalm 137:4 How can we sing the Lord’s Song in a foreign land? 

Rev. Joey Lee, the Executive Presbyter of San (Hos say) says if we complain about lockdown…try being a refugee.

 

We catch up with the heel grabber Jacob who has just started being a refugee on his way toward Haran. He is fleeing his sheltering home and family support because it is not safe to stay there. From favorite son to refugee. In the desert he found a place to stay overnight. There he found God standing beside him tell him that God is with him and will keep him wherever he goes. Jacob’s named the place, Bethel, the house of God. He fled his house and found himself in the house of God. 

 

For Christians, the answer to the pastor’s question is not a place, but a person. God acts to make sure we know he is not housebound to a place by Jesus or rather Immanuel, God with Us. Where is God when God’s house is closed? As Jacob found out, God is standing beside us. God is Immanuel, God is with us. 

 

God is not housebound. Jacob may leave home, but God’s house goes with him. Psalm 139 has a similar promise most often heard at funerals and memorials. The leaving is magnified in verse: 

Where can I go from your spirit?  Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. 

 

God found Jacob in the desert, but this isn’t a story about Jacob’s ladder to heaven it is about God setting his ladder to heaven wherever we are. God is the subject.

Jacob did everything he could to grab his piece of heaven, to secure his place and future. His artful deal swindled his brother out his birthright for a bowl of stew. He tricked his blind father to steal the blessing that was due his brother Esau. He was a heel grabber from birth. 

Yet there is a reckoning. Today we find him in the desert. Without family, fortune or future; that birthright and blessing cut off by the fear of that is brother would be angry and vengeful. His scheming for all left him with nothing. 

Yet it isn’t just us who finds him, but God. Who gives him the blessing not of his father for his family, but to be a blessing to all the families of earth. God who replaces his birthright with the promise of the birth of offspring like the dust of the earth. God, who builds Bethel, the house of God around the homeless refugee not artful deals of grasping Jacob.

The church is stripped of all of the things we planned, prepared and schemed for over the decades: 

 

• We have been exiled from our beautiful buildings even our favorite pew…
• Eye contact is replaced with far away stares.
• Handshakes and hugs are replaced with  video smiles and distant waves.
• In person, even smiles are masked away And in person means double arms length, too far to hug.
• Like a modern day Babel, our chorus is fractured solos, we sing together alone; our unison responses jumbled syllables scrambled by the tech tubes that connect our eyes but not our voices.
• We can no longer receive communion from a neighbors hand but only take it from our own.
• We are in the desert, alone, in exile from all we have gathered and grabbed, stripped of our birthright and blessing.

Sir Winston Churchill is credited with first saying, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” He said it in the mid-1940s as we were approaching the end of World War ll.

 

Jacob doesn’t waste his crisis. He recognized that he is a guest of God’s house wherever he is. Not by his own cunning, but by God’s care. That ladder is not a way to heaven as it is an affirmation of that God’s work is going on, even here. Angels are moving cares up to heaven and messages are coming down us. The supply chain is secure delivering even in the desert even though zoom.

 

And he vows to return to this place where God’s house is. Rev. Joey Lee, also says that when the quarantine hit changes that we been working on for years where made in a weekend. Our tech friendly expansive ministry is reuniting the ex-pats, the homebound, the young, the physically and socially distant, the ones who can’t hear but now can turn up the volume, the ones who can’t walk but now have church delivered, the one who work or play on Sunday morning, let’s not forget this place where God came beside those alone and away from the home. A ladder delivering grace and inviting a connection to God from wherever you are.

 

Virginia City Presbyterian that still has gas light fixtures because they are not convinced electricity might be a fad, hung a video screen in their sanctuary after a unanimous approval from the session so folks weren’t required to touch and pass hymnals and paper. What a faithful response to exile. When I heard that, I asked my echo what the ski conditions in hell were. 

 

I don’t know what the future may hold, but I know who holds the future. Ralph Abernathy

 

The quarantine is a forced demonstration that God’s house is not built of our traditions, our schemes and empire building but where people stop to rest and find God beside them. Setting up a ladder to heaven where faith climbs and blessing descends.

 

We can keep the faithful attitude of how God is present where we are instead of trying to jam God into where we were. We can all be like my mother-in-law Kathryn who lives in the desert of Sedona on House Rock Road. We can set up our house rock and say remember, God is here. God is with us where ever we stop and look for God. 

 

“He’s Always There”

 

The Lord leads us on

with tender care,

lifting our

burdens to bear

He blesses us

as we pass on,

to what awaits

eternal dawn

Tho we so often

may not see,

He’s always there

and will always be…

 

J. Paul Horgan   “The Poem Painter”

7/17/20   c.

Well, It’s Blursday, the Upteenth of Meh…Again

Jesus Wept

 

Weeping over the Whys of life

Jesus Wept
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey
Click the title above for a mp3 recording 

Audio from Valley Presbyterian Church, on March 8, 2020
edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions; all errors are mine. 

