The Way of the Kingdom

Matthew 5:1-2a, 7:24-29

February 28, 2016

Mark S. Bollwinkel

If one of your New Year's resolutions was to read the entire Bible, from beginning to end, and you've already given up, don't be discouraged or ashamed.  You are not alone!

We get into Genesis with great enthusiasm.  Lots of great stories.  Dramatic history.  Some of it R rated!   Parts of Exodus the same.  We are cruising along.  By now it’s almost March then comes Leviticus and Numbers and we are bored to death.  Boring!  The fervor with which we began the goal to read the Bible front-to-back fads away. It is a great goal, don't get me wrong.  There is a lot to learn with the boring parts, for sure.  But to read in detail the dimensions in cubits of the linen curtains surrounding the tabernacle between how many bronze pillars in cubits tall held up with how many silver bands (Exodus 38:1-f)...boring!

Rather, when folk want to know where to start reading the Bible I always say Matthew, the gospel of Matthew, the first book of the New Testament.  In fact, I strongly suggest that if we are going to read any part of the Bible it should be the "Sermon on the Mount"; Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7.  If you want to know what Jesus taught read the "Sermon on the Mount" Matthew 5-7.  In fact we should memorize the "Sermon on the Mount".  This is the essential teaching and truth of Jesus.  I go back to it so often that its pages are the first to get worn out, wrinkled and smudged.  

Like Moses on Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and bringing the Torah to the people of Israel, Jesus on the Mount teaches the "new law" of the Kingdom of God.  He reinterprets the Torah in radical new ways and in so doing fulfills its truth for his time and people (Matthew 5:17):

‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment...‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:21-28)

Jesus begins the "Sermon on the Mount" with the benediction, with the blessing usually reserved for the end of a sermon:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth...‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3-10)

Remember that when Jesus comes out of the desert after his forty days and nights of temptations and trials, he preaches this message:

"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news" (Mark 1:15)

"The time" he is talking about is the day that The Lord had long promised through his prophets when God's love, peace and justice would reign over the human heart (Jeremiah 31:31-34). That's what "Kingdom of God" means.  It is not just about the future, which it is.   It is also about the present.  The Kingdom of God is the spirit of God's future that we can live in the now.  The Sermon on the Mount describes what such living would look like:

"...turn the other cheek..." (Matthew 5:39)

"...love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." (Matthew 5:44)

"...don't practice your piety before others to impress them, that's empty religion..." (Matthew 6:1-8, 16-18)

"...pray like this, Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name..." (Matthew 6:9-f)

"...You cannot serve God and money...so don't worry about what you will eat or what you will wear...don't worry about tomorrow, tomorrow has enough worries of its own...but seek first for the Kingdom of God and all will be given to you..." (Matthew 6:24-34)

Our scripture this morning includes the first and last words of the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus concludes with the admonition that if we hear these words and act on them it will be like building our house upon the rock, a sure and sound foundation for living.   We are supposed to live in the Kingdom not just visit it on Sundays.  St. Francis of Assisi, "Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary, use words."

The Sermon on the Mount describes the highest ideals of our faith, in fact it calls us to a "perfection" that can never be reached in this lifetime but the measure of who God is calling us to be (Matthew 5:48).   The forgiveness offered to us in the death and resurrection of Jesus frees us from our failures, yet his teachings urge us to lives of commitment and compassion: "And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."  (John Steinbeck)

To his disciples Jesus says "I am the way, the truth and the life..." (John 14:6)  Over and over again he invites them to follow his "way", the word in the original meaning "path", "road", "journey".  In fact one of the first names for the early Christians was "children" or "followers" of "The Way" (Acts 9:2, 19:9, 24:22).

What does it mean to follow Jesus' Way?  How does one do so?   Why would it matter here in the 21st century? 

The Way begins in the desert as Jesus is tempted and tested by the devil.  We learn that the Way of Jesus is to face evil head on and call it out for what it is.  

Jesus then moves to Capernaum where he calls disciples, lives in the home of Simon Peter the fisherman and begins three years of ministry.  We learn from miracle after miracle that the Way of Jesus is healing; physical, emotional, spiritual healing.

Throughout the three years of his ministry Jesus will retreat into the mountains.   Jesus loved the mountains as a place to walk, be in solitude and pray.  It was often there that he would teach about the Kingdom of God.  While praying on the Mount of Transfiguration, the spirits of Moses and Elijah appear in conversation with Jesus to the amazement of Peter, James and John (Mark 9:2-f)  On the night of his arrest and betrayal he would go off to the Mount of Olives to pray (Mark 14:26-f).    We do not know the exact place where Jesus preached the "Sermon on the Mount" but some suggest Mount Arbel, which overlooks the Sea of Galilee and a beautiful Roman Catholic basilica has been built there to mark the possibility.

