The Journey, Mary’s Visit to Elizabeth

Luke 1:39-45

December 13, 2015

Mark S. Bollwinkel

The journey to the manger of Bethlehem begins in a dry and dusty village in the middle of nowhere called Nazareth.   It is the home of a righteous and faithful carpenter by the name of Joseph, the kind of man who will do the right thing even at great cost.   The journey travels through the life of a young girl, Mary, betrothed to Joseph and impregnated by God with the Savior of the world.

The angel Gabriel visits Mary one night and explains why she is pregnant.  She asks, “But how can it be...?”  The angel answers that the life within her womb will redeem humanity.  She is a part of God’s ultimate act of salvation.  Faithful Mary answers the angel, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

But as we can imagine she's got to talk to somebody about all of this.  She's a young teenager, she is pregnant out of wedlock through no fault of her own.  She's got angels waking her up in the middle of the night.  She's got to talk to somebody!  [Who do you talk to when angels come calling?  Do you have someone in your life you can talk to, really talk to?  Someone who will listen without judgment?  Someone who cares about you even when you've blown it?   If you've got that kind of someone thank God and treat them with care!]

For Mary, just such a person is her cousin Elizabeth.  Off she rushes to the hills of Judea, to meet with Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah.  Traditionally considered the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah, the Israeli village Ein Karem is today the location of a variety of shrines and churches that honor Mary's visit and the birth of John the Baptist.  It is 80 miles from Nazareth.   Mary while pregnant would have walked nine days over three hill ranges to get there.  That is how important it was for her to have a trusted someone with whom to talk.

Elizabeth, an older woman, is pregnant herself, with none other than the future John the Baptist who will announce the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and who will baptize Jesus in the river Jordan.  Like Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18:9-f), and Elkanah and Hannah (I Sam 1:1-f) Elizabeth and Zechariah have become pregnant long after all previous efforts had failed.  They are too old to be having children yet God has intervened for them to become parents.  

Remember that in those days to be childless was to live with and in shame.  God's covenant promise to the children of Israel was that their nation would as numerous as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the beach (Genesis 15:5-6, 16:10, 17:2).  Childbirth equaled righteousness.  To be without children was considered a curse. 

While the priest Zechariah is on duty in the Temple of Jerusalem, an angel comes to explain that Zechariah's wife Elizabeth will have a child that will become the herald of the new messiah (Luke 1:5-f). Considering his station in life and the place of such an announcement one would think that the priest Zechariah would be pleased to hear such news but his response is just the opposite, "Are you kidding me?!" or words to that affect.   Can you imagine a male priest with doubts about a message from God?   For such insolence, the angel strikes Zechariah speechless.

When Mary finally gets to Ein Karem she enters the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah and the baby in Elizabeth’s womb jumps for joy.  Unlike her ordained husband in the face of such news, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit.  She praises Mary and God.  Three times she calls Mary "blessed" because the predicament in which she finds herself will result in the transformation of history itself.

In response Mary…in all of the mystery and confusion of these events…this Mary sings.

We hear the lyrics of her song in these verses of Luke’s gospel (1:46-55).  Tradition has termed it the “Magnificat”, Latin for the first word of this text ”magnify”.  It has been the inspiration of musicians and artists for 2,000 years:

My soul magnifies the Lord,

   and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

   and holy is his name…

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

   and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

   and sent the rich away empty.

This is the song sung by Mary to Elizabeth and Zechariah, praising God for the work of salvation in her life.  The song echoes Hannah’s song over the Prophet Samuel’s birth a thousand years earlier (I Sam 2:1-10).  Much of what she says recalls the psalms of the Hebrew scriptures  sung in the Temple of Jerusalem that celebrated God’s victories (Ps 111:9, 89:10, 13).

The four weeks of the Advent Season before Christmas are to remind us of Israel’s faithful waiting for a new Messiah.   The people of Israel yearned for the fulfillment of God’s promises for the future, a world governed by peace, justice and love.  A new Messiah would usher in such a history and restore humanity’s relationship to God and to each other. (Isaiah 2:2-4, 9:2-6)

More than the four weeks of Christmas celebrations, during Advent we prepare ourselves for the coming of the Christ.  We open our hearts and minds to dreams for the future and God’s dreams for our world.  All we need to do that is to commit ourselves to the journey.

During worship these weeks we’ve been concentrating on the journey to Bethlehem by the characters of the New Testament nativity story.  Today we are considering Mary and Elizabeth’s role in the salvation drama.

Whether we understand the drama of Jesus’ birth as history or poetry, it’s an opportunity for each of us to evaluate where we are in the journey of life, the faith that we bring and our dedication to the things most important in life along the way.

There is a lot of singing in the Bible.  Moses sings (Ex 15:1).  Miriam sings (Ex 15:20-21).  David sings (2 Sam 22).  The prophets sing (Isa 5:1, Jer 20:13, Zec 2:10).  The apostle Paul sings (I Cor 14:15).  In Revelation we are told that “every creature in Heaven” sings along with the angels and the martyrs (Rev 5-6).

