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“Journey with Jonah, part I” – Rev. Tony Romaine – September 20th, 2020
Our journey with Jonah must begin with a little context because Jonah is unlike any of the other prophetic books we encounter, and yet is smack dab in between Obadiah and Micah in biblical order. All of the other prophetic books are written as prophesy that the called prophets would give to the world, and subsequently ours. Jonah actually only speaks one sentence of prophesy to Nineveh and is perhaps the most successful prophet in the history of the known world for the whole town repents and is saved; not something that can be said for Isaiah, Jeremiah, or the other prophets who wrote volumes of prophesy. Instead, Jonah is written more as a biography or historical account than prophesy. And so, one must ponder what the reason is to include it in the prophetic part of our Biblical canon. The reason being that Jonah does end up being quite prophetic, is that the prophesy comes through the life lived and the actions which occur as a mirror for us to reflect on our lives in turn. In this vein, Jonah is then written as satire, a Biblical adventure in overwhelming odds, a character who does not want anything to do with any of it, and as Conrad Hyers states in his book, And God Created Laughter, “a comic portrayal of the Biblical theme of human wisdom and divine foolishness.” By the way, if you are struggling with understanding satire, that last phrase is satire in writing, for it is humanity who thinks themselves wise and God’s ways foolish; while the truth is the reverse. So, with a little context, we can now begin our Journey with Jonah! Jonah begins as most prophetic books do, with a call from God. God speaks to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come before me.” And like so many prophets do at first, Jonah does not immediately answer. But Jonah takes it even further, he tries to escape God and escape the call that God is placing on his heart. Not only that, but he tries to escape to the farthest possible place he could go, Tarshish, which most scholars agree is a reference to a port in Spain all the way cross the Mediterranean Sea. There are underlying themes here, which are important for us to bring up, as they will surface again and again as we journey with Jonah. One is the fact that Jonah is forgetting that the God he worships is not just the God of the physical land of Israel, but is the God of every time and place and people. God is the creator of all the lands and seas, and so, if Jonah thinks he can escape God by running off to the farthest away place he knows then he is vastly mistaken. For as it says in Psalm 139:7, “Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” Which again alludes to concept of how we often think that our human wisdom is greater than God’s and that we can indeed outrun God. Nevertheless, Jonah does board a ship and begins his voyage to flee from where God is calling him. As the boat was journeying, a great storm comes up and all the “pagan” sailors on board begin praying to their gods. Jonah sleeping soundly in the hull of the ship is awoken to pray to his God too and perhaps the calamity will end. Ultimately, they cast lots and it falls on Jonah to explain why everything is happening. At this point, Jonah says that he worships the Lord who made the sea and all the lands and the sailors get even more worried, for now they know that this man they took on as cargo is fleeing the presence of God and even these “pagans” knew better than to do that. Jonah, being prophetic, remember God did speak directly to him, then knows that what the sailors must do is to toss him over the side of the boat and into the sea in order to make the storm stop. But an interesting thing happens, the “pagan” sailors, the sailors who were not of the God of Israel, who have already tossed cargo over and are at the brink of dying in the sea, try to row back to dry land to drop Jonah off instead of tossing him into the brink. And when they could not, they pray out loud for mercy as they throw Jonah to his seeming death, because they knew it was not right to kill another. Foreigners who had their own gods knew more about the moral right not to kill innocents than Jonah did, ahem foreshadowing! But here we reach the point where Jonah is now thrown into the sea and a large fish or whale or whatever suits your imagination swallows Jonah up. Before we move any further, let us make some connections for our day and age and let us ask the prophetic questions that we are being presented with in this first chapter of Jonah. What are we fleeing from right now? What is it that we are ignoring and trying to run away from? What are we failing to do and thinking that our own human wisdom can keep us from God’s sight, or our own human technology and advancements can keep us from being seen? What is it that in this moment, today, we are being called to cry out for God; what wickedness are we being called to speak God’s truth to? We all have our own personal answers, but here is what God is always calling us to do: Spread the message of love throughout the world! Spread the message of repentance and forgiveness! Spread the message of God’s hope that no matter what and no matter where God is present and is part of our lives and will be forever! Spread the message that God never leaves us, even when we might want to be left alone, and God is always by our side! And if we are honest about our world right now, do we see a world filled with hope? Do we see a people who are loving their neighbors? Do we see a world which cares so much for one another that everyone is willing to do what they must to protect one another? If we are honest with ourselves, our answers to these questions present us with a wake-up call from God who is saying to our broken and divisive world, “ENOUGH!” Now is the time we are called to love again as in days of old. Now is the time we are called to imagine a world where no one is longing for the hope we have in Jesus. Now is the time we are being called to stop running away from God and start running towards God. Now is the time we are being thrown into the sea, being tossed about, and have been swallowed by the large fish. And now is the time we learn why! Which brings us to our next part of Jonah, chapter 2. There is an interesting thought I had about the idea of Jonah being in the belly of the large fish for three days and three nights; this is the amount of time according to Israelite ways that would mean someone was truly dead. Someone was officially dead after they had died for three days and three nights. And this part of historical Scriptural language is important, which is why Jesus when he died was dead for…you got it three days and three nights! The idea is that we must truly die to something in order for God to resurrect us to something new. In Jonah’s case, as we will see, Jonah had to die to himself and his selfish ways in order to truly understand what he was being called to do and still fights it till the end. I present this point right now as we begin this chapter which is a prayer from Jonah from the belly of the fish, or what I deem to be the depths of darkness and death, because as we journey through this, think to yourself, what is it that I need to die to in order to truly repent and turn toward God? What is it in my life that I am holding onto so tightly and will not let go of thinking that my own human understanding is better than God’s wisdom? What is my belief that is not in line with God’s teaching that is preventing me from truly living my life? For as we will see Jonah must almost die in order to be reborn! This is not an easy process though, and Jonah makes it even more difficult because he is the adequate representation of ourselves; a stubborn human! But as he is in the belly of Sheol, which is the dark gray area we can think of as death, he cries out to God and God hears him. Jonah is not done though being a stubborn human, for he initially blames God for throwing him into this place. He blames God for calling him and casting him into the sea. He blames God for his lot in life and wonders when he will ever look upon God’s holy temple, perhaps meaning Israel, ever again. And as his life was slowly fading, it seems like he is awoken to the fact that he must indeed do what God is calling him to, and go to Nineveh. For at that moment, Jonah says that deliverance belongs to the Lord and the deep spits Jonah back out onto dry land, Israel, once more! Jonah at this point is still not fully convicted, and we should not think that this death and rebirth has completed the process of opening his eyes to what God has in store for him, Nineveh, and the world, but as with most things in life; and especially, our life lived in faith…it is a journey. This brings us to the end of chapter 2 and I cannot wait to continue this journey with Jonah with you next Sunday! Until then, spend this week thinking about where God is calling you, to whom God is calling you, what you need to let go of, and how God is speaking in your life. God Bless, Amen!