Take some time this week to find a place of solitude, to be quiet and pray.  One doesn't have to fill the "spiritual airways" with pious words or urgent pleas.  Sometimes the most profound prayer is to listen...listen to your heart, listen to what God may be speaking to you.  Jesus did this in the Mountains where he would invite any who would listen on The Way.  

The Way of Jesus is Kingdom living.

The historians of the day recorded that great crowds would come out to hear Jesus' teaching, so much so that the authorities were concerned that his popularity could lead to an insurrection.  Living in and by the Kingdom of God is subversive to the established order of power and greed to be sure.  That is still true today.  Yet Jesus rejected a political solution to the human dilemma and insisted that the revolution began in the heart.

He taught with "authority".  In the original language the word for "authority" (exousia) is also translated "power" as in "spiritual force or energy".  Jesus teaching with "authority" doesn't refer to a title or credential conferred by some institutional office, such as "Rev." or "Dr." or "Ft." In fact the credentialing institutions of his day will be the ones' to reject Jesus and organize his death!  

Although a Detroit Tigers baseball fan, Kitty Madden is a dear friend.  Bonnie and I met her through a mutual acquaintance years ago.   Kitty has worked for over 15 years as a North American liaison for Casa Materna in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, a maternal and child health non-profit organization dedicated to impoverished women facing difficult pregnancies in one of the most remote areas of that Central American country.  Women from rural, mountain villages find their way to the Casa often walking miles, taking rides on buses or hitching rides on the back of trucks.   There they are offered medical assistance, healthy food, clean beds and daily classes on parenting skills and health practices such as birth control.  After the birth of their children, Casa social workers and nurses do follow up exams and classes in the villages of the women.   Casa Materna has become a model for local, rural maternal health.  The government of Nicaragua has replicated Casas all over the country.  As a result infant and maternal death rates have been significantly cut in the last 15 years.

Casa Materna is administered and staffed by Nicaraguans for Nicaraguans.   Kitty Madden has worked with them as their North American liaison since the beginning…for free.    Originally a social worker in Michigan, following a divorce, Kitty became a Maryknoll nun, a Roman Catholic Order known for its work in and with the poor.   The Maryknolls work throughout Central America.  During the civil wars in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador in the 1980’s, Maryknoll sisters provided essential health and education services while advocating for peace and justice.

Although she is no longer an official member of the Order, Kitty Madden is a Kingdom person.  Using her gifts and graces she supports women and infant health programs in Central America and is a part of saving the lives of thousands of babies and improving the future for thousands of mothers.  She’d be the last person to claim any sense of spiritual superiority or special gifts that entitles her to boast.   Rather her only credential for service is her compassion and humility. She lives the Way of Jesus.

Now you don’t have to go to places like Nicaragua or work in poverty to be a Kingdom person.  WE all have gifts, talents and compassion to share.   Like pledging allegiance to the flag of our nation, those who follow the Way of Jesus pledge their allegiance to God’s Kingdom as well, God’s reign of love, peace and justice in the human heart.  We apply the Sermon on the Mount to the way we live each day.   We can do that anywhere and in many, many different ways.

Everyday people can see and hear God's spirit and promise in his words.  Most of us know truth when we see it, when we hear it.  Most of us can tell the difference between what is real and what is phony.   The people in the mountains could see and hear God in Jesus while the officials of the synagogue and Temple could not.

Can we? 

The answer to that question could be the difference between building our house on rock or on sand!

Amen.

The Way of Healing

Matthew 4:12-13, Mark 1:21-25

February 21, 2016

Mark S. Bollwinkel

The United Methodist Church in partnership with the United Nations World Health Organization, the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation and other non-profit agencies are working for the day when we can "Imagine No Malaria".

Malaria symptoms include fever, vomiting, and headache.  It is transmitted by mosquito and can result in anemia, coma, and death if left untreated. Malaria is preventable yet every year it kills 700,000 people, mostly children and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a disease of poverty.   The poor do not have the means to prevent and treat malaria. 

I contracted malaria while Bonnie and I served in Borneo thirty-some years ago and although it wasn't very much fun, my life was never in danger.  I had clean water, basic sanitation, an adequate diet and access to medicine.  For those without such essentials malaria is a life-threatening illness indeed. 

United Methodists are part of a worldwide effort that began in 2005 to eradicate this disease.  We have committed $75 million to this global effort.  Through the UMCOR, in addition to providing mosquito bed nets, our efforts in the fight against malaria include environmental clean-up (stagnant water and trash), basic sanitation (latrines and water), treatment, education, training more health care workers, and improving our existing United Methodist hospitals and clinics in the tropical world.