But why does Mary sing?

She is 13-14 years old!  She has been woken up in the middle of the night by angels.  She has become pregnant as a virgin.  She has threatened to disgrace her family and her future husband Joseph.  She is a nobody, from a nobody little town, in the middle of nowhere.  Her relatives are praising her and prophesying about her that she is about to give birth to the savior of the world.

Elizabeth calls her "blessed" but such blessings will include Herod's order to kill every male infant in and around Bethlehem, 2 years old or younger; Jesus, Joseph and Mary will become refugees to Egypt as a result (Matthew 2:16-18).  The gifts of "gold, frankincense and myrrh" (Matthew 2:11) that the Magi will bring are veiled references by the author and redactor of the gospel Matthew that this baby is born to die the death of a martyr; the three gifts each with death and burial traditions.

Mary's "blessedness" will include watching her son tortured and crucified by the men of Roman governor Pontius Pilate.   Mary's "blessedness" will include her son's tomb.

And she sings?!

Most of us have a very different concept of "blessing".  We thank God for our health and our wealth, our nationality and comfort as the basis of our blessings.  It’s only natural to do so.

Our Christmas gift giving traditions are supposed to be an exchange of blessings between family and friends.   It is estimated that we will spend $ 450 billion on Christmas this year, $854 per person (American Research Group).  If a family of four were to buy their estimated $ 3,400 Christmas on a credit card with a 10% interest rate and pay it off with the minimum monthly payment, it would take 17 years and five months to do so and that $ 3,400 would end up costing $ 5,467.27.   Those Christmas blessings would then become a curse.

The blessing that Elizabeth proclaims and of which Mary sings is the privilege to be a part of God's dream.  The Hebrew prophets foresaw the coming of the messiah as the day that love, peace and justice would govern the human society, as Jesus quoted Isaiah in his first sermon:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ (Luke 4:18-19)

Jesus' vision of the judgment day suggests that the blessings of our lives will be much different than the totals in our bank accounts, stock portfolios or the equity in our homes:

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” (Matthew 25:34-36)

God's dream for our future is a world where everyone has enough, where everyone counts, where all children are safe.   To be a part of that dream is a blessing indeed.  Which is why the baby leaps for joy in Elizabeth's womb, why Zechariah can finally speak after Mary arrives, why Elizabeth calls her blessed and why Mary sings.

Don't be afraid of the proclamation in Mary's song that "the rich will be sent empty away".  Oh, we're "the rich" alright, anyone living on more than the average earthling's income of $ 2,000 a year are "the rich"; almost half the world, 3 billion people, live on less than $2.50 a day (World Bank).  The God's dream for the future envisions a reversal of fortunes where everyone will have enough, in other words we will all will be rich with access to abundance of God's creation (Mt 20:16, 26, Luke 14:8-11, James 4:10). Rather than fearing our loss we can rejoice and participate in God's dream that "...the hungry will be filled with good things..." (Luke 1:53).  

Here lies the wonder of Advent and Christmas.

There is nothing spectacular about Mary’s family tree.  She is not chosen to be visited by an angel and impregnated by God because of her piety.  She comes from a nothing little village, in a nothing little providence, in a nowhere place.  She is not rich or powerful or famous.  She has no education.  She has done nothing to deserve this visit by God and the blessings and honor that she will receive as a result.

She is a typical citizen of a world that had done absolutely everything to deny and avoid God’s love since the very beginning of time. A world just such as ours.

And to one such as Mary does God give the most precious gift.  Not to the powerful, nor the pious, but to a nobody just like you and me, does God give the Son. To people like us, who struggle and fail and falter comes the gift of God’s salvation.

The implications of this grace are almost incomprehensible.

Nobodies become somebodies with Jesus.

Darkness…any darkness…can be shattered in the light of God’s love.

And the world has never been the same since.

It is a blessing worth singing about.

Amen.

The Journey:  Joseph

Matthew 1:18-25

 December 6, 2015

Mark S. Bollwinkel

The four weeks of the Advent Season before Christmas are to remind us of Israel’s faithful waiting for a new Messiah.   The people of Israel yearned for the fulfillment of God’s promises for the future, a world governed by peace, justice and love.  A new Messiah would usher in such a history and restore humanity’s relationship to God and to each other. (Isaiah 2:2-4, 9:2-6)

More than the four weeks of Christmas celebrations, during Advent we prepare ourselves for the coming of the Christ.  We open our hearts and minds to dreams for the future and God’s dreams for our world.  All we need to do that is to commit ourselves to the journey.

During worship these weeks we’ll concentrate on the journey to Bethlehem by the characters of the New Testament nativity story.  Today we’ll consider Joseph, a righteous and compassionate man who will defy social convention and dutifully play his role in the salvation drama.