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“Proclaim Love” – Rev. Tony Romaine – September 6th, 2020
Some of you already know this story because I am sure I have shared it in small groups before; but it is a good one, so bear with me. When I was little, I grew up in an area of Winona, MN that was close to train tracks and the river and industrial areas with trucks and everything. Well, my mother used to tell me that I was not to play on the train tracks or near the factories and all that dangerous stuff. Inevitably, one day I came home from doing the exact opposite and playing where I was not supposed to and she told me, “I know you were playing on the train tracks and you are in big trouble!” I was astonished because I was all alone and no one saw me or could have called and let her know. So, naturally I asked, “How did you know?!” And she told me something that would forever change my ability to contradict my mother for years to come, as she said “Jesus told me!” And while I did not comprehend what this truly meant until I was much older, it was in that moment I realized I would never be able to get away with anything ever again, for Jesus was there watching over me! So what does this have to do with proclaiming love, or with our Gospel passage about reproving a fellow worshipper? Well, in this Gospel passage that is seemingly a lesson on conflict management, we hear the ways in which we are called to confront and be present with others and how Jesus is there watching over us in those moments. We know this because God tells us in Ezekiel, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live.” We know this because Jesus tells us in Matthew, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” And we know this because we are reminded by Paul that “any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” God does not want us to forever remain wicked, lost, broken, and quarreling. God longs for us to come together, to confront wickedness, to reconcile if at all possible, to forgive, and to do all of this through the love of Jesus Christ. Indeed, the lesson we can extrapolate for our community and our world is that we must proclaim love and conflict within our congregation and community in order to make sure that no one is outside of the holy law of God, that no one is disparaged or going counter to the community, and that whatever we bind on earth or loose on earth will be the same in heaven. Which means that the ultimate goal of this confrontation is not to make sure I am right and you are wrong, it is not to shun or shame, it is to correct, reprove, and repent, as we heal and forgive and become stronger through working through our conflicts, not burying them and letting them fester and rot. Moreover, the way we go about this though is where we find our purpose for proclaiming love. Because, the purpose for confrontation is not to win an argument or to make sure everyone knows who is, or is not, smarter; rather, the tool we are called to use to confront one another is love. Not wickedness which leads us down paths of jealousy, greed, or earthly desires. But God’s love which we experience through reconciliation and forgiveness. Which is why we get the concept of wherever two or three gather in Jesus’ name, Jesus is there; and when we gather in Jesus’ name, when we gather and call ourselves Christians, we must do so in love. This is so very important for us to understand in our broken world today. That when we gather and call ourselves Christians, when we use the adjective of our Lord’s name, we must do so as if Jesus is present. How differently would we treat our neighbors if we knew Jesus was standing right there? How differently would we talk to one another and hold one another if we knew Jesus was right there with us? How much wonderful could our world be if when we were in the middle of confrontation whether we are calling someone else out or we ourselves are being called out if we knew Jesus was right there with us? The truth is our world would be a completely different place because of the eternal love of God that would be constantly on our mind. We would not want to disappoint Jesus standing there and be reproved by our Savior for not loving enough would we! We would not want to use words that we know are foul and offensive because our Savior is right there with us! We would purposefully seek to listen and understand one another for we know that is what Jesus calls us to and He is right there! We would love one another so much more for we know that our Savior is Love Incarnate and he is right there! So why are we so wicked Israel? Why must we die? We have every piece of information we need to proclaim love. We have all the lessons of Jesus we need to go out and treat one another with respect, as if Jesus were right there with us. We even get the lessons and instructions of how to approach someone who has wronged us and work toward forgiveness. And yet, we are still wicked and stray from proclaiming love to one another, to holding one another in love. We focus on the law and how the law says we must treat one another and we forget that the fulfillment of the law is love. We focus on what sexuality someone is, what nationality someone is, what color someone is, what gender someone is, what religion someone is, what “you name it” someone is; and we lift up commandments as examples of laws they are breaking. Or worse yet, we create laws to make them stumble and fall. And all along, we are the wicked ones preventing love from being proclaimed. We are the ones who need to be brought up on charges of not loving enough. We are the ones who need to be reminded of how much we are loved and that love is not just for us. We need to be reminded that Jesus is right there longing for us to proclaim love. Nothing, no law, no rule, no nothing at all is more important than this. No “yes, but what about this…” No, “well Jesus meant this…” No, “well historically this means this…” Nothing is more important than loving our neighbor as ourselves. Not because the law is not important and should not be followed. Rather, through loving our neighbors, through proclaiming love to one another, through loving someone so much as to confront wickedness with love; the law is fulfilled, God’s law of love is fulfilled. And when all seems lost and the world seems bleak, and we do not know how we should do this or what we should do; or if we even have the power and ability to do any proclaiming of love, we get this great verse from Paul’s letter to the Romans, “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Hear those words in your heart: the armor of light, the love of Jesus, the proclamation to the world that wickedness and hate and evil and violence and darkness is not what will conquer us; but light and forgiveness and mercy and love. I shared that memory of my mother using Jesus as my protector and guardian (and apparent tattle-teller!) at the beginning of today because the truth is that Jesus is not only with us whenever two or three are gathered, but is with us all the time and every where we go. God is always with us and that is why we can put on the armor of light. It does not have to be our strength, our spirit, our armor; it is God’s Holy Spirit in and through us proclaiming love, it is the love of Jesus Christ poured out for us that pours through us. And when we turn away from wickedness, when we turn toward our God, that light shines on us and we see anew like a fresh morning sun. So, let us fulfill all of God’s laws. Let us turn from darkness, let us confront the wickedness within and without, and let us bind one another in the proclamation of God’s love, of the grace of Jesus Christ, and in the light of the Holy Spirit; as we gather forever in the presence of Jesus, let us be fulfilled in proclaiming love. For Jesus is with us, always and forever, Amen! “Great is Your Faith!” – Rev. Tony Romaine – August 9th, 2020