John 11:1-45

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Speaking to a congregation after a pastor candidate decided not to come and meet them.

I don’t know about you, but I always want to know why. I’m nosy that way. And **** in her email – Leigh didn’t tell you. In her email said “personal concerns,” “personal reasons,” something with “personal” in it. And that’s kind of code. The first part is “It’s not about you, it’s about me.” Which is good. So it’s not about you. That’s good. Second part of the code is “Don’t ask.” So the whole “why” thing is kind of shut down for a while. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll talk again in another 30 years, and we can look back and figure out what happened. I don’t know.

But the why. “Why” about ministers, there’s a lot of that. You know, I don’t know about other professions. I don’t know, maybe getting this wherever you work, social service, or working with people on all sorts of things. But even in retail, I guess I get a little. But, boy, when I was a minister, I got a lot of whys. You know? Why are you doing it that way? What kind of minister are you? Why aren’t you doing this? Why haven’t you been here? How come you did not visit there? I was in the hospital; why didn’t visit me. Oh, my god.

I guess I was pretty defensive. And always drawn to this verse in the story, “Jesus Wept”, because it was actually my first sermon was on this verse in the story because I think I knew what was coming Kind of prophetic. Yeah, people are going to be out there criticizing your ministry no matter what you do. Even Jesus got trouble. You know, he had the disciples kerfuffle there was the discussion about to go or not to go, he’s sleeping, he’s not sleeping. But the two sisters just really, really get me. And I emphasize that in the reading because the sisters ask the exact same question. And I don’t think that’s just a cut-and-paste error because they didn’t have that back then, they didn’t just copy the question from one sister to another without updating it.

But they asked the exact same question. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Maybe not a question. More an accusation. And he had two totally different answers, responses to them. Not so much an answer. I mean, Martha comes out, and I guess maybe they’re alone together? Maybe ran out.

I’m thinking disciples, they’re always hanging around, I don’t know if they’re there. But not a crowd, anyway. Socially distant. They had this little theological discussion about Christ and the last days and the dead coming up and, you know, Christ is Lord, and do you believe this, and the faith statement. All in all a very, good seminary quiz answer about what you do when somebody has a crisis of faith.

That’s fine. You know, maybe that’s okay for you. You know, maybe that is a ministry to you. And I’m thinking it was a ministry to Martha, to hear about the faith statement and what we believe and the greatness that everything will even out in the great beyond, and by and by everything will make sense. God works all things for good, and we’ll all be together in heaven. Maybe that’s okay for you, and maybe even I need that sometimes. But in all the big and little griefs of the life, you know, everywhere from losing a pastor candidate to losing a brother, the idea that, well, you know, God’s going to fix it in the end. Doesn’t help right here and now. At least for me.

Then Mary comes out, and we know Mary has a whole crowd with her. The crowd came to comfort Mary. Did you catch that? They didn’t come to comfort Martha, I guess. Martha’s not the easiest person to warm up to, if you’ve been following her in the scriptures. Maybe there was other times she was really gracious and wonderful and had a lot of friends over. But this time they came to comfort to Mary. Maybe that’s an editing error. But still, they all following Mary out. They didn’t follow Martha out.

So there’s a crowd there. Same question. Lord? Is it a question? I think it’s an accusation. I think it’s a statement. Inside the accusation, the criticism, there’s faith wrapped up in there. It’s like faith wrapped in an accusation and given to him, you know, you can’t really say, well, don’t say that. Well, no, because inside the disappointment, there’s hope: “And if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Well, we already know his answer; right? I mean, we had the answer, and it worked for Martha; right? You talk about, yeah, I am the Lord. I bring up all the dead in the end of the time, and all the raising. You believe I’m the Lord and zippy, zowie, you got it done. I got it. I got this. I know this. But it says that Jesus saw her weeping. He saw the crowd. And he began to weep.

Now, that awkward word there, he began to be weeping or whatever that is, that’s a signal. Greek it’s called the aorist tense. They have this little annoying verb tense in Greek that we don’t have in English because we don’t have time to fool around with that stuff. Literally because aorist doesn’t have any time. The aorist verb, it just happened. You know? It’s like when a dish breaks and you ask the kids. They respond: “I don’t know, it just happened.” There’s no time associated with it. There’s no past, present, or future, and there’s no beginning and end. It just happens that in the great time-space continuum there was weeping.

He began to weep. And the crowd, you would think, might have said, what a crappy minister. He should have words of faith and assurance. He should have wonderful things to say, wonderful words of love. He should tell them about the coming raising of the dead, you know, like Martha, which they did not hear. You would think they’d be upset with him for weeping, of all things. Certainly he will never be the President if he cries in public.

But they said, “See how much He loved them.” See how much He loved them.

I know it’s hard for you to believe, but when I was in the ministry, a lot of people couldn’t believe I was a minister. I know it’s hard to believe. In fact, some of them would come up and say, “You don’t act like a minister.” And sometimes that was a compliment, and sometimes it was an accusation. It was kind of hard to tell sometimes where on the spectrum the comment was supposed to land. But “You don’t act like a minister” I got quite a bit. And I also have a book I’m writing, and I know it’ll be published someday, it’s called “Reverend Righteous Snappy Answer to Stupid Religious Questions.” I sure Mad Magazine will come back to publish it.

