Love & Loyalty

Sermon Ruth 1:1-19 June 25, 2017 Ordinary Time

Love & Loyalty

Love, commitment, joy, sweetness, are all the wonders we hear when people get married. June & July are the months that seem to be alive with weddings and anniversary celebrations. In our own two congregations, we have each had the pleasure of celebrating a nuptial in our sanctuaries.

I think we are still fascinated with weddings.

We witness all the froo froo and just enjoy watching two people make a commitment to each other and then seal it with their vows.

I often ask couples who have been together for years,

why they even want to get married when they’ve proven their commitment through the way have lived their lives together.

Their response is most often the desire to make their commitment public-to ‘seal the deal’, so to speak. Living together through commitment is one things but, making vows to each other are clearly another thing altogether.

Whether people believe in God or not,

God is present wherever vows are made.

Marriage vows, whether in a church, a courthouse,

a field somewhere, are made before God.

Vows are binding.

Vows are not to be made lightly.

They are for a lifetime-unless one partner breaks the vow-and that’s a whole other story-they are what seals us, and sticks us like a magnet to the other.

In this story, Ruth makes a vow to Naomi-it is one we’ve often heard at weddings. The story behind those words is worth your time learning about. And that is what we will do beginning today.

The story of Ruth is really the story about Naomi.

 It is a story about turning.

It is a story about God’s impact and influence in the lives of others.

It is about grace and mercy. It is about a woman who suffers so much, without the possibility of rising above the miserable circumstances which have befallen her.

Naomi had nothing to do with the tragedy that came upon her.

We are often so quick to judge and this story puts calamity in perspective.

Sometimes horrible things happen to ordinary, regular people. ‘It is what it is.’

Naomi, with her husband, moved from her homeland to a foreign country to find food. During difficult times, people seek to find the way to turn their circumstances around. Sometimes it’s through a move, a change of jobs, or a change of environment. To turn in a new direction and to leave behind everything is a challenge in itself. Naomi and her husband Elimelech did just that.

They lived as foreigners in the land of Moab. While there her sons married. They were there for more than ten years. Then within a short period of time all the men died.

Tangent: While Ruth is part of the lineage to King David and therefore also the lineage to Jesus, the story seems to also be a significant parable. Because in the telling of the story the names of the characters signify their fate-Mahlon means sickness, and Chillion means failure. However, Elimelech means, God is my King.

Naomi was left a widow and a childless mother.

Her daughter in laws were also childless. So, here in this foreign place to which Naomi had turned and moved to with the intent to build a new life, has now left her utterly alone with no future. So, she struggles with what to do. In a culture that is not your own, it is really difficult to navigate problems and solutions. Naomi has heard that things had improved in her homeland and so she turns and faces the place from which she came. She decides to go back to Bethlehem and the customs she understand for widows. She still has a relative left alive so she chooses to go to his house and rely on the Jewish custom of caring for the family.

All of us here have moved at one time or another.

We know what it’s like to pick up and all of our belongings and plunk down in a new place.

It’s hard.

Even if the move was to something exciting and wonderful, it is still hard.

Even if the move was just down the street from the old house, it is still like starting over because the neighbors are different and new relationships have to be built.

Naomi’s decision to move in the first place was for survival because of famine.

Now her decision to move is again based on survival.

This time because of culture.

As a woman, she could not be independent and was required to be under the protection of a male.

As she is thrown into another survival situation her heart turns bitter.

She is bitter to her circumstances,

she is bitter to her surroundings,

she is bitter toward her God.

She cannot see any good in her life.

And this is where the grace of God enters into the life of Naomi through the words of a woman who worships other gods.

Here in this beautiful story is the beginning of how one woman’s emptiness is turned to hope, and then to fullness.

As you go home today and read this short Old Testament story you discover the power of God at work in the people that surround Naomi. Four short chapters.

God is in the business of constantly surprising us through the grace and mercy offered in unimaginable ways.

Naomi had her way set and turned toward Bethlehem.

In her bitterness, she cuts off the very people who love her. Her daughter in laws adore her and only want to stay with her. But, she sends them away hoping for them they can begin a new life with another husband. Orpah obeys her and leaves. But, Ruth, as stubborn as she is, disobeys.

In our lives we do the same, we get so caught up in our grief, or our bitterness, or our hurt, that we cut off and cut out the very people who love us most.

I’ve heard it asked by some special folks over the years,

‘Why do people stop coming to church when they experience hardship?

Isn’t church the very place where people love and support you through the hard times?’

In our emotional turmoil of things, we tend to behave in some crazy ways.