According to Webster’s Dictionary, faith can be defined as: allegiance to duty or a person, loyalty, fidelity to one’s promises, sincerity of intentions, belief and trust in and loyalty to God, belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion, or something that is believed with especially strong convictions. But sometimes we can get bogged down in definitions, so, I also looked up some quotes about faith to possibly help us digest it a little more: “Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”
“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
“Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.”
“I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.”
“Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain, that someone could stake their life on it a thousand times.”
“It is a mistake to equate knowledge of God with mere information, it is also a mistake to think of faith as a desperate leap in the dark. Christian faith and life are inseparable from reliable knowledge of the character and purpose of God.”
Perhaps that helps a little more, with the wisdom of others guiding our thoughts, but because we are also denominational in our beliefs and we belong to the UCC and the UMC, here is how we define faith according to our denominations: United Church of Christ Statement of Faith We believe in God, the Eternal Spirit, who is made known to us in Jesus our brother, and to whose deeds we testify: God calls the worlds into being, creates humankind in the divine image, and sets before us the ways of life and death. God seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin. God judges all humanity and all nations by that will of righteousness declared through prophets and apostles. In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Lord, God has come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the whole creation to its Creator. God bestows upon us the Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races. God calls us into the church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to be servants in the service of the whole human family, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil, to share in Christ's baptism and eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory. God promises to all who trust in the gospel forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, the presence of the Holy Spirit in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in that kingdom which has no end. UMC Basics of Faith Our Christian Beliefs: God God, who is one, is revealed in three distinct persons. Our Christian Beliefs: Jesus We believe in the mystery of salvation through Jesus Christ. God became human in Jesus of Nazareth; and his life, death and resurrection demonstrate God's redeeming love. Our Christian Beliefs: The Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit is God's present activity in our midst. When we sense God's leading, God's challenge, or God's support or comfort, it's the Holy Spirit at work. Our Christian Beliefs: Human Beings Genesis 1:27 asserts that we've been made in the image of the Creator. Like God we have the capacity to love and care, to communicate, and to create. Our Christian Beliefs: The Church The church is the body of Christ, an extension of Christ’s life and ministry in the world today. Our Christian Beliefs: The Bible We believe that the Bible is the primary authority for our faith and practice. Our Christian Beliefs: God’s Reign The kingdom or reign of God is both a present reality and future hope. So now armed with all of this wonderful knowledge and with definitions galore, we should easily be able to understand, talk about, and know how great our faith is, right?! Well, if you are like me, you realize it is not so simple and that is what indeed is the Greatness of our faith. Faith is absolutely something that we can define and add thoughts to and put on paper. And certainly, a faith that is not able to reason and describe why it is that we believe a certain way, is a faith without legs to stand upon. However, there is also part of our faith which is inherently indescribable. Like in Isaiah when we hear God speaking through the prophet asking us if we were there at the moment of creation; asking us if it was us who directed the Holy Spirit; asking us if it was us who instilled all knowledge. Faith is trusting in our God enough to say, “You know what, I could not possibly know all the ‘ins and outs’ of creation, for I am not the Creator, I was not there at the moment the universe was made, and I am certainly not all-knowing.” Faith is being able to abandon myself to trust in God that there is a plan and reason that is beyond my understanding at work for good in our world. Faith is trusting that God has us, and made us, amidst all this splendor for a particular reason in our own unique way to become part of the Great Mosaic which is God’s and God’s alone. This leads us to a deeper level of faith in which we understand how we are one person weaved together in and among a multitude of God’s Creation. But in order to better understand this part of our great faith, we need our reading from James where we hear about favoritism. Faith is trusting that God does not have favorites. Well, let me tweak that just a little, God does have favorites; it is just that we are all God’s favorites! Faith is believing and trusting that I, as we previously covered, do not have all the answers and cannot possibly know why each and every one of us were made. But if I am God’s favorite, then so are you; and if you are God’s favorite, so am I! And if we are all God’s favorites then who among us will perish? Who among us should be persecuted? Who among us should be denied basic human rights? Who among us, God’s chosen people, God’s favorites, should not be allowed to live a dignified life? Who among us should be hungry, poor, homeless, or forgotten? You and I both know the answers to these questions, and they are convicting. And this is why we get the wonderful lesson at the end of this passage from James that reminds us we are to love our neighbor as ourselves and not show partiality. Why? Because indeed we know the answers to the previous questions, and we are all God’s favorite! Which leads us to our Gospel passage for today and indeed what a great faith means. A great faith means that I am enough, you are enough, and our God loves us. A great faith is willing to take risks to approach God and ask for the very things we need. A great faith is trusting that I indeed am one of God’s chosen, one of God’s favorites and that when I approach and kneel before my God, God will see my faith and heal me, hold me, and love me. A great faith is willing to argue and debate and trust in our God. A great faith is willing to kneel before Our Savior and be fed by the scraps or by the loaf itself. A great faith is trusting that even when we think we are beyond salvation; Jesus’ grace extends to us all. A great faith is saying, “Lord help me,” then trusting, hoping, and believing that help will come. And a great faith is knowing; not just thinking, not just saying, not just doing out of habit; but actually knowing in the depths of our soul and believing in every level of our being, that whatever this world may throw at us, our end is infinitely eternal in Christ Jesus. Ultimately, what we see is that faith is easy to define but more difficult to live. Faith is a journey which does not end until that one fine day when our faith is rewarded. And the greatness of our faith is not so much in how we define it for others, but how we live it out in our lives. Faith in the Greatness of God, faith in the greatness of our neighbors, faith in the Greatness of the Grace of Christ, faith in the presence of the Holy Spirit…Great is Your Faith, Amen! “Invitation to Abundant Life” – Rev. Tony Romaine – August 2nd, 2020