One of SRQ Stupid Religious Questions is this one: “You don’t act like a minister.” And my response is that is because I’m not acting. I am a minister. Deal with it. This is what a minister looks like. And, you know, I’m sure that women ministers get it more than than I do. Of course, the Christy thing didn’t help at all. But that’s what’s going on here.

You know, when someone dies, or when hopes die – I was really hoping for (the candidate) to come here. I was so excited. I want to know why. Why didn’t that happen? As if, if I knew, it’d be okay. But in reality, if I knew why, I’d still be upset. I’d still be disappointed. Even if she had the absolute most greatest reason in all the world. Maybe she’s engaged to be married, and her husband-to-be doesn’t want to move. That would be probably the best. I don’t know. So I would still be upset.

So why do I want to know why? It’s not going to help me. It’s just going to lead to more questions and problems and upsetness and why do I want to know why? It’s the first temptation; isn’t it? In the Garden of Eden, God said, “Don’t go to that tree. Stay away from that tree.” What do we do? “Why?” And then the snake picks up on that. And the snake says: “Psst. You’ll know why if you eat out of the tree. You’ll be like God. You’ll know good and evil. You’ll know all the whys. Go ahead, eat up there.” Oh, my gosh. That sounds great to us. We want to know why. We eat up. And then the troubles begin. Why?

1995. This is kind of a retrospect of my life, but that’s okay. You’re stuck with me. Ha. 1995 I decided to quit understanding computers. I remember the day. Up to then, from 1976 to 1995, I understood computers. I can understand why things work. I could take them out. I was getting into assembly language. Oh, my gosh. I knew it all. I knew those guys.

And when Win95 came out, especially on this day, when it changed the clock by itself without me, even though I set it the night before, I was so proud. The computer set daylight savings time, so I was an hour off even though I reset the clock. I realized I would never understand computers again. I wouldn’t know why. And I decided to focus on how. How, without knowing why, how can I work with them? How can I get them to do as I do? How can I help other people to get to do with them what I do? How do I live with computers that I do not understand?

And that’s where we’re at. We don’t like to be there. And Jesus, even in the why question about why did Lazarus die, why did – he wasn’t too much on the why. But even in that thing he talked, he talked about not why, but who? The why looks back; doesn’t it? Looks back to the past about things were going and lived back there and cause and effect and all that, and you get all wound up in craziness. And like I said, it doesn’t help here and now. The question is, who is God, and who are we in response to that? How are we going to live then?

The second encounter, with that accusation, that faithful accusation of, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. What kind of God is it that lets someone die? The God that weeps. The God that began to weep, and we don’t know if the weeping ever ends. A God that is always emotionally with us in our sorrow and grief and sadness.

When folks say, “Where was God when this terrible thing happened?,” that God was there feeling every bit of the pain and sadness and hurt and fear and crying along with us. And if we’re good, like the crowd back then, we’ll say, “See how much God loves us.” Not that he fixes stuff, not that he explains things to us, not that he makes all things right in the great by and by. But he loves us enough to weep with us at the sorrows and the unfairness and the evil and the tragedies and the challenges of this life.

So faith, the life of faith, the life of the church, the life of a minister, is not so much about finding out why, or explaining whys. You can’t do it. Hey, I can’t do it. For a 20-year-old computer I can’t tell you why it does things. People ask me that all the time. And I just say “Microsoft.” And that usually is enough. But the question is, for the faithful, work and life today is, given that we have a God who loves us so much to weep along with our tears, how do we live? What do we do? How are we with other people? How do we find to live? And that is a future thing, not a past thing with why why why, but how how how. And it all springs from who in the middle. Who are we as a people, who do we worship as God, will tell us how we live.

We live as a people that are compassionate. We live as a people that seek justice. We live as a people that gets angry when things aren’t the way they should. We live as a people that try to fix wrong. We live as a people that try to give sight to the blind, to free the oppressed, that deliver release to the captives. We’re those kind of people. We’re not saying, well, why are they blind? Why are they captive? Why are they oppressed? Why does God love all that? That’s only important if it figures us how to fix it. How to be faithful in a place we don’t know all the whys and the causes. And yeah, sometimes is weeping with those that weep.

Everytime you hear “politically correct” — consider subsituting “compassionate”

Disturbing trend in our country today. And I find it all summed up in the politically correct, which is used to dismiss any kind of concern or compassion for those that are not like us, or doesn’t experience what we experience. Oh, well, their concerns, that’s just being politically correct. You know, every time you hear that you can substitute the word “compassion,” and it works. Oh, that’s just being compassionate. We are the compassionate ones. Because we follow God, who is compassionate, who has passion with us, who is God with us in our sorrow and heartache. We are those kind of people.

