Bringing Forward What's Behind

Bring what is valuable about the past into a new future

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

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

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermons also available free on iTunes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

Bringing Forward What's Behind

Stop the Shouting

How to Stop the Shouting

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

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

Matthew 15:21-28

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

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

   

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

  

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Stop the Shouting

Have Mask Will Travel

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

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

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

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

Genesis 28:10-19a

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

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

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

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

 

Her sister asked, “What’s wrong?”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

“He’s Always There”

 

The Lord leads us on

with tender care,

lifting our

burdens to bear

He blesses us

as we pass on,

to what awaits

eternal dawn

Tho we so often

may not see,

He’s always there

and will always be…

 

J. Paul Horgan   “The Poem Painter”

7/17/20   c.

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

What is On Line by Reopening Church Buildings?

How long did Noah and his family shelter in place? Answer below. 

A church pastor told me about being encouraged/pressured/ordered to start having services in the church building again. Here is part of my response as I consider a church reopening for worship before the rest of Nevada.

Section 4 of Directive 013 is hereby amended. Effective May 1, 2020, places of worship may offer services on an in-car or drive-in basis, if these services allow occupants to remain in their vehicles, can be held in a manner consistent with social distancing guidelines, implement precautions intended to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and abide by other guidance promulgated pursuant to this Directive. The prohibition of ten or more persons for indoor services shall remain in effect for the duration that this Directive shall be in effect, unless specifically terminated or renewed by subsequent order. - DECLARATION OF EMERGENCY DIRECTIVE 016  April 29,2020

I don’t know if civil disobedience is something we want to do right now. If not, then with a limit of 10 in worship, I don’t know if reservations will be taken for the 8 people who can join you and the organist or it will be by first come, first served with a full sign on a locked door after #8 comes in. Or by lottery? Or taking turns each week by last name? Doesn’t seem very workable. 

What is the insurance coverage for going against government restrictions if someone gets ill, or someone dies after being with a church goer? Consultation with the insurance folks and a lawyer would be prudent before civil disobedience. If there is a fine or court costs or a suit is the church prepared to pay or it is up to individual session members and the pastor?

What is the public relations plan if and when the church becomes known as a nexus for infection of the community and beyond? Is the congregation okay with the risk of being known as irresponsible with public health?

This tragic outbreak wasn’t a Presbyterian group but it was in a Presbyterian Church and would be heartbreaking to repeat:

A choir decided to go ahead with rehearsal. Now dozens of members have COVID-19 and two are dead

By RICHARD READ SEATTLE BUREAU CHIEF 

Los Angles Times, MARCH 29, 20207:34 PM

What health benefits and protections is the session offering its employees they require to come to work? Is the session prepared to assume the liability for their illness if they go against the governmental order? It might not be covered by the church’s policy. Again, a lawyer and insurance agent would be good to consult. 

Romans 13 is usually cited when we wonder about submitting to a government.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. - Romans 13:1 NRSV

Reading on to verse 10 we see that “Love does no wrong to a neighbor;” I can’t help but believe that would cover not putting our neighbor’s health and life at risk by spreading disease, even a disease we didn’t know we had.

There is the concept that we care about the least of these, in Matthew 25:31-46 NRSV (excerpts below)

I was sick and you took care of me…” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it…that we saw you sick…?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” 

and not to become a stumbling block to the weak by exercising our freedom:

But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling-block to the weak. 1 Corinthians 8:9

If church history is of interest as well as scripture, the story of Reverend Cotton Mather and Onesimus is illuminating on the “God will protect us” or “It is God’s will who lives and dies” beliefs. Our nation went through this debate

in 1721 over smallpox treatment even before we decided to be a nation.

This was not just a health crisis; it was also a theological one. The majority of Puritan clergy regarded the epidemic as divine will…The only explanation for suffering was the wrath of God, and so the only recourse they had was to determine which set of sins had unleashed it, and to find a way to atone. Yet when the sickness hit close to home, Mather began to rethink this position. With his children suddenly showing symptoms he had seen so often when visiting the dying in “venomous, contagious, loathsome Chambers,” he began to wonder:If it was in man’s power to counteract illness through the God-­given gift of the intellect, would it not be wrong to squander grace by failing to do so? 

The Puritans Were America’s First Anti-Vaxxers
The New Republic By PETER MANSEAU

 February 6, 2015

Finally, as Noah shows us, sometimes faith is staying inside sheltered by God; quarantined from the storm outside. 

It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Noah and his family stayed in the ark for a year until it was safe to come out.

The real question that all churches are going to face is how do we plan to reopen once the Governor says it is OK? In our cases, that will happen when he says 50 or fewer people can gather as long as social distancing is practiced. Last week I sent an email to my session asking the following questions:
1. How can we follow the social distance guidelines in our worship space?
2. Should we require everyone to wear a mask?
3. Should we limit the number of people who can be present at any given time?
4. Since singing requires us to breathe more deeply, should we limit singing in our worship?
5. Will it be safe to hold our coffee time?
6. How can we keep our space clean?
I also asked the session if we should forward these questions to the entire congregation.
So far I have had various responses from “none of these options sound good” to “ Until we are all immunized/vaccinated from COVID-19…I do not see any way to social distance in our current sanctuary space”. I concluded my email by saying, “In all of this, we need to seek God’s will for our church family. Please pray for discernment as we consider how to move forward.”

May 4, 2020 | Pastor Carl

Ryan Landino

Pastor-preacher-priestperson of PCUSA church in northwest IL.
Happy husband, loyal dog lover, aspiring anti-racist, Philly sports phan