In my NRSV Bible, the heading for the Isaiah Reading we heard today is “An Invitation to Abundant Life.” And as I was reflecting this week on my message, I came across a troubling statistic. Food insecurity for U.S. households last week reached its highest reported level since the Census Bureau started tracking the data in May, with almost 30 million Americans reporting that they did not had enough to eat at some point in the week leading up to July 21st. 30 million Americans, that is almost ten percent of our entire population who reported not having enough to eat. But let’s whittle that number down a little, if we took ten percent of MN’s population, that would be roughly 500,000 people in MN alone. But maybe this is still too large to think about, so let’s take Little Falls. Ten percent of our population is just short of 900 people, can you imagine that 900 people in our community statistically do not know where their next meal is coming from! But let’s take this one step farther…Our church membership. Ten percent of our church membership is about 20 people. Which begs the question, what is our invitation to abundant life? The abundant life that we are being called to is not solely about what we have to eat, as we hear in our Isaiah Scripture, but also includes where we are being called. We are being called to come to a place where we can have milk and bread and cup and not have to pay anything. We are being called to come to the fount of eternal life and to know that there is no price for what we are about to imbibe, only that we must trust, believe, and live as those forgiven and freed. That is the abundant life that we are being called to; but you and I know there is more don’t we! We are not just being called to trust and believe in the abundant life, but we are being called to live an abundant life. However, to live that abundant life, we must follow in the footsteps of Jesus and that is what brings us to our Gospel message today of the loaves and fish. All too often, when people think of this miracle, they remember the multiplication and how Jesus turned five loaves and two fish into enough food for 5,000 people and then some. And while this is definitely miraculous and not something your run-of-the-mill prophet would be able to accomplish, there is something deeper at work in this passage. At the beginning we hear the words, “Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.” The “this” Jesus heard was the death of John the Baptist. Jesus was obviously affected by the news and wanted some time to process the loss of his close friend and baptizer. But as he was trying to get away, as he was trying to seclude and reflect, the crowds came because they knew where he was. And so, as Jesus often did, instead of turning away and going farther into hiding, Jesus went ashore and healed the sick and cared for their needs. Moreover, not just that he came ashore, he had compassion for them. Jesus knew they needed something that only he could offer, something that only he could bring them…abundant life! Therefore, we see that an invitation to abundant life includes more than feeding, it includes compassion, it includes sacrifice, it includes recognizing the needs of others and being willing to go ashore and help them whether sick or dying or whatever it may be. An invitation to abundant life is one that not only covers the basic needs of food and health, but covers the internal needs of caring for someone. Feeding people and clothing people is one thing, but actually doing it out of a heart of care, of a place of empathy, of a place where you recognize that this is an area where your call to Jesus’ ministry can have affect; that is abundant life. And here is the integral part to our abundant life. Our life can only truly be abundant if it is shared with other people. Are we saved, yes. Are we forgiven and freed, absolutely. But think about what the word abundance means, think about what it means to have or live or be in abundance. Here is a good exercise, repeat after me, abbondanza…this is Italian for abundance. Now I argue you cannot say abbondanza without a spark of joy, without somewhat of a smile, without a sense that your life is filled in some different way. Sure, you can mildly say it, but the meaning changes to just be a word; you miss out on the true meaning of it without the joyful utterance of abbondanza. Okay, enough Italian for one sermon! But I use this exercise to demonstrate that sometimes we have to use words not just say them. Just like we have to live an abundant life, not just exist. And in order to truly live into an abundance, in order to truly have abundance, in order to truly experience what God is calling us through the prophet Isaiah into, we have to share our abundance with others. But just in case you still don’t believe me, hear these words again from Isaiah, “See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.” See, God has called you to an abundant life. You are invited to abundance, and you are to witness to the people. Not so that nations will bow down in fear of our mighty military. Not so that nations will bow down to worship at the altar of our economy. But so that nations see how we are a people who have compassion for one another and want to have part of that dream. Nations will come to us and want to be like us, because our God is not some distant ethereal other, but is living and breathing in the work of our hands and feet. Nations will want to come to be a part of us because they will see that the abundant life we live is one where all people are welcomed to the table. And nations will come and want to be with us, people will want to come and worship with us, because they will know that here they will find baskets filled with bread and fish who are compassionate and share in the abundant life. This abundance does not come without struggle, for we all have unsettled wrestling matches that prevent us from fully experiencing the abundance. We have all been there wrestling with God out of anger, fear, or mistrust. We have all experienced at one time or another a loss of abundance, a loss of life, a loss of trust. But in that moment when we were injured, hurt, seemingly left all alone…what brought us back? An invitation to abundant living! A loved one who would not let us go. A friend who knew just what to say, or knew to say nothing at all. A stranger who stepped outside their comfort zone to be with us. Or God in the form of some sort of angel or another, stepping