In Reflection, We Find Change

Sermon, by Pastor Ronald Nelson

Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost

September 1, 2024

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9 

Psalm 15

James 1:17-27 

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Twenty-Second Sunday in ordinary time.

Turtle Island

Well, this is it.  Labour day is tomorrow, and everything will be back to normal?  Eh! Programs in the community, in school, and in the church will be back to the usual routines.  And above all, Pastor Joel will be back.

A cartoon recently depicted a woman saying, “my desire to remain well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.”  I would think the above is shared by many of us as we deal with politics, AI, wars, creation, and climate, among many others. Our first reading from Deuteronomy basically says, “Israel, if you follow the laws of God, all of life will fall into place.”  We Lutherans prided ourselves in the fact that we lived by grace and not by law. But now we have to get serious about James’s teachings. So let us see if our lessons today give us a few clues on how even staid Lutherans can progress.

I have to admit I wish I could do this a few more weeks because James is now the second lesson for five weeks. The letter of James got Luther’s “knickers in a bind.”  Martin said James was “an epistle of straw.”  In Luther’s day, the need was to lift up the broad and sweeping themes of “justification by faith alone.”  But now, James’s very ability to hold a magnifying glass to the ethics of everyday life. His capacity to urge us toward such deeds; as making peace in close and sometimes strained personal relationships, caring “for widows and orphans in their distress”, all as a life well worth living, seeking in family and vocation to live in such gentle ways that we reap a “harvest of righteousness” – comes as a deep and cooling refreshment.

James is looking at the big picture. What does a faithful person look like, act like, be like? James is sharing the importance of public faith, of being an example for others. For James, faith is life, and so a faithful life is one lived out, not hidden.  Do not forget who you are.  Whether you are stranded on a desert island or in downtown Toronto, faith is about what God sees and what the world sees.  Hear the word, do the word, follow the word, alone or on a crowded bus. The journey is ours, but others may notice.  Today, and for four more weeks, the writer of James will be one of the mentors we will hear from. The letter probably was not written by the person Paul met in Jerusalem, or the brother of Jesus. In fact, the author probably used the name James to counter Paul’s exaggerated ideas about “faith versus works.”  It is interesting that the letter of James uses a variety of expressions for the gospel, “perfect law,” “law of liberty,” and even “royal law.”  Scholars tell us it was written in perfect Greek, thus not the language used by followers of Jesus. It also has no personal references and no allusions whatever to the Jewish and Gentile conflicts in which either of the above James would have been involved.  Therefore, this book was probably written by a Greek Jewish Christian in the late first or early second century. In fact, James was only accepted into the Christian canon in the fourth century, C.E., A.D.  Practical advice, giving in tone and substance, James reads more like a treatise or sermon rather than a letter.  It was aimed at averting an abstract and therefore an inauthentic expression of the Christian faith.  As the author states in today’s second reading, those who have been privileged to hear God’s word are to let its power take root and then live and act by virtue of that power.

V. 22. “but be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”

V. 23-24 “for if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror, and immediately forget what they were like.”   Is that not what we should all be about?

To only listen to God’s word and not act upon it, is to deceive oneself. Like Moses, James is encouraging us to allow God’s word to continually bring us to be alive to life.  While we listen to the word of God, we are challenged to see who we are and who we ought to be. God plants a seed in us and we need to cultivate it. To see what is wrong and do nothing to become better is to hear the word and yet not let it be a transforming power in our life.  So, the word should have a dual emphasis on hearing and doing.  For the month of September, we will be hearing much about doing and living in creation. For me, James is an ever-practical letter that reminds us that what we hear in worship must then be lived in our every-day life.   Now as soon as I say all of the above, I have to put in a dis-claimer.  Because I find many Lutherans today becoming followers of James and ignoring Paul.  Can we be both followers and practisers of faith and works?  Jewish readers of this text would have identified the word of God as the Torah, live the law and we have faith. Christian readers can take it to mean we have accepted the saving power of God. Which can mean we are back to where we started.  Seeing ourselves in a mirror should help us recognize who we are and to do what is necessary to become all that God intends us to be. James calls us back to integrity and asks us as the community of believers to demonstrate what James called the true religion.

V. 27 “religion is to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

The author of James tells his community to just zero in on the above. Now that sounds kind of innocent, but “keeping oneself unstained” can become complicated.  Now that I have basically repeated myself, let us turn to Mark.