This is exciting and significant work but what does it have to do with God?  Why not let the United Nations and Bill and Malinda Gates handle it?  Isn't our job as a church to "save souls", to get people into heaven?  Why not leave the medical business to the doctors and nurses?   Isn't our job to pray for miracles not hand out mosquito nets?

During our journey through the season of Lent this year we are exploring Jesus' journey from his baptism and temptation in the wilderness of Judea to the cross of Golgotha.  During this season we consider where we might find our own place in the story.

Last week we considered Jesus' baptism and how immediately afterwards he spent forty days and nights of temptation in the wilderness in preparation for his ministry.  There in the desert he faced evil head-on and exposed it for what it is; empty, vile promises and lies.   The only power that evil has in the world is that which we give it.  The Way of Jesus then is to confront evil head-on and commit ourselves to the good.

In the gospels of Matthew and Mark no sooner does Jesus come out of the desert than he learns that John the Baptist has been arrested and imprisoned by King Herod Antipas.   This is the occasion for Jesus to move from his hometown Nazareth to the fishing village Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee which will become his base of operations for the next three years.  It is where he will call his first disciples, the fishermen Peter and Andrew, and James and John sons of Zebedee, along with Levi called Matthew the tax collector in the town.

Capernaum was a modest town of 1,000 people with a market place, a synagogue and a number of businesses besides fishing, such as olive oil presses.  One can visit the town today when in Israel and see the archeological sites, including the foundations of what is believed to be the house of the fisherman Peter where Jesus lived during his time there.  The Roman Catholic Church has built a chapel above the site that one can visit today.  It was near Capernaum that Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount.  It was there that Jesus taught from a small boat when the crowds got too big.  It was in Capernaum that Jesus did miracles of healing and exorcism as we hear in our story from the gospel of Mark this morning when interrupted by a demon possessed man in the synagogue.  Jesus casts out the evil spirits in the man and sets him free, much to the amazement of all who saw the miracle.

The gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus moves from Nazareth to Capernaum in fulfillment of a prophecy from Isaiah at least 700 years before:

 ‘Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.’ (Isaiah 9:1-2)

"Zebulun and Naphtali" were lands annexed by the Assyria empire following a great and terrible war centuries before Jesus (733BCE, 2 Kings 1:29).  These lands would later become known as the Galilee region and as a land of Gentiles.  The people there suffered greatly during the war and as many were Gentiles, those not in the Hebrew family, they felt cut off from the salvation of God. 

The prophet Isaiah foresees a time when to the people of Zebulun and Naphtali "a light shall dawn."   The "light" to which the prophet refers is the in-breaking of God's future promise of a new Messiah.  It will be a day when "war shall be no more" (Isa 2:4, 9:5-6), when "peace" shall reign on earth (Isa 11:6-9) and that "justice and freedom" will prevail in human society (Isa 9:7, 11:4).  That "light" will be offered not only to God's chosen people the Hebrews, but to everyone even and especially the Gentiles.    

When Jesus comes out of the desert after his forty days and nights of temptations and trials, he preaches this message:

"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news" (Mark 1:15)

The time he is talking about is the day that The Lord had long promised when God's love, peace and justice would reign over the human heart. That's what "kingdom of God" means. 

One of the signs of this kingdom, the in-breaking of God's promised future, is physical and spiritual healing.   When the disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus asking if he is the Messiah, we find these words in the gospel of Luke:

Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.’ (Luke 7:21-23)

To his disciples Jesus says "I am the way, the truth and the life...." (John 14:6)  Over and over again he invites them to follow his "way", the word in the original meaning "path", "road", and “journey".  One of the first names for the early Christians was "children" or "followers" of "The Way" (Acts 9:2, 19:9, 24:22).

In the gospel of Mark there are sixteen stories of healing/exorcism miracles between Jesus move to Capernaum and his entrance into Jerusalem; none before Capernaum and none after Jerusalem. The Way of Jesus is healing.

Immediately following the story of the exorcism in the synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law of a fever.   The word gets out about his spiritual authority.  Crowds begin to gather and he heals many of the sick.  He heals a leper the next morning. The crowds around Peter's house are in such great numbers that next we hear a story of four friends bringing a paralyzed man for healing and removing the roof, letting him down into the house from the ceiling just so he could be close to Jesus.

We are called to follow the Way of Jesus and the Way of Jesus is healing.   Since the beginning of the church, Christians have supported physical healing as ministry.  The first hospitals in Europe, Africa and Asia were founded by the church.   Today where governments in the tropical world cannot find the resources to provide medical services the church is there.  Methodist hospitals and doctors and nurses in Sierra Leon lead the fight to curtail the Ebola outbreak in West Africa just last year, a number of them dying in the process. The Way of Jesus is healing.