in to rescue us from despair and give us the bread and fish we needed. Abundant living is not necessarily pain-free living; but compassionate, caring; loving and sharing, in this life Jesus has called us to live. Abundant living is being in the boat in the middle of the lake reflecting on our pain and sorrow, and yet noticing that there are others who need our help. Abundant living is multiplying God’s eternal love for us to the world so that they may too live abundantly. You may not be able to help 30 million people, or 500,000 people, or 900 people, or even 20 people…but you and I both know you are thinking of one right now! And if that one person is the only one you invite into abundant living today, tomorrow, this week…then that is one more than yesterday or last week. One more to reduce the statistic, one more to multiply the loaves and fish, one more opportunity for you to live into your invitation to abundant life! How often have we come to Jesus, come to God and said, “I don’t have enough, I cannot possibly do x,y,or, z!” How many times have we approached our church as a building and said, “We are just a little church, what can we possibly do?” How many times have we gone to God and said, “I am just one-person, what difference can I make?” My friends, we are the loaves and fish, we are the living and breathing bread of life that Jesus has blessed and multiplied. We are the fish that are meant to be shared. We are the disciples of Jesus whom he sends to feed the nations. And when we go forth and follow in Jesus’ footsteps, when we come ashore and tend to the needy, when we actually have compassion for our fellow brothers and sisters who need us the most; that is when all will be fed, none will go away hungry, and God’s invitation to abundant life glorified. So let us RSVP our invitation to abundant living with compassionate hearts, open arms, and baskets filled and ready to share, Amen! “What Would You Ask For?” – Rev. Tony Romaine – July 26th, 2020
Knowing all this, what would you ask for? “Future Glory” – Rev. Tony Romaine – July 19th , 2020
We hear for our Gospel Message today, a parable that is all about judgment, all about good and evil, all about the wheat and the weeds. We hear Jesus tell the disciples that the seeds that are planted are what bring up either the wheat or the weeds. Jesus even goes so far in explanation of the parable to the disciples to let them know that those who are sinners and evil doers will be cast into the fire and terrible things will happen to us. We hear this Gospel passage and it should be no wonder to anyone why so many grow up with a faith based in fear. We hear these words of separating the sinners and the non-sinners and it is no wonder that when people commit sins, they fear the “wrath of the Lord.” And to be completely honest with you, this parable has always made me uncomfortable, because it is difficult for me to hear Jesus; the One who was sent to die for us all, tell the disciples that some will be given glory in heaven and others will perish in hell. Now, side note here, Biblically this parable only shows up in Matthew, so the other three Gospel writers perhaps were of the same mind as me, but Matthew thought it important to include to really hammer home our responsibility to sow good seeds! And yet, to say that some are guaranteed life everlasting and others are not has led to many on earth prejudging other people based on what a group that is currently in power thinks is holy or just. This can lead to persecution of fellow Christians or those of other religions, based on the idea that the “us” is predestined for greatness and we have the correct Scripture and teachings; while the “them” are pagans or heretics or others who are not correct, do not worship properly, and are destined to the fires. Even Jesus himself was a victim of a sect of religious leaders who wanted to remain true to their Scripture, their traditions, their teachings, and yes, perhaps their power. You may think this is not something that we ourselves would do, but we judge people every day. It is just a matter of degree as to how far judgment goes. This is the danger in predestination…people are not willing to let God be the judge, they want to guarantee their after-life, they want to guarantee their salvation, and they will do it at whatever cost; blindly separating the wheat and the weeds, whether they know which is which. And this very parable verifies for some people the theological ideas of predestination and God’s predetermination of who is “in” and who is “out.” See, predestination is great when we are the predestined wheat, but not so much if one is a predestined weed. Indeed, we only like to hear about our lives being predetermined when things work out well. And yet, part of me truly believes that my life is planned and God does have a purpose for me; that my life is not just left up to the whims of the world, but that there is a path laid out for me at my birth and there is indeed a Future Glory for me. So, the million-dollar question is: how do we know if we are wheat or weeds? Here is where we must turn to our Genesis passage about Jacob. What we did not hear today because it would have made the Scripture readings quite long is where Jacob has been or what he has been doing before he laid his head down upon the place which becomes known as Beth-el; the House of God. Jacob is fleeing when he goes to sleep and dreams. Before this moment, Jacob withheld food from his brother in order to steal his brother’s birthright. Before this moment, Jacob dressed up and tricked his father into giving Jacob his brother’s blessing. And Jacob is now on the run and between his homeland and his uncle’s place in Haran. Jacob, if left to our worldly judgment, would not be designated as a nice person or one who is truly holy. Jacob is most definitely a sinner who was jealous of his brother’s birth position, regardless of family ties. And yet, we hear within Jacob’s dream these words: “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; 14 and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. 15 Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” How could this be, we might ask? How could God promise all of this to this sinner, who has done nothing to present himself as worthy of such a gift? How could God reward someone who is a trickster, a liar, and a manipulator? And in that moment, we see what is at the heart of what Paul tells us in Romans when he says: 28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. Those whom God has predestined; God does not forget. Those whom God has planted as wheat; God does not let wither into weeds. Those whom God has loved from the very beginning; God does not allow to be thrown into the fire with the weeds of the evil one. For we may not know how or what is the right thing to do all the time, we may even do the exact opposite of what God wants for us to do; but God does not abandon us, God does not forget us, and God certainly will not allow us to be lost for time immemorial. God is with us, God will keep us, and God will be with us wherever we go! Future Glory This is the hope we get to have when it comes to predestination; the belief that we are of the wheat, that we have been sowed among the good seeds, that from birth we are guaranteed life eternal with our God, with our Creator; and that no sin, no lie, no part of our fractured human lives can indeed