While Mark frames his story as an incident in conflict between Jesus and the pharisees and the scribes, what is really at stake is the question at the heart of religion, to be specific, what we call Christianity.  In contrast to traditions that may or may not bring people closer to God.  In every society, from worship to families, once-beneficial practices easily became rigid customs, such as washing our hands.  For instance, the sprinkling of some water on the servers’ hands before they distribute communion, has no sanitary value. Yet using some kind of disinfectant on the servers’ hands needs to be mandatory in the world we now live in. The bottom line is that the pharisees and scribes made doctrines of their preferences while ignoring the intent of God’s commandments.  When Jesus talked about what was truly impure, He mentioned not one single infringement of ritual laws.  Instead, he gave his listeners a list of actions that harm others, behaviours that defile the perpetrator even as they denigrate others.  Our politicians could learn from that one.  Jesus knew that it is a lot easier to wash one’s hands or follow the rubrics than it is to live in reverence for all of God’s creation.  Jesus also demonstrated which one of these two options brings joy.  Jesus minced no words.  He challenged/challenges all of us to stop deluding ourselves by accepting compliance with regulations as a substitute for the kind of relationship with God that frees us to act out of love and nothing else. So, we look at the author of Deuteronomy one more time.  Deuteronomy and Jesus provides us with the best reason for keeping God’s laws, for honouring creation, namely life itself.  We are created with an interior longing for love and the source of love.  When we are deeply aware, we know that love is our deepest desire.  Remember in Deuteronomy’s time they knew nothing about an afterlife.  But the writer was certain that keepers of Yahweh’s rules and decrees will have a better quality of life right here and now than those who disregard those regulations.  The writer of James was saying the same thing. So rather than grumble about keeping some law, we should be grateful for the life we experience by obeying the rules - driving drunk and too fast instead of following the rules can kill you and others. It is that simple.

I have only touched the surface of these readings today, as is true every Sunday.  But these readings especially, are calling us to an ever deeper, and broader integrity.  Do we admit our own need for conversion and help, in order to grow in grace?  The critiques of others that we heard and read about today, put our own values and integrity on show, and reveal whether our priorities come from God touching our lives or, just because we have a desire to look pious?  When we discuss what “should” be done, our remembrance of Moses and Jesus and others in scripture demands that we question whether our interpretation of God’s will is life-giving or self-serving?  Jesus did not convert many of his adversaries.  What he did do was invite everyone to explore the depths and meaning of humanity.  Most of them did not take him up on it.  Even more interesting those who did listen and did something, were by and large outsiders.  Religion is caring for others and freedom from false values of society. 

So again today, we are challenged to balance God’s laws with our love of others.  Remember Hebrews 4:12 reminds us that “the word of God, is like a two-edged sword.” Sometimes, like the pharisees, we place rules and conditions on how we share our love and who is worthy of receiving the gifts and the love we have to offer.  Looking at Jesus we find an example of a hearer- and a doer – of God’s word.  Today we are called to be – and do - the same.  Finding and following our deepest desires will free us to follow Jesus who was accused of many things, but he was never accused of failing to love.  God through Jesus understands we struggle in our human weakness.  We live in a secular world that measures our worth by what we accomplish and possess.  But God wants to draw us closer into a loving relationship with him.  The good news of these texts today is that we are called to examine ourselves, revealing our hidden shortcomings, and that will draw us into a closer relationship with God and humankind.  Yes, we are called today to reflect and introspect and in so doing we will find repentance that is [metanoia] change and forgiveness.  When we do that, then we discover the joy of our truest selves, by transforming our hearts to love, seek peace, and walk in companionship with the poor and the marginalized.

Finally, I believe, as a new school year begins, we share with Moses a hope that our children will have the blessings of life.  We pray they will enter into a place where we no longer have to carry them but that they will enter and claim the inheritance, that God has for them.  May our worship and life show our children the wisdom and justice of God’s teaching, so they may trust in God’s promises and receive abundant life.

Let us never forget;

This is my father’s world, and to my listening ears

All nature sings and round me rings

The music of the spheres.

This is my father’s world; i rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas.

His hand the wonders wrought.

[ELW 824 v. 1]

And so;

We lift our voices, we lift our hands,

We lift our lives up to you:

We are an offering.

Lord, use our voices, lord, use our hands,

Lord use our lives, they are yours:

We are an offering.

All we have, all we are,

All that we hope to be,

We give to you; we give to you.

We lift our voices, we lift our hands,

We lift our lives up to you:

We are an offering.

 we are an offering.