It’s in times like those that we need a Ruth in our life.

We need a Ruth to ignore our ever so rational and logical statements and tell us like it is.

We need a Ruth to hold on tighter to us when we try to shake her off and get her out of our life.

We need a Ruth to grab us around the waist and hold on to us saying she will never let us go.

We need a Ruth to say she loves us forever, she loves us no matter what we say to her, she loves us even if we try to leave her.

We need a Ruth in our lives who makes a vow to bind herself to us.

Friends, I hope more than anything, that we the church, can be the Ruth for those who need a Ruth in their lives.

We have a job to do.

Let us be faithful for those who struggle to be faithful.

Let us be faithful to those whose lives need a binding.

Let us be faithful even when we are pushed aside.

Let us be the lineage that holds firm to a future we don’t even know.

Let us learn how to be Ruth for the world. Amen. 

Jesus is Alive, Surprise!

Sermon Matthew 28:1-10 April 16, 2017 Easter Sunday

                                                Sermon: Jesus is Alive, Surprise!

A friend of mine (Jo Ann Staebler) said,

“The Easter gospel begins with great grief.”

At first I thought, “No way. Easter is a time of joy. There is no grief.” And then I realized, “Just a minute-of course it begins with great grief.’

The women were on their way to the tomb where Jesus lay. And these women were deep in grief. The women have gone into muscle memory mode. They are going through the motions of grief that all do when tragedy, death, destruction or trauma strike.

And it is also true that it is darkest before the dawn.

And our greatest fears rise up in those darkest hours.

Everyone was in shock and they did not know what to do without their Lord.

Their faith had been crushed, beaten, and dismantled by the death of the Savior. And they were very afraid of what would happen next.

In our journey of faith we too have faced times when everything we believed was crushed, beaten, and dismantled.

We have been in dark hours where we did not know what to do or what to say.

We too were functioning in muscle memory mode.

We too were going through the motions just to get through the day only to have to repeat those motions for more days than we could remember.

The gospel lesson of Easter pulls us into all the

grief and drama of the power of loss.

And then while we are still caught in the challenge of grief,

God astounds us with the BIG SURPRISE!

Jesus is not here.

He is ALIVE!

It is a surprise beyond our imagination.

It is a surprise that once again startles our faith!

He is alive shocks us as much as his death did.

It is too much to bear.

Now what do we do? He is ALIVE!

How do we act? He is ALIVE!

And how do we share this news? He is ALIVE!

Jesus said he would return again, but how many really believed it would happen like this?

He said it over and over again.

But how well did they listen?

I know my husband is always trying to get me to listen-to really hear what he is saying.

I know I’m told things for my own good over and over again-but I don’t seem to hear it-even when my life depends on it.

Jesus spoke in riddles. Some we can give the disciples a break-maybe not judge them so harshly. The parables of Jesus were hard to follow…

Remember the one when he was telling Nicodemus about being born again. We, like the disciples, scratched our heads wondering how this renewal of life can actually happen. We know our bodies don’t go through the birth process more than once. So how can new life be born in us?

Jesus was full of surprises alright.

He had a way of making food appear out of a couple slices of bread. He touched people and they were healed. He taught the leaders of the synagogue things about God no one had ever known. He walked on water.

He raised Lazarus from the dead…wow, he really was full of surprises.

He really did do things beyond anyone’s imagination.

He really did do miracles.

Perhaps, then his rising from the dead is true too.

And if this surprise is true then we can remember all the things he did.

We can talk about them to people.

Jesus didn’t do all these surprising things to entertain us.

He did them to transform us; to change us; to make us new.

Just as the caterpillar crawled into the tomb of its chrysalis and rose from it as a magnificent butterfly; so Jesus has risen-magnificent from the depths of his tomb. Transformed. And so he declares we are too.

You see, in dying, God is making sure there is rising!

For if God goes down to the dead and rises to new life;

rest assured God has made the way for us who die

                                              to rise to new life!

We can be assured and raised up with strength as we witness the surprise and wonder of the Resurrection;

of new life;

of a new creation!

This is our hope!

Believing in this surprise, this miracle of God, fills us with new life.

We rise up today filled with joy and wonder.

God makes all things new through the power of the resurrection born in us.

Jesus has risen to new life so we too rise to new life.

It is the miracle that grants us the power to change not only who we are but the world around us.

SO we wonder again,

what do we do?

How do we act?

What news do we share?

We go out from here today rejoicing in the strength and courage of the Savior born anew in us.

We go out from this place nourished and fed at Table so we can do the things Jesus did.