separate us from the love God has for us. That as Paul once again reminds us: 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. That is our Future Glory! That we are part of the good seed sown at the beginning of time, that our seed will indeed grow into wheat, and that indeed we are saved. Are there wheat and weeds, that is up to God to know and decide. But I, in my fully sinful state as a humanoid fleshly being, am given hope through the story of Jacob and the blessing God rains down upon him and reminds him of in his dream. For if Jacob, this trickster, liar, cheater, and scaredy-cat can be part of the predestined love of God, then so can my soul, which has also sinned, be forgiven and saved! We are so similar to Jacob in many respects. I do not know about you, but if it were left up to me, I would not consider my life one of complete holiness. If salvation were left up to me to decide, I honestly sometimes would not count myself as wheat. There are moments in my life where I have done things, said things, or acted in ways which would not be considered saintly at all. Indeed, if judgement were left up to me about my soul, I might just place myself among the weeds. But thanks be to God, judgment is not up to me; thanks be to God salvation is not up to me; thanks be to God the place I was planted was in the eternal spring of life where I am sown as the wheat forever and ever, regardless of how many sins might weigh me down like weeds. Because here is what we might miss if we read our Gospel parable too quickly, and why I am glad the disciples asked for further explanation…Jesus is the sower of the wheat. Meaning, we are planted by the One who indeed came to forgive all sins. We are planted by the One who loves beyond love. We are planted by God Incarnate to grow and mature and be ready for harvest when the day of judgment comes. And we are not forgotten when we sin, we are not left to die when we sin, we are not left to run afraid into the darkness when our lives go awry; for Jesus himself planted us and nothing can change that destiny. Perhaps I will be all wrong, and perhaps when it comes to predestination my thoughts are incorrect, but here is what I know about future glory for certain; there is nothing I can do to guarantee what Jesus has already sown into the fabric of my being. There is nothing I can do to alter the love God has for me and for my created state. And while hearing the parable of the wheat and the weeds may scare me as I consider my life; it should only do so to remind me that I indeed am of the wheat and must begin to live my life accordingly. That is the promise of our Gospel passage, that is the hope in Paul’s letter to the Romans, and that is why God comes to Jacob in his dream. To remind us of our future glory, to remind us we are God’s, and to remind us indeed that God is with us, God will keep us wherever we go, and God will bring us back to the land of salvation when God is done with what God has promised us. Now is the moment we get to wake up and dream God’s dream for our life. Now is the moment we get to live into our Future Glory, Amen! “Rooted in the Word” – Rev. Tony Romaine – July 12th , 2020
When I was a child, my parents taught me that I needed to be really careful with the words I used. They taught me that unlike words on the page, once I uttered something, I could not take it back. And while this lesson was lost on me more times than I care to mention, it has stuck with me to this day as a tool to calm my tongue and truly think before I speak. Because words matter! Rooted in the Word Words matter so much that God tells us through the prophet Isaiah that God’s word sent out will not return empty, but will accomplish what God’s purpose is for the world. But how do we know what are the correct words or how and what we should say? Indeed this is the quandary that has flummoxed people for thousands of years. So much so, that we have had holy wars and schisms and killed fellow Christians all in the name of what is right and what is wrong. And yet, none of us are God and none of us can truly know. Therefore, there must be something else we need. Paul almost gets us there in Romans when he speaks of how distraught he is about our flesh. How our flesh and bones do not submit to the law of God, but rather go after the humanly desires of their bidding. How we are weakened in our flesh and need the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ to save us from our wretchedness. This wretchedness of flesh is exactly that which pervades our words. We say things, and spit vitriol and hate toward our neighbor instead of loving them as we would want to be loved. We utter hurtful words which cause us to divide and grow farther apart from one another, rather than unite and live in peace as God desires. We use written word to make laws that demean and dehumanize our fellow Christians, our fellow humans, only so that our power and privilege remain intact. And we use words to ridicule and debase other people’s beliefs, religions, and essence; thinking that in some way, shape, or form, we are lifting up Christianity to where it should be. When in fact, we are lowering it to the depths of the sins of our flesh. So what hope is there for us? Good soil is the answer. The good soil which we spoke about in the Children’s Message. The good soil we are remined of in the Gospel message for today. The good soil that when seeds are planted hold that seed, that Word of God, and allow it to take root and change the soil from nutritious dirt into the fruit that yields one hundred, sixty, or thirty-fold. Good soil rooted in the Word. We must not be so rock hard in our beliefs and in our ways that all we are is a pile of stones. For when the Word of God from whomever is sowing it, falls upon those stony hearts of ours; it will not take root, it will not change us, it will just be there ever so briefly and then blow away in the wind. We must not be filled with the thorns and the brambles of our world which seeks to choke us out on the greed of money, power, lust, and fame. We cannot take any of the treasures of this world with us, but the thorny soil longs for more and more and more and does not care what grasses it chokes out, does not care what flowers it destroys, does not care what fruit it consumes; all it wants is more earthly treasure. The thorny soil only longs after the world of this world and cannot see past their own desires to empathize and understand what pain they are causing others. When God’s Word lands in these soils, it is choked out for its call is too demanding, too expensive, too troubling, too convicting; and so, the thorns of the flesh choke out the Word of God’s love. Instead, we must be good soil, note I did not say soil that always does good; but good soil. Good soil is aerated and open to be filled with oxygen and nutrients. It is open to ideas and discussions. It is not afraid of the seeds that may fall, but is ready to discern between which seeds to hang onto and which to get rid of. Good soil is open to being watered and fed through the Holy Spirit. This may mean that the good soil gets washed out sometimes, that it drinks up more than it can imagine. But the good soil knows that God is in the rain and is thankful for the showers that come. Good soil is sometimes in need of turning and raking and hoeing. It is not afraid to have its world turned upside down and over and over. For the