[ELW 692]

Amen

Liturgy is Only Authentic, if it Leads to Changed Lives

Sermon, by Pastor Ronald Nelson

Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost

August 25th, 2024

Joshua 24:1-18

Psalm 34:1-22

Ephesians 6:10-20

John 6:53-69

Twenty-First Sunday in ordinary time.

Turtle Island

Well, here we are. This is the last Sunday we will be using the Gospel of John for awhile.  But you have not gotten rid of me yet! Or maybe you have? Next Sunday we get back to my favourite Gospel, Mark.  Or a special worship on creation?

In the 1970’s, Robert Zimmerman wrote, “Gotta Serve Somebody.”  His message was,

“you may be an ambassador to England or France,

You may like to gamble; you might like to dance…

But you are gonna have to serve somebody…

It may be the Devil or it may be the lord,

But you are gonna have to serve somebody.”

Like all genuine gospel music, the song is not just singable, it challenges some basic common assumptions – This one goes to the heart of our culture’s addiction to individualism and independence.

The fact is that as we head towards our election next year and the USA in 3 months, we must understand that we are obsessed about preserving our individual rights, which is a clear and ironic illustration of the truth of the above chorus.  The minute we discover what orients our decisions, what we would protect at any cost, we know what we serve – consciously or not. Bob Dylan could have been paraphrasing what we hear Joshua saying in today’s first lesson. In today’s first reading, Joshua gathered his people and called them to make a solemn commitment.  They were to proclaim publicly whether or not they wanted to serve the lord who had freed them, fed them, and brought them - a unique people - to the Holy Land. They swore enthusiastically that they would always serve the lord their God. Their common identity came from God’s work and their response.  We know they kept that commitment as “perfectly,” as we keep ours!

All of this leads into our final reflection on John 6, the moment when we hear the reaction of Jesus’ various disciples. The readers of Joshua and John detect an atmosphere of crisis. Would they remain faithful to God or not? Their decision was entirely free. God does not coerce, God simply invites. Or as we heard last week, “wisdom invites, cajoles, and persuades, it never commands.”  When Jesus finished explaining that he, Jesus, was the bread given for the life of the world, the majority of his disciples came to the conclusion that it was too much for them to accept.  Are we any different today?  Some of them apparently cherished the concept of a more mysterious God who stayed on the heavenly side of creation, a God they could worship from a safe, cultic distance.  Others realized that the God Jesus represented in his own total self-giving, could only be served in an imitation of that same love, and they found that too costly.  The writer of John explained their reactions by simply saying, “because of this many of his disciples turned back, and no longer went about with him.”  This basic decision is always a turning point. And for many, probably most, they returned to their former way of life.  John does not tell us how Jesus felt. The writer of John only tells us that Jesus knew that some of the disciples lacked faith and that even one of them would betray him.

Of course, Jesus told his disciples that they could come to him without the help of God’s grace, but even with that, did he expect so many to walk off, to leave him?  John implies that when Jesus looked to see who remained, the group had shrunk to a mere twelve. A lot less romantic way of explaining how there came to be 12, instead of the twelve tribes of Israel idea that is often used to explain the 12 disciples.  Which is the way we have often explained happenings in the bible.  Sad to say, making up some grand idea instead of just admitting the facts.  We can only imagine the look on Jesus’ face and the tone of his voice when he asked, to the last of his followers, “do you also wish to go away?”  The pharisees had begun to talk about eternal-life, the Sadducees refused to go there.  The Sadducees felt that believing in heaven created too many complications.  I have to confess; I lean towards the Sadducees.  Remember, as I quoted last week, the church wants you to “think for yourself.”  John 6 paints a picture of Jesus offering us, eternal life.

The writers of Joshua and John presume there are times when we are forced to choose between at least two ways of looking at our faith.  In all of the gospel of John, this is probably Jesus’ most vulnerable moment. When you offer yourself to someone else and they turn you down, (I am sure some of us have been there) it sure leaves you vulnerable.  On the other hand, it was also the natural result of offering himself for others.  Therefore, it was all Jesus could do, he offered himself.  The results depended on their openness to his gift of life. Yes, the teachings of Jesus usually led/leads to division. “How can this person give us his flesh to eat?” Taking the literal sense of these words, they missed Jesus’ point.  Jesus’ teachings may have been challenging but he did not shy away from them.  Peter spoke for his fellow disciples, by responding to Jesus’ question by asking a question (something Peter had learned from Jesus to do).  “Lord, to whom can we go?”  Then Peter added, showing he had listened, “you have the words of eternal life.” “We have come to believe and know that you are the holy one of God.”  Now of course Peter did not fully understand the implications of what he said. Nevertheless, what he said committed him and his companions to continue as Jesus’ disciples with all of the unpredictable repercussions that would entail.  I wonder if the founders of this congregation, really understood what they were doing when they took the name St. Peter?  Peter had his strengths and his weaknesses. He was not perfect, but his misunderstandings of the faith help us to think about our faith. Peter’s portrait of the process through which they came to believe in Jesus is certainly worth looking at. 