Many of us struggle with these Biblical stories of healing as if natural laws were being suspended.    If the natural order of things is suspended for some and not for others...if some get miracle healing and others don't...we are left searching for the right formula to get a miracle...the right church or the right doctrine or the right prayer to say.    Or we are left with a capricious God who doles out miracles for some and not for others.

The writers of the gospels 2,000 years ago felt that physical illness was the result of spiritual sin.  The gospel writers knew little about the medical causes of such diseases as epilepsy or schizophrenia which we find illustrated in their stories.  What they attribute as demonic possession today may be treated as mental illness or addiction.  When we only look at these ancient scriptures through the lens of our 21st century science and rationale we may end up missing their point.

Using a variety of terminology, most doctors and researchers will tell you that the spiritual intangibles of attitude and faith continue to play a significant role in one's physical and mental health.   Dr. Bill Buchholz's book, Live Longer, Live Larger: A Holistic Approach for Cancer Patients and their Families (Patient Center Guides, 2012) is a fabulous resource describing the power and potential of spirituality and healing.  One of my best friends, Art Kess in Reno, Nevada, was given 9 months to live with a deadly form of cancer.  He made it four years.    My own father, Cal Bollwinkel, was a 22 year survivor of colon cancer.  Attitude and faith play a major role in health and that is a true today as it was in Jesus' time.

One hundred years ago the thought that polio and small pox might be eradicated from the earth would have been considered "a miracle" and yet it is a near reality today.  I once met with a brilliant doctor who described to me new experimental medical technologies that will allow medicines to unlock the genetic code of diseases and effectually turn them off.  Wouldn't that seem "miraculous"?  And yet in the future that is what they may be discovering.

I say this knowing full well that for some desperate for a miracle there may not be one coming or one coming in time.   Platitudes about healing attitude and faith are empty indeed for those with plenty of both but who only see things getting worse, especially for those too young, too loved, too deserving of more life.  I can tell you from the depth of my being that in the mystery of time the God who has loved and walked with you though this life will meet you on the other side.  I can tell you that there are things far worse than death, namely never to have lived or loved while alive.  But those words are empty when the end is near.  And such words take nothing away from the cruel and capricious "final enemy" that death can be, in the Apostle Paul's words (I Corinthians 15:26).

Which is why the Way of Jesus is healing and why the church, when it is being the church, is fully committed to fostering healing...spiritual, mental and physical healing...whenever and wherever it can find itself.  We worship the God who rises from the Easter tomb to proclaim that death is not the final answer.   That the only thing that makes this life worth living...the love we share with one another...that love can never die.

And so we Methodists built hospitals and medical schools in Sacramento and Houston and Atlanta.  And we sustain hospitals and clinics in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in the Altiplano of Bolivia, and the interior rivers of Borneo.   And we stand with Casa Materna in Matagalpa, Nicaragua to assist poor women with difficult pregnancies.  And we join with the UN and the Gates foundation to wipe malaria off the face of the earth.

Because we live in the spirit of God's promised future right now.  And we saw what that future looks like in the life and teaching of Jesus.  And the way of Jesus is healing.

Amen.

The Way: Baptism and Temptation in the Wilderness

Mark 1:9-15

February 14, 2016

Mark S. Bollwinkel

To his disciples Jesus says "I am the way, the truth and the life..." (John 14:6)  Over and over again he invites them to follow his "way", the word in the original meaning "path", "road", and “journey".  In fact, one of the first names for the early Christians was "children" or "followers" of "The Way" (Acts 9:2, 19:9, 24:22).

What does it mean to follow Jesus' Way?  How does one do so?   Why would it matter here in the 21st century?  Those questions will outline our journey through the season of Lent this year.

The Way begins in the desert.

In the gospel of Mark we have no story of Jesus' Bethlehem birth.   Jesus appears as an adult coming from his hometown Nazareth to be baptized by John in the Jordan River.   John is Jesus' cousin (Luke 1:39-42), a desert mystic/esthetic caught up in the apocalyptic expectation for a new Messiah and the restoration of Israel. The desert wilderness was seen as a purifying place cut off from the excesses and spiritual distractions of village/city life. John was offering the purification rite of water baptism in preparation for what he thought would be the immediate apocalypse and Judgment of God.   John was a fiery preacher of the "end of the world". Historians of the day reported crowds traveling the twenty miles from Jerusalem to hear John the Baptist and to be baptized.  Jesus, the son of a carpenter from the Galilee came too. 