Whether we understand the drama of Jesus’ birth as history or poem, it’s an opportunity for each of us to evaluate where we are in the journey of life, the faith that we bring and our dedication to the things most important in life along the way.

An angel comes to Joseph in a dream.

            It doesn’t appear that Joseph is afraid being woken up in the middle of the night by a spiritual being.   Rather he may be afraid of what to do with his wedding.

Joseph is a just man, a “righteous” man.  The original term suggests that the community recognized such a person as someone who did things right by his faith and by his neighbors.

            Joseph was a compassionate man.  In his society it was a disgrace for one’s betrothed to be pregnant before the official marriage was consummated.  He had every right to divorce Mary without any questions asked but he was “unwilling to put her to shame”.  

We all know people whose compassion defines their living, even to their own detriment.  Joseph was such a person.   In modern terms, these might be the most unlikely pair to start a family.  A mature and respected man publicly recognized for his faith; a juvenile girl, unknown, unwed.  Consider the courage it took for them to go ahead with this marriage.  What would others think, after all?  In the end, Joseph would risk his own reputation out of compassion.  He would not put Mary to shame.

            Joseph was a faithful man.  Twice more he will receive heavenly visitors.  An angel comes to warn him of Herod’s threat to kill the Christ child and directs the family to flee to Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15). Then an angel tells him it is safe to return to Nazareth (Matthew 2:19).  Joseph listens to and obeys the commands of angels even in his dreams. 

            It was very important for the gospel writers to point to the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecies that the Messiah would come from the “house of David” in order to prove Jesus’ divinity.  Both Matthew (1:1-17) and Luke (3:23-28) include long genealogies to show Jesus’ lineage back to the greatest king of Israel’s history.  David is the ideal for what a Messiah was supposed to be.  Joseph is of the “house of David”.

            But Jesus is born divine and of a woman.  Modern logic might find contradiction in a text that argues that Jesus had human and heavenly fathers at the same time but the gospel writers and listeners didn’t.  Such drama was very common in the religious heritage of the Ancient Near East.

            When Joseph is listed in Luke’s genealogy the writer puts in parentheses, “Jesus…the son (as was supposed) of Joseph” (3:23).  Jesus is the Son of God after all, and Joseph is but a bystander.

            Luke will mention Joseph only once more when the hometown crowd at Nazareth tries to throw Jesus off a cliff, rejecting his message.  They scorn Jesus saying, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (4:22). The gospel of Mark doesn’t mention Joseph at all.  In all of his preaching neither does the apostle Paul.  The gospel writer John cites his name only twice.

            Only our gospel lesson this morning from Matthew gives a description of the man.   He was a man of love.

            I am blessed to be the son of Calvin Arthur Bollwinkel.  My grandfather named my dad after his favorite President, Calvin Coolidge.   My father was a successful radio and TV professional working from disk jockey to operations manager when he finally retired from the work he loved.     Gifted with a beautiful baritone voice, every church we were ever a part of asked him to read the Christmas scriptures each year.  He was an active community volunteer throughout his life.  He chaired the Sacramento Area American Cancer Society.  Even toward the end of his 88 years, he volunteered for Books for the Blind, reading books on to disk for those who cannot see.

            In fact, one of the things I most admired about my Dad was his history of volunteerism.   Since my earliest memories and in spite of the demands of work and home, my father served volunteer organizations where ever he lived.

            A World War II veteran in the Pacific war, a cancer survivor himself, he was most proud of his four children and his 64 years of marriage with my mom, Julia.

            When I think of Joseph in our story from Matthew…righteous, faithful, compassionate…I think of my Dad and how blessed I have been because of his steadfast love.

            If you had or have a loving father, or if you have the chance to be one, thank God for the privilege.   Not everyone does.

            According to the US Census Bureau, 26% of all of the children in America grow up in a single parent household, about 21 million children.   Their parent is usually a women (84%), employed outside of the home (79%) and is not poor (27.7%) nor living on public assistance (31%) [“Single Parent Statistics”, Jennifer Wolf, about.com].  Such courageous and strong people!

Just because dad doesn’t live at home doesn’t mean that children don’t have a loving father.  Today we know that just having a mom and a dad at home is not enough to make a successful family.  Thank God that most families are places of nurture and loving relationships, but they can also be the home for victims of violence, neglect and abuse.

            What makes a family “good” isn’t just having a mom and a dad and kids.  What makes a family is the love its members share.  Single parent families, blended step-families, same gender households, adults without children, kids being raised by grandparents, single unmarrieds adopting, elderly singles living independently from their children, and the traditional two parent family, all kinds of shapes and sized of families are good, when love rules their life together.

By our culture’s standards, it took real courage and faith for Mary to do what she was called to do.  The same is true of Joseph.  He was willing to go against the odds and the expectations of his neighbors to love Mary and her son Jesus.

            Shouldn’t love be the only measure by which we judge some else’s family?