So, here we are, we have been contemplating Jesus as the bread of life for five weeks.  That is almost as long as Lent and longer than Advent. We have had time to ponder how God has shown, and shows us, love and care.  As we now reach to the end of this immersion into the Gospel of John, the scriptures are inviting us to stand with Joshua’s Israelites and Jesus’ disciples as they are asked about their commitment; after remembering so much about God’s goodness, after hearing the promise of life-giving bread and being reminded that God draws us to this idea of a Christ who loves all and draws us into our deepest longings.  Yes, now it is time to review our own fundamental allegiance.  Please remember we do not need a Billy Graham altar call. You will have one in two weeks when your pastor is back, and the Eucharist will be offered.  For now, we need to renew our deeply personal and public dedication to God.  Please think of your next time at the Altar for Communion as a re-enactment of the pledge Joshua was calling forth in our first lesson today.  Just think of what we are saying when we say “amen,” at the end of our service today.  As Augustine said, “are we willing to receive what we are and to be what we receive?”  Jesus’ offer to those who would receive him is nothing less than an invitation to an adventure of unlimited love that leads to unlimited life. Those disciples who had remained with Jesus understood the implications of all this. Remember they said, “this is too hard.”  Those who were concerned primarily with their own well-being were not able to stay with him without the grace of God.  So that part was “easy,” but now this is where it gets hard.  Because if we allow ourselves to be drawn by grace, we will become counterintuitive, and countercultural. We will become a faith of empathy for people of diverse humanity. We will not practice the theology of cruelty, exclusion, and malice that so many seem to proclaim as Christianity today.

The hymn “Onward Christians Soldiers” is just beyond the pale.  Early Christianity was largely pacifist. I have never been quite there, although my six years in the Marine Corp was about as safe as it could be, it was not long after I was in Canada that people said to me, “you can never go back to the USA with your views on Vietnam.” So it was too much, is too much, for many would-be disciples.  We hear it again, “do you also want to leave?” and we should not be surprised that most of our friends and family have walked away.  You see this is what liturgy is all about, my preaching, Sonya’s playing, our singing, and praying, and listening is only authentic if it leads to changed lives. Faith is a gift, but it is also a choice. Paul was in jail when he asked his readers to pray that he would proclaim his faith boldly. It is hard work to preach and believe in daunting times. I, as a preacher, fear, on one hand, to sow division or misunderstanding but on the other hand, I fear failing people by an overcautious silence. I believe in placing these readings before us today, the church is affirming the crisis which is at the heart of Christian commitment.

So, for us addicts of freedom, as we have meditated on Jesus as the bread of life, I ask the following questions to myself and to you, knowing full well that none of us live up to the answers of these questions, even with God’s help. But we still need to ask ourselves these questions.  Do we make God the centre of our lives?  Do we live in such a way that our daily decisions and choices bear witness to our relationship with God?  Do we live in mutual faithfulness and service to spouses and family?  Do we accept the wisdom of God as our guide on this earth?  In other words, does faith permeate all that we do?  Remember in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures we find a God who has given us free will.  Interestingly, the more we use that free will, the more we actually become like the God we are trying to imitate.

Today is a turning point, yet another opportunity offered by God. How do we decide? How will our decisions affect the rest of today? How shall they reshape tomorrow?  We “gotta serve somebody.” And so, today, like every worship service we partake of, we ask, “are we all in?” and we hear God ask,

“Will you come and follow me

If I but call your name?

Will you go where you do not know

And never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown,

Will you let my name be known,

Will you let my life be grown

In you and you in me?”

“Will you love the you you hide

If I but call your name?

Will you quell the fear inside

And never be the same?

Will you use the faith you have found

To reshape the world around,

Through my sight and touch and sound

In you and you in me?”

[ELW 798 v. 1 & 4]

Amen.

Wisdom invites, cajoles, and persuades. It never commands.