good soil has faith that through the turning, through the jumble comes new life and the promise of a brighter future. Good soil is strong enough, deep enough, faithful enough to withstand the turmoil of life and trust that the seed planted by God’s Word will find its place within good soil. And good soil is open to when that Word of God is planted, to take it in and nurture it so that it may grow and foster a faith-filled fruit; a fruit rooted in the Word. As I was reflecting and planning for this week, I kept coming back to the idea of us planting roots with the words we use. In our modern day and age of busyness and social media and technology, words seem to have lost some of their value. People spread false info, opinions, and hatred and pass it off as fact. People share their “knowledge” on an issue they in fact have no training in, or in which they have no actual experience. And people flippantly use words which spread hatred and harm and have real life consequences; words which give people permission to hurt innocents or systemically degrade fellow humans. And while some think they can innocently spit anonymous hatred throughout our world without damage to self, the truth is our soil is drying up as the winds of hypocrisy, jealousy, and evil eat away at our fruit. It is time we once again become the good soil that God laid down all those years ago. It is time we once again root ourselves in God’s Word. Whether we find that in the Bible, the depths of our hearts, or the words of our prayers. It is time we simplify, and remember the commandments we are being called to enact; to love God as the ultimate planter of our soil, and to love each other as we would want to be loved; as the seed that the Sower has spread. It is time we aerate, water, nurture, and turn up our soils to produce the greatest of fruits. And it is time that our words we use with each other come from the depths of good soil and return through one another to our God in joy and peace; so that the mountains and hills will indeed burst forth before us, and song shall ring throughout the land as all the trees clap their hands in the fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit. Rooted in the Word It matters that we are rooted in the Word of God, in the Word of Christ, in the Word of the Holy Spirit. And this might sound like a daunting task to go forth and be good soil. But if I asked you all to share the Good News with me right now, where would you start? If I asked you to tell me a story about God, what would you share? If I asked you to tell me what you know about God, what would you say? I doubt that you are going to go into the intricacies of temple worship, or tell me about ritualistic holiness problems, or even recite Paul verbatim or the priestly principles of Peter. But what I know you can tell me are the stories of God’s love, of God’s Son, and of the Holy Spirit still working in and through our world; in and through you. We have always had the good soil within us, we have always been rooted in God’s Holy Word, we just need to listen, hear, understand, and nurture that Godly soil. We get so caught up in trying to say the right thing, do the right thing, be the right thing, that we actually bog ourselves down and take something so simple as sharing how we know of God’s love and we ensnare ourselves in complexity, only to lead to inaction. God planted good soil within us so that the Word which is rooted deep within us could sprout and yield and grow unto the world. It is time for us to work our soil into good soil that is prepared for God’s Holy Word and for us to hear, understand, and put into action the seeds of love God planted in us through our creation. It is time for us to recognize that God’s Word has sprouted many fruits; fruits of different color, gender, nationality, race, creed, thought, and place. It is time for us to use our words to spread the seeds of the Holy Spirit that reside deep down inside our good soil and to indeed love our world into changing for the better. It is time for our soil, the good soil rooted in the Word, to yield its fruits of love upon our rocky, thorn-filled world. For God’s Word which resides within us does not return empty; but through the good soils of God’s creation, returns as the everlasting sign that can never be cut off. It is time for our good soil to sprout shoots of love and peace. Good soils of God’s rooted Word, it is time, Amen! “What Then Will We Have?” – Rev. Tony Romaine – July 5th , 2020
There is an engraving made by Pieter van der Heyden. It is titled, “The Land of Cockaigne,” known in Dutch literature as Luilekkerland (country of the lazy and gluttonous).[1] This was a mythical place where there was no need to work, and where food and drink are so abundant that we need only open our mouths to take in what we desire. In the picture, there are a soldier, a farmer, and a clerk; who are sleeping off the effects of their overindulgence. Some of the remains of their meal are strewn on the platform encircling the tree in the center, while the mountain of buckwheat in the background and the house covered with pies at right indicate this land has plenty to spare. The image's moral intent is to decry the vices of sloth and gluttony, which is apparent from the first part of the Dutch inscription on the bottom frame: "The lazy and gluttonous farmers, soldiers, and clerks get there and taste all for nothing." What Then Will We Have? America, we have been given everything we need and yet we desire for more. We have food and drink aplenty, and yet we long for more. We have all the modern conveniences, and yet we want more things that go faster and faster…and for what? Are we so different from the farmer, soldier, or clerk in this print from the 1500’s? Do we not also consume everything, eat everything, have everything; and yet, it is all for naught? What then Will We Have? We hear this very same predicament from our Gospel passage for today. The rich young man, comes to Jesus because he knows something is missing in his life. And so he asks Jesus, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” Jesus responds, as any good rabbi would, with some commandments. So, when the young man responds in kind by saying he has kept all those, Jesus tells him to do the one thing he cannot…sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, then you will have treasure in heaven, then you come and follow me. It is important, that when the young man comes asking Jesus about eternal life, after confirming that the young man is following the commandments, Jesus speaks these words: “If you wish to be perfect…” And while this may be splitting hairs in some circles, Jesus is confronting this young man with the fact that as humans we cannot be perfect. See, for this young man who had all the things of the world and kept the commandments, the last step to perfection was to lift up the poor around him so that they too could want for nothing. And in confronting this young man’s imperfection, Jesus teaches us all about imperfection in general. It is significant that Jesus did not tell the young man that he could gain eternal life by doing x, y, or z; other than following the commandments of course, because it alludes to the point that there is only one who ever was and ever will be perfect, and that is God Incarnate. Moreover, that eternal life is guaranteed through Jesus, not the deeds of humanity. But at the same