In W.H. Auden’s brilliant Advent poem, For the Time Being  (1944), Joseph and the angel Gabriel have an intense dialogue about the dilemma in which Joseph finds himself, having to decide to honor his commitment to Mary or to leave her as he was entitled to do.  The angel explains that Joseph should stay with Mary because it’s all a part of God’s plan: 

Joseph:          How then am I to know

                        Father, that you are just?

                        Give me one reason. 

Gabriel:         No. 

Joseph:          All I ask is one

                        Important and elegant proof

                        That what my Love had done

                        Was really at your will

                        And that your will is Love. 

Gabriel:         No, you must believe;

                        Be silent, and sit still. 

Sometimes all you have to go on is faith.   Because of Joseph’s faith and dignity he put his own needs aside, loved his betrothed and refused to shame her.

            You see when you are the kind of person that listens to angels…the kind of man for whom God really matters and for whom love is a way of life…you stand out in the world, you stand over and opposed to the popular culture of the day.  And when the crises of life come to you, as they inevitably do for us all, you have resources on which to draw.  Resources that guide you through the tough times to make the right decisions and do the right thing even if all you have is faith to go on.

            In spite of the theological awkwardness of Jesus’ two distinct fathers, at the heart of the Christmas story is the conviction that at a particular time and place…in a way that supersedes the normal course of human events…God acted in history for our salvation.

            God’s steadfast love, his urgent willingness to forgive and love us, becomes flesh.

            Our Christmas story is full of such grace.  In Mary’s courage.  In Elizabeth’s praise.  In the Magi’s searching.  In the Shepherd’s proclamation.  Celebrate its wonder and glory in the coming weeks.  Let its hope and opportunity be born again in our hearts.

May God make us men and women of honor, who in all we do and say, let righteousness, compassion and faith guide us.

            And don’t forget the carpenter Joseph, even though he is merely a footnote in the records of history.  He risked social scorn and humiliation to follow the command of God, to love his wife to be, and stand by her when he could have run away.

Joseph is a man of love.   He is in our crèches scene because righteousness, compassion and faith are never forgotten.  And because he names the baby “Jesus”, which means “God Saves”.

The story of Christmas is the story of light breaking into the darkness of human fear and longing.  And that light is the power of love.

After all isn’t that what we are waiting for this Advent?

  

                        Amen.

We are the Products of our Dreams

Ezekiel 36:26-27

November 15, 2015

Mark S. Bollwinkel

“Exotic fish stores report that sharks have become a popular aquarium fish. If sharks are caught and confined when small, they grow only to a size proportionate to the aquarium. The limited environment determines their growth. Sharks can be six inches long and still be fully matured. Only when set free in the ocean do they grow to their normal length of eight feet. (Charles Simpson, “Leadership: A Practical Journal for Church Leaders”, Winter 1986, p. 40).

We humans are the products of our dreams.  Our “aquarium walls” might be fear or shame, expectation or apathy, physical and/or emotional challenges but even the most difficult borders can be overcome by hope.   People need big dreams, expansive horizons, large challenges, stretching ambitions. Faith gives birth to the greatest dreams of all.

In his first sermon Jesus said:

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he had anointed me to bring good news to the poor, release to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, and let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” quoting from the ancient prophecy of Isaiah (Luke 4:18-19).   And then Jesus said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (:21).

In Jesus of Nazareth, God’s dream for the future breaks into history.   Love shall rule the human heart not power or greed.  That is good news for the poor, the captive, the blind and the oppressed.  The lives of those who follow that dream are transformed by it.  That’s why our commitment to personal spirituality and social responsibility as United Methodists here at Church of the Wayfarer will always fuel big dreams.

We’ve recently surveyed our existing congregation with the significant question,

Where do we want to be as a church five years from now?”  It gleaned very important information and input.  Some of the strongest initial responses, those receiving a #1 priority as a majority of all responses, conclude that:

-       “the church is really the church…when it teaches children and young people about our faith and how to live it”

-       that the key to our financial health as a church is to bring in new members willing to give

-       that we want to be a church known in Carmel as an active congregation committed to serving the poor and needy and speaking out against injustice in our community and the world

-       that when it comes to the future of the church the most important people to consider are those who aren’t here!

Here at Church of the Wayfarer, we believe that the purpose of life is “Reaching up, reaching in and reaching out”; our way of summing up Jesus’ greatest commandment to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:34-40).    Like most Main Line Protestant churches, we face the challenges of an aging congregation and the decline of interest in organized religion by those under 50 years old.  But saying that, Wayfarer is in a unique situation to make a major impact on the lives of many, many people and, as a result, we are not afraid to dream.