You ever heard of imposter syndrome? Ever hear of that? Yeah, where you think you don’t deserve where you are, what you do, and how you are? And you think everybody’s going to find out one day I’m a fraud? It’s like that dream that you have where you think you’re in school, and you don’t have any of your homework done; and by the way, you’re naked, too. Agh. You know, that kind of dream. Everybody’s had that. Yeah, that one. That fraud, that imposter syndrome, I had that a lot, you know, as a minister because, well, the constant “You don’t act like a minister” didn’t help.

But I had a lot of that as a minister, and I realized how imperfect I was. I mean, I was my worst critic, still am, about how I’m not doing everything that’s right and good and should. And I was talking to my counselor about that. And I was talking about there’s at least two women that admit that I was a major part of why they became a minister. I got one on video, so I brought receipts.

A little deeper than the video clip, we talked a little bit about why I was a good model for entering ministry. Both pointed out to me privately that it wasn’t because I was perfect that they became a minister. Because both of them said, and this is slightly disturbing, both of them said – and these are different states, you know, different churches. Both of them said, “Well, I looked up, and I saw Christy. And I thought, well, if he could be a minister, I could be a minister.” You already felt that. You’re there now. Well, if he could do it, I guess I can do it. I think I may be good. I don’t know.

And she pointed out to me, you know, did you notice that it wasn’t your perfection that brought those women into ministry and to hear the call of God. It wasn’t how perfect you were or your mastery of things, but it was exactly your imperfections, your sincerity and honesty about your limitations and how you didn’t have all the answers, that let them hear the call of God. Wow, earned their money that week, huh, yeah, the big one. Here’s what one says.

And she went on – the second Sunday we were there was 9/11 in her church. And she asked me – I didn’t know who she was. Week 2, I didn’t know anybody. She comes up, she goes, “Are you going to speak about 9/11 in the children’s message?” I go, “Yeah, I’m going to talk to the kids about it.” “I’m not having my kids in church, then.” Off she goes. I go, well, hello to you. You know.

And we went from that, over the year, the 18 months I was there as interim, that a year from then her and I led a remembrance service with communion and multimedia for the community that night for 9/11. And then she went on from that to go to seminary, become a minister, get a church, and become the editor of Presbyterians Today, the PC(USA) magazine. And here’s what she said as I left that church.

“On a more personal level, I find that you bring an honest vitality to the faith that I haven’t experienced before. You make it something to live rather than something to ponder from the pew. More importantly, you managed to do it without overwhelming earnestness, sappy sentimentality, or condescending judgment. Your approach feels fresh, straightforward, and comfortable. I will miss that.”

And I really treasure that, obviously. Something to live, and not something to ponder from the pew. Something to figure out how to be faithful instead of struggling with the whys and the wherefores. That’s faith. That’s what we’re called to do.

Amen.

Jesus Wept

Dying in a Ditch...And Then It Gets Worse

 Image by Shift and Sheriff from Pixabay

What if the hated worthless one could save your life?

Dying in A Ditch
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

Click the title above to download a recording 

Audio from Truckee Lutheran Presbyterian Church, on July 28, 2019
edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions; all errors are mine. 

Luke 10:25-37

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Ditch the name “Good Samaritan”. It’s not in the Bible. It’s just something we call it, and we’re wrong. It is not the story of the Good Samaritan, at least for today. It is the story of Ditch Man. That makes it our story, because that is where Jesus needs us to be to hear the Gospel. We need to be in the ditch beside the man who asks the question.

Did you notice the switch in the question between the beginning and end of the story? The first question was from the man: “Who is my neighbor?” Then Jesus says a man, about as generic as the Bible gets, so you can put yourself in his place. You, questioner, you are walking, and this happens to you. Not really talking about the qualities of a neighbor…but of you the questioner. The question at the end of the story posed by Jesus was who was a neighbor to the man. You see the switch? From the labeling of others to the personal relationship. We love to do the opposite. Oh, we love to do that. We love to take what is personal to us and put it out there as a generic label of other things and other people so we could say neighbor yes/no and judge others or even ourselves by external actions and appearances…never pausing to consider what it means to our soul and spirit when someone unexpected is a neighbor to us.

Now, in technical terms, if you go to seminary, you learn that this is where you cross from preaching to meddling. Preaching to meddling. Meddling is about getting into my soul and spirit instead of Preaching about morality for other people, how they should act, so I can judge them. The question isn’t find generic neighbor and put a sticker on them. It is about who do you accept as your neighbor. Not the other’s behavior but your own bias. YIKES Meddling alert!

You see, us Christians especially, us wonderful, fairly well off, First World Christians, we love to take these Bible stories of personal transformation and spiritual challenge and make it into some kind of morality play. We do it all the time. We say this is the way you should act. Here’s the rules for nice people in nice places. This is what we do best. We want to make, measure and mark Good Samaritans.