In Mark's version of the story it would seem as if God adopts Jesus as his son as he comes out of the baptismal waters.  A voice from heaven says for all to hear, "You are my son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased."   Then the Holy Spirit immediately drives Jesus into the wilderness where he will be tested and tempted as he fasts for 40 days and nights.

The Lenten season was created by the church centuries ago as a liturgical season during which we could remember Jesus' forty day temptation in the wilderness before the beginning of his ministry (Lent is 40 days minus the Sundays, which are always designated to honor Jesus' resurrection).  Lent reminds us of all those biblical "forties" when the faithful wrestled with God to discover who they were and where they were going; Noah and his family waiting through forty days and nights of the flood (Genesis 7-9:17); the children of Israel who wandered 40 years between their slavery in Egypt until their entrance into the Promised Land; Moses and his forty days of fasting as he received the Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:27-28); Elijah and his forty days of meditation and hiding as he waited for the "still small voice of God" (I Kings 19:1-f).

We mark the first day of Lent with ashes, gathered from the burned remains of the branches we waved the year before on Palm Sunday.  On that day we symbolically remember the crowds that hailed Jesus as Messiah with “hosannas”.  But we do not forget that those same crowds cried “crucify him” a few days later.   So we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross that will be the instrument of Jesus’ death and our betrayal of the God of love.

Out there in the desert wilderness John the Baptist was preaching "repentance" to those who would listen.  To repent in the original language means to "turn around".  To repent means to be transformed, to embrace the God that considers each of us "beloved".  "To repent means that we look honestly and fearlessly at ourselves to identify the ways in which we need to grow and change"; to repent means to "recognize that all is not as it should be in our lives" (Greg Weyrauch, Journeying Through Lent with Mark: Daily Meditations, Augsburg, 1999, p. 11).

Lent is an opportunity to do some real soul searching.  To honestly take a look at our lives, our relationship with God and each other.  It’s a time to face our own temptations.

​In Matthew and Luke’s versions of Jesus' baptism and desert fasting (Mt. 4:1-11, Lk. 4:1-13), we hear a dialogue between the devil and Jesus, with Satan offering Jesus three tests; command these stones to become bread; throw yourself down so that the angels can save you; and finally Satan offers Jesus all the Kingdoms of this world if he will worship evil.

​Each time Jesus answers the test by reciting scriptures; "We shall not live by bread alone, but by the words of God"; "You shall not tempt God"; "You shall worship the Lord your God and serve God only."

​Satan has no power over Jesus that Jesus won’t give him.  However you understand the devil in the Bible as metaphor for the reality of evil in the world or as a supernatural being, all the devil can do is offer the choices that lead away from life and love.  He cannot make us choose them.  Satan’s work is as tempter, tester, and accuser.  His power is in the whisper of doubt. He is "the father of lies" (John 8:44).  He is the sower of “bad seeds” (Matthew 14:39).  The devil is an "adversary" but in no way equal to God (note Job 1:6-f).

​We have all used the convenient excuse when things go bad, “Well, the devil made me do it!” (Note scriptural examples, Luke 8:11, John 13:2).  In fact, the devil can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do (Note; Scott Peck, People of the Lie, Touchstone Books; 2nd edition, December 1997).

​There may indeed be a spiritual battle between the forces of light and “darkness” (Ephesians 6:12).  But it is not the battle between two gods.   There is only one God, who by Divine love and mercy gives us free will.  The battle is among and within each of us to choose life or death, good or evil.

Let me site this example as an illustration.

Having thought that the institution of slavery had long been eradicated from earth, in recent years public awareness has grown that nothing could be farther from the truth.   It comes in new forms of indentured servitude and with a new title, "Human Trafficking".  The US State Department informs us that...

-An estimated 27 million people are held in slavery worldwide, meaning there are more slaves in the world than were taken from Africa during 300 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

-More slaves alive now than at any other time in history.

-Approximately 800,000 to 900,000 victims annually trafficked across international borders worldwide.

-Approximately 80 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors.

-The majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation.

-Between 18,000 and 20,000 victims trafficked into United States annually.

-In the United States alone, it is estimated that there are 200,000 living in indentured servitude, working in agriculture, illegal manufacturing and the sex industry.

Here in California, Attorney General Kamala Harris has reported that the rescue of human trafficking victims and the arrest of their captors have tripled in the last two years.  Her report says the numbers are likely much higher because many crimes go unreported. (Elliot Spagat, AP, 11/16/12)

Seven teenagers were rescued from forced prostitution in the San Francisco Bay Area during Super Bowl week, authorities announced Tuesday.  Some of the victims had previously been reported missing by their parents, Federal Bureau of Investigation officials said. They ranged in age from 14 to 17.  In all, 129 adults were picked up or cited for prostitution and 85 clients were arrested.  Over the last 13 years, the FBI and its partner agencies have recovered nearly 4,800 children and helped convict about 2,000 people in human trafficking crimes, which the agency described as “the most common form of modern day slavery.”  FBI Special Agent in Charge David J. Johnson said. (Sarah Parvini, LA Times, 02/09/16)

This social evil doesn't exist by accident or merely by cultural norms.  It exists because there is a market for this evil.  It exists because there are those who choose to pay for such services.    This evil will stop when good people are willing to name it for what it is and expose those making a profit off of such exploitation.