Sermon, by Pastor Ronald Nelson

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

August 18th, 2024

Proverbs 9:1-6

Psalm 34:1-14

Ephesians 5:15-20

John 6:51-58

(Twentieth Sunday in ordinary time,

Turtle island)

We are dealing with a decidedly and unmistakable Eucharist IC motif these Sundays, and not offering communion makes it a tough call at best and just plain hard for me as the preacher.

I looked back at our last red hymnal [service book and hymnal] published in 1958. The way they handled this situation then was to have one set of lessons used year after year and to almost completely ignore the Gospel of John.  Before I was an ordained pastor, I could lead worship and preach  sermons without worrying over the lack of communion services. In fact in the summer of 1963, two years before I was ordained, I did just that for three months. As I have said before, if we had continued in that mode of ignoring much of scripture and having communion often only four times a year, I doubt I would be preaching today.  It is also interesting that Dr. Karoline Lewis in her writings on the gospel of John said, “my commentary on chapter 6 has deliberately postponed a discussion on communion. Why? Because it does not include in its writings, the words of institution, etc.”  So with Dr. Lewis’s blessing I will struggle with these texts as we do not again have communion today?

Having gotten that off my chest, let us move on then with the lessons.   As a prelude to the Gospel today, the first reading from proverbs sets the tone.  David f. Ford said, “wisdom has on the whole not had an easy time in the recent centuries in the west, yet it may be making a comeback.”  The wisdom texts of Hebrew scriptures address the practices of ordinary life more than the great events of history.  Why?  Because they attend to those who suffer.

Therefore, in our times of great suffering and the superpowers’ indifference to ordinary life, it may be a good time to think again about wisdom.  L’Arche, in spite of its leader’s transgressions, is an example of wisdom listening to the needs of god’s people. Wisdom, in our text today, is personified as a gracious hostess,  who prepares a feast and offers it freely to all who have  sense enough to accept her invitation.  But the most striking characteristic of this account is the importance it gives to women.  [just think of the two leaders of the republican party and what they say about women and yet most of their supporters profess to being Christian.  Go figure!]  Wisdom invites, cajoles, and persuades - it never commands.

No one can survive without wisdom, the way of wisdom is the way to the understanding of life.  In John’s gospel we find Jesus as the wisdom incarnate.  Then Ephesians continues to talk about how believers should conduct themselves at the communities’ gatherings.  What these readings then are doing is giving us some guidelines as to how we conduct ourselves not only at worship but in the world.  Now what we have in today’s scripture lessons and in fact on any given Sunday is contradictory characteristics of the writers’ various theologies.  So, for instance, the old SBH I just mentioned, was not honest in almost totally ignoring the gospel of John, and neither are non-liturgical pastors who keep riding their same “hobby horses” Sunday after Sunday.  So if we were to follow proverbs and never use the book of Job, we would be doing the same thing.  Biblical wisdom is often portrayed as predicting what God would do.  In that mode, we can always predict that God will always give me everything “I” need, “especially a long and meaningful life.”  But if I ignore god’s specific rules and regulations I and my descendants will live miserably and die young. If that is true, what about the book of Job? No matter how well Job “a just man” adhered to God’s laws, he always got the dirty end of the stick.  Everything went against him.  He and his family were constantly punished.  I am sure we have all known people like that, in fact it might be us.  We have done everything right and yet we have suffered. Thus in Job we find there is no predictability in God’s actions.  Even when Yahweh eventually appears to Job, Job’s questions are never answered. Basically God says, “I am divine and you are not.  You will never understand why I do what I do, so stop worrying about it.”  Is it any wonder that Rabbi Kushner made big dollars in 1981 with his book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.”  But today our readings all come down on the side of proverbs.  The author of proverbs pictures a great banquet, providing food and drink that takes care of our thirst and hunger for a lifetime. 

The writer of John puts some of the same wisdom in the mouth of Jesus, when Jesus speaks about, what some of us would say, is “the Eucharist.”

And then John’s Jesus takes the effects of food and drink beyond his life into eternity.  Even the writer of Ephesians seems to assure his readers that if they revolve their lives around doing the will of God, things are guaranteed to go well with them for the rest of their lives. Now I am sure that is what you would like me to say, right?  But what I am about to say is, our faith is not, or at least should not be, simply a matter of black and white.  I think the Lutheran church finally began to get our theology on the Eucharist right in the 1970’s when we began to understand what Paul and his students were saying about the Eucharist rather than when we just tried to ignore the gospel of John and hoped people would not ask about communion. [“Visible Words” by Robert w. Jenson is a good example, of how we began to get it right.]  For me as I look at these lessons there comes forward a subtle but meaningful practice at communion.  The way I, as a pastor, and the assisting minister do it, and I think Pastor Joel does the same, we eat and drink after everyone else has eaten. In other words in the Eucharist we, like those feeding the 5000, symbolically, only eat when everyone else in the community has eaten.  To be a disciple is to be a servant like Jesus was. Jesus put the needs of others ahead of his own. Discipleship means to offer one’s time, talent and treasure as food for the many hungers of god’s people.  Yes, if we are to be disciples we must have a capacity for compassion that overcomes conceit and self-centeredness with concerns for others.    