That’s not what Jesus wants for us. Jesus is telling us about everyman and everywoman in the ditch. And that’s where we need to be, in a ditch. Stay in the ditch where Jesus puts us. Can you imagine? You’re having a bad day. You are going from Jerusalem to Jericho, not an easy trip, lot of low hills, lot of desert, not a good time, not a good trip. And it is the way to say, if you want to say “bad neighborhood,” you wouldn’t say “infested.” You wouldn’t say “Baltimore.” You wouldn’t say that. You would say as bad as “Jericho Road”. When folks heard on the road to Jericho, people were bracing themselves – that is a tough road. And ditch man gets robbed, beaten up and left for dead. And people walk by, and they go, yeah, that’s how it happens. I could get in trouble for helping the foreigners, they’re bad hombres, should have come in the country the right way. I wouldn’t do that, he’s on his own. You know it’s a bad part of the country, it happens, should have stay in their own country.

Just when the audience knows this is the low point, Jesus kicks it up a notch, “And then the Samaritan comes.” And everybody gasps, “Of all the things, I thought we were at the worst part of the story passed us. But now that Samaritan comes.” The Samaritan was a half-breed. He was a half-breed traitor. He was a half-breed traitorous blasphemer. Wrong Race, Wrong Religion, Wrong Region. He didn’t do anything right. A collaborator with the enemy, probably a drug mule. They were they did worship all wrong, knelt when they should stand. Horrible sub-humans! You did not set foot in Samaria. You went around Samaria. If you touched Samarian sand, you made sure to take it off your feet because it was the original “S”-hole country.

So get in the ditch. Imagine you’re in the ditch. You’ve been beaten up. You’re dying. You’re robbed. You’re naked. And your worst enemy comes down the road. What do you do? Maybe you crawl a little bit further down in the ditch, saying, “Oh, I don’t want THAT GUY to see me like this. He’s probably going to kick me again.” How can your day get worse than to have all this happen to you, and then be dependent, not on the help of strangers, that might be okay, but on the help of your worst enemy? The person you don’t want to be around, that doesn’t want to be around you. You totally agree on that, and that’s all you agree on. Your worst enemy. I don’t know, for some of you, maybe they’re wearing a MAGA hat. Some of you, maybe they have an Antifa shirt on, huh? Maybe they don’t speak English…maybe it is your EX! Whatever riles you up, that’s what they are.

And they’re coming down the road, and you’re lying in the ditch. I can almost imagine the Good Samaritan coming over to help. The guy dying, he goes, “No, no, get away. I’m okay. I’m all right. I’ll be fine. It’s just a flesh wound.” Who comes to help changes how much I help I’ll accept. The one you hated helps you. That is a bigger soul struggle than a sermon on the five steps to being a good neighbor. Can you let someone that you hate help you? Can you see the hated other, the thing, the enemy, the traitor, the one we don’t need, the one that should go back where they came from. If you can talk, worship, clothe, salute right like us: Go back to your own place, help them not me. What are you doing here in decent people land? That one. Someone you need for your very life. Someone you need the help of right now. Can you be in that ditch of decision?

You see, Jesus wants us in the ditch so that we are faced with that question. Soon as you jump out that ditch and start walking along, whether you’re the priest or the Levite, the religious person or the Good Samaritan, soon as you get out of the ditch, you’re out of the story that Jesus wants you in. Jesus wants you in that ditch. Jesus wants you in that ditch and seeing your hated enemy coming by. And he wants you right there. And he wants you to answer the question, who do I allow to be neighbor? Who do I recognize as my neighbor?

Well, he didn’t used to be my neighbor, but I might reconsider now. It’s not just giving a dollar on the street to the guy who needs the help. It’s not giving a gold coin in the Salvation Army kettle at Christmastime. It’s not even going up and down mountain roads and picking up tourists that just can’t believe that the road is closed, like my daughter, God bless her. She was the one got picked up, not the truck. You see the other, the foreign one, the hated one is necessary for your survival. Not tolerated. Not put up with. Not diversity. But someone I need for my very survival.

Now, I don’t want to tell you you shouldn’t help the poor. Or that you shouldn’t be a neighbor. Spoiler alert, yeah, you should. But we’re bigger. We’re better. We’re further than that. I mean, that’s Mr. Rogers, a Presbyterian minister, by the way. But I expect more of you, just like Jesus does. He expects you to be in the ditch and to consider who your neighbor is from the ditch, not the safety and superiority of the road. Who do I discount? Overlook? Discard? See as worthless? See as a drag on society? See as a pain in my side? See as someone I don’t need, someone I’d be better off without? Who can I see from the ditch that is necessary for my life to continue?

Two out of five Fortune 500 companies, 45 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded either by immigrants or children of immigrants. If we had banned them, if we went to zero immigration level, as some would like, we would still be an okay country, I suppose. But 45 percent of our Fortune 500 companies would not be there. Almost half would be gone. 3.2 million immigrants run their own business here and employ vastly disproportionate amounts of people. We would be okay…but not great. Are they the enemy? Are they the foreigner? Are they an invader? Should they go back where they came from? Or do we need them to get us out of the ditch? Jesus wants to know.