The devil can’t make us do a thing.   Only when in our freedom we give in to that which is wrong can evil have power in our lives and in our world.  We are always free to choose.

If the world isn’t the way it should be it’s not because God has let down God’s end of the bargain.   And so it is a young carpenter from Galilee that will show us the true nature of the Creator of the Universe:

“God made himself weak for one purpose; to let human beings choose freely for themselves what to do with him.” (Philip Yancy, The Jesus I Never Knew, Zondervan, 2002  p. 76)

“God’s terrible insistence on human freedom is so absolute that he granted us the power to live as though he did not exist, to spit in his face, to crucify him.”  (Yancy p. 78)

And so Jesus begins his journey to Jerusalem with baptism and the temptation in the desert.  He invites us on The Way, and The Way of Jesus is to face evil head on and call it for what it is.    We are invited to use these weeks before Easter to take stock of our lives, consider the freedom we have been given and the choices we have made.

It has been said, "Ethics is what we do while everyone is watching. Morality is what we do when no one is looking."

Lent is a time for us to remember our baptism and keep it holy.

Amen.

Living in the Light and Facing our Pain

John 4:5-15

January 31, 2016

Mark S. Bollwinkel

Bob Ebling was one of the engineers at Morton Thiokol in Utah who tried to warn the NASA launch authorities that the “O” rings on the solid rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle Challenger were likely to fail in the freezing cold of that Florida morning thirty years ago last Thursday.  They insisted in a number of heated debates with NASA that the failure could be catastrophic.   No one in authority for the launch would listen.    As we all remember the ship with its crew of seven blew up 73 seconds into the flight precisely due to the failed “O” rings. 

For the first time in a public interview, 89 year old Mr. Ebling has identified himself as one of that team.  Although he and his team were not responsible for the disaster, he shared the guilt and pain he has carried for thirty years.  He has not been able to forgive himself, in his words, for “…not having done enough to stop the launch.” (UPI/NPR 01/29/16). 

It is hard enough to forgive someone who has hurt you.   It may indeed be harder to forgive yourself. 

"Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is an attitude."  (Martin Luther King, Jr.) 

Consider our scripture reading for this morning.

The verse just before our text today says, "But he had to go through Samaria."   He didn't have to go through Samaria.  There were other ways to get there. In fact the Hebrews would avoid travel through the apostate Samaria when they could.  There were a number of popular alternative routes.*

Pious Jews would consider themselves ritually unclean if they associated with Samaritans whom they considered to worship a false religion (2 Kings 17:24-34).  The Hebrews and Samaritans had a long history of animosity and distrust.  Jesus was well aware of this history and instructed his disciples accordingly.  When Jesus sent out the twelve he told them not to enter any city of the Samaritans (Matthew 10:5).  The disciples would be rejected when traveling through Samaria on another occasion (Luke 9:51-56).

Yet this time Jesus insists on not just traveling through Samaria but stopping there for lunch.  The disciples run off to buy some food.   Tired from the journey, Jesus sits down at the water well of Sychar.   He encounters a Samaritan woman coming to fetch water at noon.   Pious and righteous Jewish men, let alone respected rabbis, did not go out of their way to travel through Samaria, did not associate with Samaritans and certainly did not speak with unaccompanied women in public.  What was Jesus thinking?

Maybe it was that "forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is an attitude." 

Jesus had to go through Samaria to teach his disciples, and us the readers, that there are no social conventions, no religious barriers that limit God's love.  And so he goes where few dare to go.

The liturgical season between Christmas and Lent is a time to focus on the person of Jesus as God's incarnation of unconditional love.  Specifically, it is an opportunity to wrestle with the implications of such love in our lives.  During this worship series we will look at moments in Jesus' life when God's love transforms those facing the same challenges in life that we all do.  In this Epiphany season we ponder the in-breaking of God’s light into the world, the real world of flesh and blood, fear and failure, brokenness and loneliness.  What good is all this talk of God’s love if we are still carrying the guilt and shame born years ago?   What good is all this talk of God’s love if we can’t forgive ourselves? 