Our Hebrew scripture lesson this morning comes from the prophet Ezekiel at a time of captivity.  Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE the leadership of Israel is taken as slaves to Babylon.   The prophet is with them and is called to remind them of their faith:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

Notice it is in future tense.  In spite of the difficulty of their present, the destruction of their nation and the harsh oppression under which they live, the prophet assures them that God has not abandoned them.  They have a future.  This passage reminds us of similar words from the prophet Jeremiah written about the future of Israel while it was being destroyed:

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD,

   “when I will make a new covenant

with the people of Israel

   and with the people of Judah...

“I will put my law in their minds

   and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God,

   and they will be my people...

“For I will forgive their wickedness

   and I will remember their sins no more.

(Jeremiah 31:31-34)

To survive and thrive, even in the tough times, human beings need to dream about their future.  A place to invest their hearts.  We are not so often failures as people so much as that we fail to imagine the possibilities of what we can be.

One hundred and eleven years ago the founders of our church could never have dreamt that their creation would be the home for hundreds of members, thousands of weddings, countless baptisms and a stopping place for the streams of visitors coming to Carmel.   Each day we offer our visitors a beautiful sanctuary in which to pray and a biblical garden in which we marvel at God’s creation. Hundreds of folk every day take a break from touring and consider something larger than themselves because of Church of the Wayfarer.  Who would have dreamt that! 

We are the product of our dreams and as a church we will always have significant ones inspired by God's.

Just a few years after Easter, a controversy over doctrine threatened to divide the early church (can you imagine!).   The apostles Paul, Peter and James all agreed that Paul could continue his ministry with the gentile populations of the middle east without having to convert them first to Judaism by circumcision (Acts 15:1-f, Gal. 2:1-f).   One aspect of the compromise was the promise by Paul to raise funds to send back to Jerusalem for the poor and workers with the “home-office”.

Paul’s dream was to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ out of the confines of Jerusalem Judaism and into the entire known world, to Rome and beyond.   Sometimes to make dreams come true it takes money and hard work.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul urges young Christians to make good their promises to support the Jerusalem church with money.    He praises the generosity of the Macedonian churches and then hopes the Corinthians will also make him proud.  Then he says three crucial things when it comes to money and the church;

• “…the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully”; in other words, like anything in life, such as a relationship, or a hobby, an education, or one’s health, the more you invest yourself the more you will get in return.

•   “…do not give reluctantly or under compulsion, for God’s loves a cheerful giver.”  How we give, the intention and attitude with which we give is more important that what we give.   If we feel resentful, guilty, afraid for our personal finances or indifferent about giving money to the church, we should keep it to yourselves until we feel good about giving.

•  “…God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by having enough, you may share abundantly…”   This might be a foreign concept for us who so often don’t know the meaning of “enough” but in it lays a great gift.   We are free to give generously because God provides enough of what we really need to get the most out of life in the first place: love. 

For many years I have taught pottery at summer church camps.  It’s a lot of fun, especially with the younger kids getting all messy and slimy with clay.

In one such class, I witnessed an amazing example of extravagant generosity from the heart.  While waiting for their turn on the wheel, the children would make hand pieces of clay art.  As you can imagine there were plenty of pet dogs and cats, make-shift pinch pots, cups and bowls. 

A little boy named Nicholas and a mob of other little boys came bounding up to the pottery class and were making all sorts of things with the clay.   Beginning potters usually start out by rolling out snakes or coils of clay.  In the process of doing so Nicholas made an amazing discovery.  It was possible to put a cobra's head on the body of a rattlesnake.  Nicholas invented a hybrid snake, something God hadn't even thought of, a cobra rattlesnake.  All of the other eight year old boys thought this was really cool.  A cobra rattlesnake!   Nicholas started to crank them out, one after another, and as he did so he would announce which one of his buddies would get one when it was fired in a purple glaze.  Nicholas was so excited not only about his discovery but the opportunity to give such treasure away to those he loved.

Jesus says in the "sermon on the mount", "....where your treasure is there will your heart be also..." (Matthew 6:21).   That's true of our families, for our education and the education of our children.   It's true of our saving for the future.  It's true of our financial commitment to the church.

In a few moments, we will ask the ushers to come among us and collect the “estimate of giving commitment” cards for the 2016 Operating Budget.   We will pray together to bless our intentions to give and thank God for always providing us with enough.

The Finance Committee of the church needs us to increase our giving if we are going to meet our goals.   Lots of folk may conclude that “it can’t be done!”   It can and will and more if we give to the Operating Budget of this church from the heart inspired by God’s dream for Church of the Wayfarer.

Write down a number on your card that reflects not what is left over at the end of the month, but what you dream you could do; designate a portion of your income as an investment in God’s work here.

Write down a number on your card that describes your commitment where you are 'Reaching up, reaching in and reaching out'.  And if right now you can’t give money as a part of that commitment or if you are not comfortable dealing with money numbers in church, simply write on the card "We will do the best we can!"   I'd love for everyone to turn in a card this morning as a symbolic commitment to our future together.