Now, Jesus leaves us with a question. I ain’t going to tell you about how to be a good neighbor or look over there a neighbor acting person. He asked me the question of the ditch to me inside of me. Who is a neighbor to the guy in the ditch? And you can just hear the teeth clenched response. “I suppose it was the Samaritan.” He got it. No more questions wanting to justify himself as neighbor labeling pro. Can you hear his muttering? “Jesus, I’m never going to ask him another question. I could have quit when I was ahead, he said I had eternal life! But no, I just had to go on to justify myself.

I don’t know who makes you clench your teeth when if you have to admit you are related to them and NEED THEM TO LIVE. That’s your neighbor, thank you Jesus.

So I got installed in the first church I served for a time in a small, small town. Well, I guess compared to Truckee it wasn’t small. It was an average size town. It had one, one, count them, one hotel. One. The Rosedale. One hotel. That was it. You either stayed there, or you just kept driving. There was no bed and breakfast. There was no Airbnb. There was nothing like that. It was Rosedale or on the road you go for at least another hour.

Well, a couple came up from – God bless them, Alice and Tom Derson, they drove hundreds of miles to come to my installation – from my home church where I grew up. They didn’t tell me they were coming. They just wanted to surprise me. They came and stayed at the Rosedale Motel. Just as they were checking into the only itty-bitty hotel in this itty-bitty town, far away from where they live, comes roaring up two dozen motorcycles. It was thunder on the plain. This amazingly clean-cut motorcycle gang gets off their bikes, come swarming in the hotel, and buys up every room there. And they all had guns. Every. One. Of. them. This was before open carry was a fashion statement.

Well Alice came to my installation with barely opened eyes. She did not get one wink of sleep because she was surrounded by armed motorcycle gang. Trapped. There was nowhere to go. She was frightened for their lives. Any minute they were going to start carousing and break down their door. What could she do far from home and unarmed? She stayed up all night, and her husband with her.

They checked out the next morning, bleary-eyed. Nothing had happened. The bikers were gone. She looks at the clerk and asks, “What was that motorcycle gang that was here last night?” And the hotel clerk says, “Who, them? Those were the Association of Motorcycle Police. They were on their way to the conference in South Bend.”

Telling me this, Alice looked me in the eye and testified, “Last night I was the safest I have ever been in my entire life, and I spent my whole night in terror and fear.” That’s some ditch talking there.

The people that you hate, don’t want you in the ditch, the people that don’t belong here, the people that you KNOW are against you, guess what, you need to see them as neighbor, your eternal sould needs to see them as neighbor. Not just they’re allowed to be here, if they behave and are grateful. It isn’t about how good you are at labeling them, You need them to live. We need them to live. Don’t stay hidden in your hotel room in terror. Helps all around, you’re the safest you’ve ever been.

Amen.

Rosedale Motel, Rochester, Indiana

Enclosure

Cathedrals and Measles

 Image by ian kelsall from Pixabay

Leting Go of Sin and Personal Proof

Cathedrals and Measles
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey
Click the title above for a mp3 recording 

Audio from Spanish Springs Presbyterian Church, on May 5, 2019
edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions; all errors are mine. 

John 20-19-31

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Here’s something you didn’t know.  Thomas is the patron saint of Internet trolls.  It’s true.  It’s true.  I just elected him today.  He is the first Internet troll.  Does anybody know what a troll is?  That’s the one that comes from the outside and throws hand grenades into conversations.  “Oh, I don’t believe it. “ BOOM! “It never happened.” BLAM!  “Prove it to me.” POW!

You see, I hate to go against Jesus, but I think I’m just going against the gospel writer, John.  This story is not about doubt.  For me, anyway, this is not doubt.  Because doubt and faith are friends.  Doubt and faith, they go out for and dance.  You’ve been to that dance.  You know the dance?  “Well, I don’t know, but…” Doubt:I don’t know and Faith:But I’ll try it anyway.  That is doubt and faith, dancing.

That’s not what we have here.  If we had actual  sincere doubt here, Thomas would be respectful.  Thomas would be asking questions.  He would say, “Are you sure?  How did you know it was Jesus?  What was he wearing?  Did he have a nametag?”  He might have done that.  That is doubt.  “You sure it wasn’t a celebrity impersonator?”  I don’t know, maybe they had them back then.  You know, doubtful questions.  “Are you sure?  How do you know?”  You know, that kind of stuff.  That is doubt.  “I know, but maybe.”  No, no, no, no.  Not our friend Thomas.  Thomas wanted proof.  He was a proofer.  He was a proofer.  There just wasn’t any Internet around to get his conspiracy theories off the ground.  “I want proof.”

The proof was all about him: me, mine.  Nothing about the room full of eyewitnesses. Now, remember we’re talking about the Gospel John.  Don’t be throwing in those other Gospels.  That’s synoptic.  They’ve just got one eye they all see through.  Don’t be looking at them.  Look at John.  John’s got another eye.  In John, those disciples weren’t just the top 12.  “Well, there’s only 11, Christy, because, you know, Judas went on to….” Yeah, no, not – that’s the other one gospels.