It turns out that the woman at the well comes at noon, the hottest time of day, to avoid the taunts and scorn of Sychar's other women who do such a physically demanding chore in the cool of the morning.   This woman has had five husbands and is now living with a man to whom she is not married. (:18)   We can only imagine the shame and woundedness she must carry from a lifetime of exploitation and broken dreams.   

Jesus doesn't just imagine it.   He can see it.  He can see right through to her heart that yearns for healing, for a life lived in isolation that yearns for community.   

How often do we learn to live with the hurt in our lives, adjust to it, and assimilate it into who we are rather than face it head on?  How often do we look for love in all the wrong places? 

Do you remember the actress Patty Duke?  (You baby-boomers will!)  In 1962, Patty Duke was the youngest person to win an Academy Award for the role of Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker".  Patty Duke's life is an amazing story of survival and healing.** 

Born Anne Marie Duke in 1946 to an alcoholic father and a clinically depressed mother prone to violence, at the age of eight her talent manager, Ethel Ross, changed her name to "Patty" and promoted her as a child actress.  Patty had amazing talent and found a variety of opportunities in New York City, eventually landing the role as the young Helen Keller in the Broadway production of the play "Miracle Worker".  By the time she was emancipated at the age of 18, the Rosses had taken most of her money.  Patty would be using drugs and alcohol herself as she struggled with what would eventually be diagnosed as bi-polar disease.  She would have four marriages.   For those who remember Patty Duke's many TV roles and productions, she performed many while addicted and suffering from mental illness. 

The turning point in her life came in 1982 when her manic-depression was diagnosed and she began appropriate treatment for it.  She would reclaim her birth name Anne in the title of her 1987 autobiography.  It was a sign of her liberation from the pain of her past.  Today along with the occasional acting role she is a tireless advocate for mental health issues, testifying in Congress and supporting the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI).   

She has said: 

"It's toughest to forgive ourselves, so it's best probably to start with other people. It's almost like peeling an onion. Layer by layer, forgiving others, you really do get to the point where you can forgive yourself." 

Jesus doesn't travel to Samaria to forgive the woman at the well of her apostasy and moral sin; although that occurs.  He really goes there to give her permission and power to forgive herself; something far more difficult to do.   

The Lord offers her a well of “living water” that can quench any thirst, heal any hurt and never run dry.  She has the wrong religion, the wrong social status, the wrong moral history and yet Jesus offers even her "living water"!  She leaves her jar behind and goes to the very people who have rejected her.  She tells them the good news of the Messiah who has come to offer the whole world "living water".  Many in the city will come to hear Jesus for themselves, and believe in him for themselves.  He stays two days at the hospitality of those his faith tradition considers unclean.  

Our text describes the power and possibility of forgiveness.  How is it that two people separated by gender, race, nationality and social status...who should have nothing to do with each other...find common ground in the promise of new life?

What is in the way of us claiming ours? 

How many hurts do we hold on to by denying that they are there?   How many slights and insults and wounds do we lug around in our inventory of disappointments?  Even more difficult, how many of us as children believed that no matter what we did we would never be good enough?   How many of us still believe it today as adults?   

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you."  (Lewis B. Smedes) 

An ancient Chinese story tells of two friends who were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face.  The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, he wrote in the sand: "Today my best friend slapped me in the face."  They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath.  The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning but his friend saved him.  After he recovered from the drowning he wrote on a stone: "Today my best friend saved my life."  The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now, you write on a stone, why?"  The other friend replied, "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand, where the winds of forgiveness can erase it, but when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone, so no wind can ever erase it." Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your benefits in the stone.  ("Sand and Stone", author unknown) 

Shouldn't we do the same for ourselves?    

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

(Martin Luther King, Jr.) 

If the living water of God's unconditional love can be offered to the likes of the Samaritan woman at the well...or a wayward prodigal son returning home to the embrace of a father...aren't we good enough to receive it? 

And it is my prayer that someday soon Mr. Robert Ebling can find it as well. 

Amen.

*Ferrell Jenkins, "He had to pass through Samaria", Ferrell's Travel Blog May 4, 2009. 

**Patty Duke and Kennen Turan, Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke, Bantam Books, 1987

Living in the Light and Facing Loneliness

Mark 5:1-20

January 24, 2016

Mark S. Bollwinkel

The liturgical season between Christmas and Lent is a time to focus on the person of Jesus as God's incarnation of unconditional love.  Specifically, it is an opportunity to wrestle with the implications of such love in our lives.  During this series we will look at moments in Jesus' life when God's love transforms those facing the same challenges in life that we all do.

Webster's dictionary defines "loneliness" as "cut off from others", "sad from being alone", "a feeling of desolation".

Loneliness is a common and universal experience.  Most people are probably going to have a significant experience of loneliness at some time in their lives. 