Let me also remind the congregation that without the legacy giving of our former members, especially those in the Wayfarer Society, we couldn’t make it as we do.  Thank God for those who left gifts for us in their estates and wills, such bequests fund much of what we do.    If you can’t do anything in regular cash giving, don’t forget us in your future.

Church of the Wayfarer could also use a parsonage.  If you or someone you know would gift us their house it would be an amazing legacy of their generosity and an amazing resource for our future.   Just write that down on the card as well!!!!

Imagine the possibilities of a church proclaiming that the rule of God’s love in human hearts begins here and now with me…and you.  We’ve made great strides towards our goals in ministry together this year, just imagine what we can do together next!

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

Amen.

Wisdom and Finance

Proverbs 21:5, 20

Mark S. Bollwinkel

November 8^th, 2015

The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Rome about their, and his, struggle with following the moral laws of the Hebrew faith.  I wonder if his words don’t sum up what many of us feel about the struggles in our own lives:

“What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise…I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes.  I can will it, but I can’t do it.  I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad and then I do it anyway.  My decisions such as they are don’t result in actions.  Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.  It happens so regularly that it’s predictable.  The moment I decide to do good…parts of me covertly rebel and just when I least expect it, they take charge.  I‘ve tried everything and nothing helps.  I’m at the end of my rope.”  (Romans 7:14-25, Eugene Peterson, The Message, Navpress, Colorado Springs, CO, 1993)

            For example: I am a dieting expert.  You name the diet and I’ve done it.  I can explain the affect of eating too many carbohydrates vs. proteins on brain chemistry.  I can look at a portion of food and estimate its calories and fat grams.  I have lost and gained back thousands of pounds in my life time.  I am a diet expert, and when it comes to food I know exactly what Paul is talking about; “I decide not to do bad and end up doing it anyway.”

            My hunch is that a number of us feel the same way about money in our lives.  We don’t lack knowledge of what to do with money but as in Paul’s words, “What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way but then I act another…”

            In his book Enough; the Joy of Simple Living and Generosity (Abingdon, 2009) Rev. Adam Hamilton points to two distinct places where middle class Americans consistently waste their money; impulse buying and eating out.

            I am a sucker for sales at the grocery store; it drives Bonnie crazy.  I love “2-fers”, ‘buy one and get one free’.  It may make sense on an item you use all the time but the notion of getting a good deal can really pull me over the line.   You never know when you might need an extra five pound jar of capers or a second roll of Christmas plastic wrap even in July!  Grocery store marketing experts place the staples of milk and bread in the back of the store so we have to cruise by all sorts of other treats along the way to the basics, and then stare at them as we wait in the check-out line.  I mean, who can resist the latest National Enquirer article of Michele Obama’s visit with the Martian predicting the second coming of Christ?

            We know we shouldn’t go to the grocery store hungry and tired…like on the way home from work…and that we should always go with a list of what we really need and stick to it or we’ll end up impulsively buying stuff we really don’t need.  The call of those “2-fers”, the sales suggesting we can get something for nothing, makes us do what we really don’t want to do.  Or so it seems.

            Kiplinger Magazine suggested that at 4:00 p.m. each day, Americans will spend $136 million deciding what to eat. (Kiplinger Nov. ‘09)    The average family of four in America eats out 4.3 times a week.   It is estimated that the average family would save $6,000 a year cooking those same meals at home. (Hamilton, p. 36)    We eat out because we’re exhausted from work, because the kids are picky about what they will and will not eat, or if we’re single because we don’t like to eat alone.  We eat out because we are running from one activity to the next and we don’t have the time to plan and prepare.

Most of us can recall Jesus’ parable of the “Prodigal Son” in Luke 15; the younger of two sons asks his father for his share of the inheritance, goes off to a foreign land and throws it all away on riotous living.  He comes home only to receive his father’s extravagant forgiveness and grace.   The word “prodigal” in the original language means “the one who wastes money”.  Prematurely asking for inheritance, usually a piece of farm or pasture land which could have provided for the son for the rest of his life and then cashing it out and spending it all is a waste of wealth.  The son’s poverty was self-induced.   Pastor Hamilton suggests that for the middle class majority in America the challenge isn’t poverty but working a life time and looking back only to ask of our wealth, “where did it all go?!”

Half of Americans have less than $25,000 saved for retirement (Hamilton, p. 32)

What does wasting money have to do with God?  In fact it is a deeply spiritual challenge.

“Are we spending our money consistent with our life’s purpose?” (Hamilton, p. 37)  Here at Church of the Wayfarer, we suggest that the purpose of life is “Reaching up, reaching in and reaching out”, our way of summing up Jesus’ greatest commandment to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:34-40).     

“Are we pursuing a purpose in life bigger than our personal satisfaction?” (Hamilton, p. 39) We can answer that question by looking at how we spend our money. Money isn’t bad in and of itself; it’s “the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil” (I Timothy 6:10b).

Wealth can be a tool we use to fulfill our life purpose.  Taking care of our families and their future, making a positive difference in the world, enjoying the blessings of life that God has given us, investing in people and places, these are all part of God’s promised future.