For John, the disciples was a group of people – men, women, just a crowd, the gang, the posse.  Those people.  You’ve got the disciples of Jesus testifying.  Who here is going to say, “Oh they’re not very trustworthy.  I don’t believe them.”  But Thomas does!  Eyewitnesses that are his friends, his colleagues.  The people he has lived and travelled with for years.  His workmates.  They’re saying, “Thomas, we were here.  This happened.”  And Thomas says, “No, it didn’t.  I know better.  It didn’t happen until it is proven to me.”  

Global warming?  It’s snowing outside.  It’s snowing where I live so you know nothing.  Right?  Internet troll, all the way.  Proof.  Unless I see it.  Unless I thrust my hand in the – anybody else get grossed out by that every year?  Eww, Thomas.  Proofer.  Me.  Mine.  It’s got to be right here with me.  I’ve got the thing.  Nobody else matters.  There is no other proof except my proof, my thing, what I believe, what I see.  All you other guys, you don’t know what you’re talking about.  Imagine saying that to the disciples of Jesus.  No wonder he’s the patron saint of Internet trolls.  Man earned it.

We do Proofing. A woman says she’s abused.  And men usually say about the abuser, “Well he’s always been good to me.  I never saw it.  I can’t believe it.  I am the proof it didn’t happen to you.”  There’s Thomas all among us.  It’s not the doubt that’s a problem in our society today, it’s the proofers.  The proofers like Thomas.  Proofers are everywhere.

Hasn’t always been that way.  Every hear of the Notre Dame Cathedral, been in the news, with the big fire?  182 years to build.  182 years to build.  We get upset when the road is closed for a weekend.  “What are they doing?  I have places to be.”  182 years.  It took so long to build that, that we don’t know who started it.  Of the original team, the first architect, the historians say, “We’re not really sure who started it.  We do know the second generation that worked on it.”

There were generations that were building it.  And, you know, I’m sure there were people that just went for the paycheck; you know?  That just went for the bucket of meal or whatever they got back then.  And, you know, and they just cut the wood or they laid the stone or they quarried the stone or whatever they’re going to do.  And that was just it, and they went home.  They didn’t care.  But you know, there were at least some people that were building a cathedral they would never see.  They were building a church, a place for God, that they would never walk in, that they would never see, that no one could ever prove to them that would actually exist.  They gave their lives for something they would never see.

That’s the opposite of proofer.  That’s some faith there.  That’s some faith.  They might have had some doubts.  They should.  There was a lot of politics stirring up the pot and boiling over at times during a 182-year project.  But you know what?  They showed up for work anyway, doing that dance of faith and doubt.  Because faith and doubt say, I know, but okay.  I know it’s hard to believe, but okay.  Where proofers, proofers will say, “But I know.”  Instead faith saying “I don’t know but,”. Proofers say “But I know, and nobody can tell me different.  Let me explain to you why your eyewitness experience is wrong.  Because I know.  I’m the proofer.” Faith Says: “It isn’t all and only about me…there is more to the world than my in my world view. Others have truth.”

So what am I going to do if you’re not into cathedral building?  I’m not going to talk you into that.  That’s probably okay.  Let’s talk measles.  Measles.  Now, you may think measles are an inconvenient rash.  Just a little thing, a couple days away from school or work, a childhood disease, an annoyance, a bump in the road.  But I want to tell you, as recently as 1980, 2.6 million people died every year from measles.  2.6 million people died.  And that’s not counting the people that were blind or people that lost some portion of their sight every year from measles.  That is like, now, Nevada in 2010 was about 2.6 million people.  So that’s like Nevada disappearing every year, everyone in Nevada.  It’s not just some little inconvenient rash.  Deadly, deadly killer.

But there were some people that saw beyond that, and saw that if they gave their lifetimes, if they gave decades to vaccination, to education, to preparing the world, they can wipe out that wiping-out disease, the death and blindness in the world.  And over decades they worked at it, and they tried, and they worked, and they trekked, and they vaccinated, and they educated, and they funded.  In 2000, measles was declared gone in the United States of America.  But it’s back.  It’s back.  Because people didn’t see it.  They didn’t have proof.  “Sure, everybody else says this, but I know better.”

It’s not just cathedrals that take decades to build.  It’s society.  It’s health.  It’s prosperity.  It can’t be done in a tweet.  And it can’t be done if we don’t trust one another; if we decide that what we know and what we experience is the only measure, and we throw away everything else.  What are we building that we hope 200 years from now will benefit society?  What are we building that 200 years from now will glorify God?  That’s a tough question.

See, John’s a tough gospel.  He’s not like those other guys, the three that see through single-eye peephole, Sunday school story kind of people.  He’s kind of deep.  I told you one thing about John that you need to know from the Scripture.  One thing that he doesn’t do the 12.  He doesn’t have the 12 disciples.  He has disciples.  He has a group.  He has a posse.  He has a crowd.  Another thing about John, he doesn’t do the seven – not the 12, not the seven.  What seven?  The seven deadly sins.  Not in John.  For John, sin is not about morality.  Sin is not something you do.  Sin is theological, not behavioral.  Sin is not seeing God in Jesus Christ.  That’s sin.  And everything else is postscript.  If you cannot see God’s work in Jesus Christ, you’re in sin.  And if you can, you’re not in sin.