Loneliness is a feeling of social disconnectedness in which a person wishes that he or she had better social relationships.

Social science research suggests that loneliness includes feelings of self-pity (32 percent), the feeling that no one understands us (17 percent), helplessness (24 percent), a sense of being different (20 percent), boredom (14 percent), and rejection (18 percent).  (Mikluciner and Segal, 1990, psychologyandsociety.com)

Donna Swanson's moving poem, "Minnie Remembers"¹ says it all so profoundly:

How long has it been since someone touched me/ Twenty years?/ Twenty years I've been a widow./ Respected./Smiled at./But never touched./ Never held so close that loneliness/ was blotted out.

Being alone does not equal loneliness.  More of us choose to live alone than ever before.  "Aside from childless couples the most common household type in America is an adult living alone.  That’s one out of seven adults, over 30 million people...representing a 33 percent increase in the decade between 1996 and 2006."²

Loneliness is not the same thing as being alone.  We can be lonely in a crowd, in a family, in a marriage.  But when we are lonely we feel cut off from everyone around us and God.

In this Epiphany season we ponder the in-breaking of God’s light into the world, the real world of flesh and blood, fear and failure, brokenness and loneliness.  What good is all this talk of God’s love if we’re lonely?

Consider the story of Jesus and the Gerasene demoniac in our gospel lesson this morning.

Jesus and the disciples had just crossed the Sea of Galilee during which the Lord stilled a storm threatening to swamp the boat.  They landed on the eastern shore in the country of the Garasenes.  Immediately they are confronted by a man possessed by a legion of demons.  His neighbors were so afraid that he would hurt them or himself that they bound him in chains.  But to no avail.  He was so physically strong he could break the chains in pieces.  The neighbors cast him out of their community.  The man lived in the neighboring cemetery, wandering among the tombs, howling and crying out in pain, mutilating himself with stones.

The scene reminds us of the homeless men and women of our own 21st century cities possessed by addiction, poverty, mental and emotional illness.   The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that 131,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. And approximately twice that many experience homelessness over the course of a year. Conservatively, one out of every three homeless men who is sleeping in a doorway, alley or box in our cities and rural communities has put on a uniform and served this country. (National Coalition for the Homeless)

One out of every three of the homeless in our country are under the age of 18.   Six percent of homeless youth are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender who have been rejected by their families. Ten percent of homeless youth are pregnant.  Many homeless youth leave home after years of physical and sexual abuse, addiction of a family member, and parental neglect. (National Coalition for the Homeless)

Like the Garasenes as a society are we still casting those we don't know how to help out of our sight so we don't have to deal with them?

The demons within the tortured man immediately recognize who Jesus is, they cry out, "Son of the Most High God".   Note that the pious officials of the synagogue and Temple, the Pharisees and scribes did not recognize who Jesus was but demented demons could!

Matthew, Mark and Luke describe how Jesus then casts the demons into a herd of swine.   They throw themselves to their death in the water nearby.  The legion is dispatched with one word, "Go" (Matthew 8:32). The power of evil is no match for God's love. 

One would think that the neighbors would rejoice that such a miracle occurred. Just the opposite is reported.  The Garasenes are afraid.  They ask Jesus to leave as soon as possible.    It is not just that their major swine producing industry has just taken a huge hit but in the face of God's loving power our knees tremble to be sure.

It is the man liberated of the legion of demons that voices faith and hope.  He wants to climb into the boat with Jesus and the disciples.  Jesus says, "No, go home to your friends and tell your community all that God has done for you" which the former demoniac does throughout the region.

Jesus restores the demoniac to his community, breaking the chains of loneliness and isolation.   Having been freed from the bonds of his disease, the Demonic wants to help others. 

Could that be one of the keys to breaking the chains of loneliness in our own lives?  To do something good for somebody else?

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."  Nelson Mandela

Loneliness happens to everyone sometime in their lives to greater or lesser degrees.  Don't confuse it with being alone which can be a healthy thing when chosen not imposed.  Loneliness is a powerful experience.  It is a factor in the medical diagnosis "failure to thrive" for infants or the elderly.  It is the curse of those in our society who cannot find a home.

Which character in the story best describes you at this time in your life?  The one possessed by the spirits of self-pity and social isolation?  The one so frustrated with and afraid of another that the best option seems to cast them out?   The ones like the disciples that seem to be just coming along for the ride?   The liberated one that can't wait to share the good news of the redeeming possibility of God's love?

Embraced by the unconditional love of God even loneliness can be the starting point on the journey home.

Amen. 

¹Cited in Ashley Montagu, Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin, 3d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1986, 396ff.

²Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, Eric Klinenberg, Penguin Press, 2012