Wealth can be a tool we use to fulfill our life purpose.

Pastor Hamilton outlines six simple “do’s and don’ts” that can really have an impact on maximizing the wealth that God has entrusted to us (Hamilton p. 43).  It’s all about having a plan and setting some goals:

1)         Pay your tithe and offering first. What if our first check of each month was an investment in the things that matter the most to us, whether it’s the church or a charity or a non-profit organization that is making a positive difference in the world?  What if we gave first to God’s dream for the future rather than waiting till the end of the month to see what’s left over after we pay the bills?  Wouldn’t it be great to begin each month feeling good about where some of our money is going even if it’s a relatively small amount?

2)         Create a budget and track your expenses. We have a friend that has carried around a small notebook for years tracking each and every expenditure.  You would be shocked how positive and powerful such a habit can be.  Most of us live in a state of benign neglect when it comes to our money.  One of the first steps toward financial peace is to keep track of where it’s actually all going.

3)         Live below your means, simplify your life.  This one is the easiest to say and the hardest to do for us in this culture and time.  Carol Partridge was a parishioner in our church in Alameda 20 years ago when she went through a difficult and painful divorce.  Carol was a banker and was living “the good life” when it all fell apart.  Being a person a deep faith she used this terrible time to make something positive happen.  She became a Peace Corps volunteer and was assigned to Macedonia.  She loved the experience and people so much she came back and went through the process of becoming a United Methodist missionary.  We got to meet her here in Carmel last December.  She was assigned to lead the Christian Education program for the United Methodist church in Eastern Europe.    Although she lived on one-tenth of her income before the divorce, she was never happier in her life.

4)         Establish an emergency fund.  This would be a separate savings account that we can get in and out of quickly, equal to about one month’s pay for the emergencies that come up like a new set of tires for the car, if the air conditioning goes out in the house or the Giants get into the play-offs and you have the chance to buy some tickets.  You know what I mean…emergencies!  Rather than using the credit card with all of its added expenses, use that emergency fund.

5)         Pay off your credit cards, use cash/debit cards for purchases and pay off each month.   Don’t just pay the minimum payment each month, put off the vacation, put off the new purchase until we get those credit cards paid off. Don’t borrow money to pay off money you owe like taking cash advances off one credit card to pay off another.  You will know joy when the credit cards no longer run your life.  And ask for help if you don’t know how.

6)         Practice long term savings and investing habits. Tithe to your future each month too, set aside 10% of what you earn for your retirement and you’ll never regret it. If we were to begin saving $25 each month in a ROTH IRA at the age of 18, and increased it to $200 a month by the time we were out of school and had our first job, we would retire at 65 with over $1 million tax free (Hamilton p. 46).  

             Six powerful ideas that can simplify our lives and focus our resources and wealth on purposeful living.   For most of us, none of this is new!  It’s not ideas that we lack.  Most of us have the knowledge needed to make our financial lives healthy.  Rather it is something deep inside that we lack which keeps us from such health.

            In our Hebrew scripture reading from Proverbs this morning we heard ancient truths:

The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance,
   but everyone who is hasty comes only to want.
²⁰Precious treasure remains^* in the house of the wise,
   but the fool devours it.

            These words were collected from oral tradition and written down by the priests of Israel thousands of years ago.  Folks just like us have been struggling with the challenges of managing money and living a purposeful life since the beginning of civilization.  I take great comfort in that.  We are not alone.  If this is a terrible time in your financial life, you are not alone.  There are resources to help and helpers who have been there who can stand by you in the journey.  And folks just like us have known all along that spirituality is a key in actually living out what it is we intend to do.

            The words attributed to Paul written to his young preacher Timothy say, “...for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it…” (6:7) Every now and then we need to take a deep breath and consider why it is we are working so hard.  Why it is that making so much money, we never feel that it is enough.  Why it is we were put here on earth.  When we frame our money management within the context of our purpose in life it brings God right back into the center of who we are and what we are doing. 

And God knows it’s all too easy to forget that in the rush and demands of our daily lives.

The Quakers, the Shakers, the Mennonites and the Amish Christian sects have all attempted to codify a God-centered simplicity in their communal life knowing full well the challenges that come with it.  We sing their song “…tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free…” not as a quaint reminder of those folk but as a reminder to ourselves of such truth; it is a gift to be simple, it is a gift to be free.  To live that gift, we don’t have to reject electricity but we do have to recommit ourselves to God-centered lives in managing the tremendous wealth we’ve been given.

Adam Hamilton offers us this prayer:

Lord, help me to be grateful for what I have, to remember that I don’t need most of what I want and that joy is found in simplicity and generosity.

Amen.

For All the Saints

Matthew 5:13-14

November 1, 2015

Mark S. Bollwinkel

            A funeral is for the living not for the dead.