Now, now we can understand that crazy bit.  Remember the crazy bit we skipped over because we were all about Thomas and doubting and stuff like that?  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.  Okay, we’re cool on that one.  But if you retain the sin of any, they are retained.  What the heck is that?  Is there some kind of spiritual bank somewhere where you deposit sin and withdraw grace?  Are there some ledgers somewhere where people keep track, who is the CEO?  What’s the stock offering?  When’s the IPO?  When’s this crazy financial spreadsheet of sins coming and going and people saying yes and no on this.

But if you think, if you know, that Jesus is talking to a community and not to a person – not to a bishop, not to a Pope, not to a church official, but to the actual community here – and if you know that sin is not behavioral, but theological for John, I don’t think he would be so happy with the Westminster Shorter Catechism.  Say it with me.  What is sin?  Any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.  Yes, I got a scholarship for memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism.  Thank you very much.  Hallelujah, praise the Lord.  We’ll have a reading later.

But if you think the law of God is what expresses God’s purpose – and in the Westminster Shorter Catechism God’s purpose is expressed in the 10 Commandments.  But if you think that the law of God is what expresses God’s purpose, because it should, then the pinnacle of that, what expresses God’s purpose for humanity is not the law, but Jesus Christ.  So any want of transgression unto or conformity unto God revealed in Jesus Christ would be for John, I argue, is what sin is.

And now it makes sense.  Community.  If you can fix, forgive; if you as a community can fix your blindness and cannot do the sin, which means you can see God in Jesus Christ; if you can live and believe and know that as a community, then guess what?  God is there with you.  If you deny God is there with you, if you deny God is with you, if you say that you need proof, then God is not with you. That makes a lot more sense than a spiritual bank accounting and ledgers of sins coming and going.

And you’re saying to me, probably, “Christy, I’m glad it’s been four years since you’ve been here.  We’ve already had a sermon and a half.”  Do you got any proof on this?  Hah.  See?  Proof.  I don’t know about proof, but I’ve got some faith for you.  Did you read that little part, there’s two times Jesus comes to the room.  Two times.  And I think it’s important what they say about each time.  The first time he comes to the room, what do they say about the room and the conditions of the room?  The doors were locked.  And?  For fear of the Jews.

Now, that’s just plain racism there because Jews didn’t kill Jesus.  The Empire killed Jesus.  Don’t let anybody tell you different.  Those were Romans.  That was Empire.  That was power.  We’re not fear of the Jews, we’re fear of Empire because that’s what killed Jesus.  Doors were locked for fear of the Jews.  And you know what?  I don’t know, but I think Thomas was the scariest.  I think Thomas was down in his basement, trying to get that WiFi signal working, even though he was 2,000 years too soon, trying to get on his conspiracy websites and proofers chats downstairs in the basement.  Again, patron saint of the trolls.  He was all alone, as trolls live.

The second time was the door locked?  No, the door was shut.  It was not locked.  It was shut.  Was there any fear?  Maybe.  But it didn’t get into the gospel.  The door was shut.  Not locked, not fearful.  I’m telling you right there because I want to believe – and I don’t have proof, but I believe – that they were beginning to forgive the sins, like Jesus gave them permission to do.  They were beginning to see that God was in Jesus Christ.  They were beginning to be that community that Jesus Christ called them to be.  They were beginning to be what Jesus told them to be.  Don’t stay in sin.  Don’t refuse to see God working in Jesus Christ.  Do not refuse to see that God is with us.  Don’t lock out the world.
And you know what?  Don’t lock out those annoying people like Thomas, who’s telling you what you saw, what you witness, what you experience isn’t true.  Even him, let him in because, if you keep him out, he’s going to stay out.  If you retain the sin of any, the sin will be retained. But if you forgive and restore and fix, God will be with you.  And sure enough, he showed up.

Don’t wait for proof in the basement of your house trolling on the Internet.  Don’t look for proof.  Look for God with us.  God in Jesus Christ.  Fix it where you don’t see it, and do not retain the sin of not seeing God at work in the world.  Do not retain the sin of not seeing God at work in other people.  Yes, even Internet trolls.  Even people we don’t think should be with us.  Don’t say, “But I know.”  But be honest and say, “I don’t know, but I believe.”  I believe the church.  I believe the disciples.  I believe the Bible.  I believe the community.  I believe the woman, then who said Jesus is risen and now who say they’ve been crucified. I believe those who went before me in the faith and those that will follow after me, decades and hundreds of years in the future.  And I will be building that cathedral, that society.  I will be part of that.

Dr. Elton Trueblood, a Quaker, said a man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he would never sit.  Don’t wait for proof.  Build up God’s kingdom and faith. Plant that tree, build that cathedral, believe that woman.  Amen.