We can make the abundance of food appear from two slices of bread. We have the capacity to offer our extras to others in need.

We can share the abundance of our joy with our neighbors.

We can take the abundance of our knowledge and offer to help others learn and live. Just like those who volunteer with the literacy council, we offer the abundance of our knowledge through tutoring, mentoring, teaching.

We can take the abundance of our courage and stand in the gap for those who can’t.

The list goes on and on of what we can do.

And how can we share this great surprise?

Through sheer faith in believing. We may not understand it, and we may not be able to explain it, but, we can believe it by the evidence of God’s love within us. It is real because God’s love is real.

Friends let the warmth of love flow through you today.

Let the love you cannot imagine surprise you.

Let the power of the resurrection surprise rise up in you.

Go now and live. Go now and give.

Jesus is alive-surprise! Amen.

This is the good news which we have received, in which we stand, and by which we are saved, if we hold fast: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, and that he appeared first to the women, then to Peter, and to the twelve, and then to many faithful witnesses. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus Christ is the first and the last, the beginning and the end; he is our Lord and our God

Walk to Emmaus

Sermon Luke 24:13-35 April 3, 2016 Easter 2 communion

Walk to Emmaus

The road to Emmaus is a road to revelation.

It is a road of discovery.

It is the road we take for one purpose and recognize along the way something entirely new and different.

The two followers of Jesus have left Jerusalem. They have left the Passover feast duly completed and this was the ‘first day of the week’ and it has been three days since these things took place. As they were traveling they were deep in conversation with each other.

They were deep into getting away from where they have been.

They were deep in disappointment and perhaps even disillusioned.

They were in disbelief of the events of the past few days.

What roads do we travel as we find ourselves in deep disappointment and grief or disbelief about the events that surround us and the events of our lives?

Frederick Buechner points out that our road to Emmaus might be going shopping or for a drive or drinking or whatever method of escape where we throw up our arms and say, “Forget it, what difference does it make anyway?”

“Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that men have had-ideas of love and freedom and justice-have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish end.”

We travel roads to places healthy or unhealthy when life is too much for us and we become absorbed in the travel and oblivious to our surroundings.

For some, the revelation and news that Jesus has risen from the dead and is alive is incomprehensible. And it is. None of us who believe it can explain it.

So, how can we expect others who have not heard and have not seen to believe it if we can’t explain it?

Luke as he finishes out this gospel provides several encounter stories of Jesus the risen Lord as a segue to the accounts of the early church in the book of Acts.

This story of the road to Emmaus is a story about us.

How these men, who were followers of Jesus, had so many hopes of who Jesus would be for them.

They had determined in their mind that he was a prophet and he would fulfill the Scriptures for them, yet he died.

They could not imagine as they walked the road and shared their story with the stranger that anything good could come to them after this great grief of the loss of all their hope.

The person that joins them in travel does not impose himself upon them about who he is. He merely joins them to listen and accompany them along the way. He appears unassumingly and yet remains throughout all the discussion.

And then when they tell him they did not ‘see’ the Lord risen, the traveler begins to share the words of Scripture to them.

We discover from this story that Jesus the risen Lord accompanies us on the roads which we travel.

God’s presence is fully with us as we go our way,

whether we are taking the road to get away

or the road that takes us back,

God is there.

As I mentioned to the children in the children’s time, we all see Jesus in a variety of ways. In the picture when they close their eyes they could see an image of the picture they had been focusing on.

In the roads we travel our encounter with the risen Christ will be experienced in a variety of ways and we will see Jesus in a variety of ways.

As Cleopas was processing out loud all the things that had taken place, Jesus was listening to him as he unloaded his burdens of expectations. How do we process our burdens of expectations?

Do we have a companion that joins us on the road to hear our words, do we have someone who comes alongside and shares some words of wisdom,

do we have someone who will join us for a meal if we invite them?

When invited, Jesus enters in and joins the meal at the table.

And when he does he becomes the host and takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it and in his actions he is revealed.

In the actions surrounding us,

Jesus the risen Lord is revealed.

It cannot be explained.

But it can be believed.

Their eyes were opened in the breaking of the bread.

After this event their lives were never the same.

They ran to tell the others about the actions that brought the risen Lord to their view.

The events of Easter become a series of Easter events,

a series of actions and encounters that stretch across the rest of our lives.

The moments of actions as we travel the roads to Emmaus

or back to Jerusalem

are ones where we are accompanied by the risen Lord and his presence is revealed to us in ways we may never be able to explain, and yet we believe.

Amen.