            This cliché has some truth to it.  A memorial service, or the words at the graveside said on the behalf of the departed, benefit those who hear them the most.

            Many will reflect after a funeral that they wished we had said all those nice and appropriate words to the individual before they died.   It’s a reminder that we have little time to waste to tell those we care about how much we love and treasure them.

            I thank God that my mother had that very idea when she planned my father’s extravagant 80^th birthday party nine years ago in Sacramento.   Even following a significant surgery, my Dad was an active senior with important years ahead of him.   My mom wanted to gather his family and best friends and give them the chance to tell the story of Cal Bollwinkel’s life and what he meant to them while he could enjoy it…and so could we.

            It was a wonderful event.  Over 100 folks came from all over the country.  Relatives I had never met; four of his former bosses, his golfing and pinochle buddies, neighbors and all of his children and grandchildren.   It was a fun evening as we simply told Dad how much we loved and honored him while he could still hear the power of those words.

            One of the marks of a tragic death is to lose the opportunity to “say goodbye”.  We are cheated when we do not have enough time to reconcile unfinished business or to tell those in our lives how much we loved them.   Grief is hard enough when you’ve had the chance for a “good good-bye”.  It is even more difficult when death cheats you of it.  

            For example:  I thank God this nation had the opportunity to tell Mrs. Rosa Parks how much we honored her before her death in 2005.

            In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Mrs. Parks with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor in our country.   Over the years Mrs. Parks had received numerous awards for her contribution to our freedom.   Her act of courageous defiance to racial segregation in Montgomery, Alabama upon her arrest for refusing to move to the back of the bus is legendary.   But that was not the only accomplishment in her life.  She was a committed activist for racial equality before December 1, 1955 and long after.  Mrs. Parks was a congressional aide, worked in the South African anti-apartheid movement and opened a career counseling center for African American youth in Detroit, Michigan (National Public Radio, 10/25/05).

            The tributes paid to Mrs. Rosa Parks were well deserved.   That this former department store seamstress would be the first woman in American history to lie in state under the Washington DC capital building rotunda proved the power of President Clinton’s words, “We must never ever…forget the power of ordinary people to stand in the fire for the cause of human dignity.”

            Now over the ten years past, those words, and the millions spoken and written about Mrs. Parks are for our benefit.   When we tell the stories of our heroes and memorialize our loved ones we hold up the eternal values that make life worth living.   We point to the accomplishments that define a life well lived.   And we do that for us, for our benefit.  Not just because we need to grieve but because we need to live our own lives to the fullest.

            Jesus opens his Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes honoring the saints and at the same time challenging the living.

            Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, the meek and the merciful.  Blessed are those who hunger for justice and peace, who are persecuted in the cause of love.

            In a world that counts its blessings by the size of our bank accounts and stock portfolios or the college degrees hanging on our walls, Jesus defines “wealth” by our capacity to love one another and love God.

            Jesus closes the Sermon on the Mount with an admonition for all people at all times; “You are the salt of the earth…you are the light of the world…live like it!”

            Methodists do not have a canonization process for sainthood.  We do not distinguish certain individuals as saints over and above others.  But we do recognize those who live saintly lives.

            Today we think of Bob Brown, Bob Young, Harlan Engen, Ruth Kelly, Olive Speakman and Elizabeth McCartney.  Members of our church who made significant contributions to our community and remain dear in our hearts.  They would be the last people to consider themselves as “saints” but those who knew them and depended on them recognized the saintly within them.  These were salty, light shining people.

All of us have the capacity to live ‘saintly lives’, as intimidating as that may sound.   Saints aren’t flawless people so much as common, ordinary people who live their faith out in common, ordinary ways...and in so doing may on occasion accomplish extraordinary things.

            When we come to our sacrament of Holy Communion this morning for All Saints Day, we will be asked to take a moment of silence and name to ourselves the saints in our lives.  Consider “the blessed” in your life who taught you how to love, who generously shared their wealth of gentleness, laughter and forgiveness.  Consider those who inspired you to make a difference in the world.  Name in your heart those whose faith was so real that it taught you how to pray.

            It is our belief that the spirits of those saints who have gone before us guide us who live even still; “…since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders…and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)   Take a few moments to remember those who are no longer with us who left us a legacy on which to build our own lives.   And give thanks to God for the saints.

            A friend once toured the genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.   During the tyranny of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in 1975 an estimated 2 million Cambodians were killed.   Our friend wrote her parents, “…the trip has been really intense, very emotional.  We started with the genocide museum which completely took my breath (and heart) away.  The [survivors] we have been meeting have such painful stories to tell.  Every person we meet has a story…” Our friend’s life will never be the same as a result of such memorials.

            There is healing in telling the stories of our past.  There is inspiration to empower us as we dedicate our lives to a better world.  On All Saints day we remember the stories of those who could speak and those who could not.  That is why it is so important to memorialize the dead because it reminds the living to live blessed lives.   

Amen.