We Lutherans used to argue that we had to have some kind of scholarship understanding of the Eucharist before we could partake of it.  Finally, as I mentioned above, we began to understand that first Corinthians 11 was not talking about knowledge, but about our failing to share the food [bread and wine] with everyone at the table.  The basic idea is that the hungry should be fed by you and me.  Without that as part of our mandate then the liturgy of word and sacrament is incomplete.  Paul understood and hopefully we do as well.  Only when the poor are well fed by the generosity of the assembled community is the Eucharist  complete.  Raymond E. Brown’s “The Gospel According to John,” suggests that the whole of John 6 reflects the liturgical setting of a Christian Passover-Paschal feast which remembered; the gifts of the manna in the wilderness, the loaves and the fish in Galilee, and Jesus’ death on the cross.  All within the context of a Eucharist IC celebration.

Sadly, we Christians have missed the mark on carrying out most of what Jesus tried to teach. We had crusades to kill the infidels, we killed witches, and we privatized our faith to the point that “saving our soul” was all that counted and worst of all, we justified the above and much more by wrongly  citing scripture.  The writer of Ephesians said, “watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons, but as wise… do not continue in ignorance.” So we as Lutherans especially continue to struggle with the meaning of the Eucharist.  All is a matter of faith, not logical or scientific fact. We can only grasp it through the wisdom of faith.  We do this by witnessing in awe and wonder before god, speaking and doing no evil, dedicating ourselves to good works, and pursing peace in our lives.  We as Christ-bearers must offer our whole selves to others, and to God’s wise plan for justice and peace in the world.  For me the bottom line of all of this is that God comes to us because we do not know how to go to her.  We are connected to one another.  We are all family.  The human family is one flesh, and whatever happens to anyone of us happens to all of us.  Any attempt to divide the human family is an attack on all of us. The war in the Ukraine is a “good/bad” example.  Oppression and exploitation of many will always eventually afflict everyone.

Justice and the common good are the only antidote to global suffering and sickness. It is rather simple and easy to go to church and to receive the bread and the wine. But it is another thing to actually be the church and experience life around us. Each week I want to do what the Rev. Marbury Anderson did for me as my pastor in the 1960’s.  I was 25 and about to be ordained when Pastor Anderson wrote the following for 8th graders in 1965: “during this course, when you are probing the significance of Christ in your life, remember that your church is not interested in giving you a lot of trite answers to your questions about being good, about life, death, and eternity.  Instead, your church wants you to read, study, and think for yourselves, to let the Holy Spirit so increase your faith in Christ that you find those answers that are meaningful to your life.”   I understand proverbs as being like a mother who always wants to first comfort her child.  My mother was like that, but then she would talk to me about some of her “Job” like trials.  One trial she had was, she had multiple sclerosis and yet she lived to be 92.  I will be honest, every time I have a pain, I wonder if I have not inherited MS from my mother. 

As I share the above two experiences with you, I say to me and I say to you.

Come and seek the ways of wisdom,

She who danced when earth was new.

Follow closely what she teaches,

For her words are right and true.

Wisdom clears the path to justice,

Showing us what love must do.

Listen to the voice of wisdom,

Crying in the market place.

Hear the word made flesh among us,

Full of glory, truth, and grace.

When the word takes root and ripens,

Peace and righteousness embrace.

Sister wisdom, come, assist us,

Nurture all who seek rebirth.

Spirit guide and close companion,

Bring to light our sacred worth.

Free us to become your people,

Holy friends of god and earth.

[ACS 971]

Listening to this wisdom,

We will begin to understand

Build a longer table, not a higher wall,

Feeding those who hunger, making room for all,

Feasting together, stranger turns to friend,

Christ breaks walls to pieces,

False divisions end.

Build a broader doorway, not a longer fence.

Love protects all people, sparing no expense.

When we embrace compassion more than fear,

Christ tears down our fences:

 all are welcome here.

[ACS 1062 v. 1& 3]

Amen.