time, just like the young man, what we are being called to do is examine our imperfections and be confronted with them. Remember, Paul tells us in Romans, it will not mean that we can do anything about our sinful state or sell enough things to bring about our salvation. However, what we can do is work toward perfection and do our best to follow Jesus’ teachings. This brings us to another part of the tension about how we are to live; all Jesus wants is for us to follow him. All Jesus wants is for us to leave everything behind that would hinder our ability to follow Him. For as we hear later, and from where we get our sermon title today, in Matthew 19:27, Peter also asks, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” (By the way, this is truly like Peter to ask the “what’s in it for us?” question, talk about imperfect!) And after Jesus speaks to the end of times and judgment seats, Jesus tells Peter, and all of us, everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, children, jobs, for Jesus’ sake, will receive a hundredfold and eternal life. See, all Jesus wants is for us to abandon ourselves to anything that would prevent us from following him. And while this list may seem harsh that people would leave family or friends or work to follow Jesus; that is exactly what we sometimes are called to do for the greater good. What Then Will We Have? Perhaps you are wondering about why I would give this message on Independence Day Weekend; what possibly could this have to do with celebrating our Independence and America? We have been given a great gift by God and we are gluttonous, slothful, and are destroying our very nation. And while as a historian I understand that nations come and go and countries evolve and dissolve, I have a love for America which causes me to mourn for our present course. We are not only increasingly possessive and reluctant to share with our neighbors, and strangers; but we are also an adulterous country cheating on our relationships with God and with each other. We have broken treaties, we have back-stabbed allies, and we have abandoned our fellow Americans and Christians because we do not agree with them. We use the name of God to promote our own political gains, and we tout ourselves as Christians and belittle others who are Christians because of different beliefs, denominations, or social standing. We are a country who has not only stolen the land which we sit upon today, but continue to rob and steal from those who cannot protect themselves. We have done so under the auspice that God has gifted us this land and “blessed” some while not blessing others; the very same God who told the young man to care for the poor and who told the disciples that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. We allow the rich to get richer and keep the poor downtrodden and poor, where we can control and continue to rob and steal. We lie and cheat and bear false witness against our own brothers and sisters, against our own creation, all in the name of the almighty dollar. All so we can maintain power and prestige, all so we can maintain our ivory towers and treasures on earth. We put down and bear false witness against our neighbors, our family, and our friends, all so we can seem wise in the world or so we can be “right.” We do not honor our mothers or fathers, and we definitely do not love our neighbor as ourselves. This last one is self-explanatory; for if we are honest with ourselves, America is the Luilekkerland that I showed at the beginning, the land where the gluttonous and slothful eat, yet taste for nothing. We consume, consume, and consume while people die in the streets and on the borders, while our neighbors lack clothing and shelter, while people lie sick in hospitals. We think our independence is hindered because we have to wear masks or cannot eat out; while children starve, our family and friends are neglected, and we fatten ourselves at the table of America. And when we come begging God to tell us what we must do, what good deed we must accomplish to have eternal life; we are confronted by our imperfections. Yes, there are things we can do to change our course, to better the lives of all people, to lift up our neighbors; but the real question is what we are going to do about it? Are we going to be like the young man who turned away grieving because his imperfection was too much and he could not bring himself to give his possessions away; or will we respond differently? Perhaps today was a different type of fireworks display than you might have expected. And I am sure some of you are none too happy about my message for today. But hear this, on this Independence Day Weekend; The United States of America needs our help. In the grand scope of history, we are a very young nation, almost 250 years old, but we will not last at our current pace, and we will not last with our current trajectory. And this prophecy makes me none too happy myself! So, on this weekend when we just want to take that break, relax and shoot off some fireworks and celebrate America; let us indeed remember our amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty. Let us be reminded that we are the nation whose God rules from sea to shining sea, from the Mississippi River to the ends of the earth. Let us remember that we are a nation of immigrants, founded by immigrants, strengthened by immigrants. Let us remember all the things that make us great. But let us also never forget that we are only a nation because God allows it. Let us never forget that our lands are not ours; but God’s. Let us never forget that any possession we have does not go with us when we die. And let us never forget that we built this nation on the backbone of slavery and stolen lands. Brothers and sisters, our nation is living tension; because unity is not easy. Our nation is a sinful, slothful, gluttonous nation. And yet, we also have the hope and promise of a bright future. We can be the change, we can end the degradation, we can correct our ways and make sure the sins of our past do not become sins of our future. And we can take all the greatness, all the promise, all the possessions we have and give it all away to follow Jesus. We can lay down our arms, tear down our walls, dash our fears upon God’s rock of hope and follow Jesus. And on that day, a true day of Independence, we will be able to answer the question of “What Then Will We Have?” For on that day, we will truly be a United States of America! On that day, we will indeed be one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And on that day, bells will ring and anthems will roar as we will have accomplished our Christian call to let nothing prevent us from loving God and loving our neighbor as ourself. And on that day, we will not have to ask “What Then Will We Have,” for it will be abundantly obvious, that all will have everything. God make it so! Amen [1] https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/338703. “What Then Are We To Say?” – Rev. Tony Romaine – June 21st , 2020
As the father to a pastor, every year my dad gets to hear what stories have stuck with me; what I usually share as the beginning to my message on Father’s Day. And while I could list a multitude of stories, today I think it is important we talk about what we should say in the first place. What then are we to say? What is there truly left for us to say on Father’s Day in 2020 that has not already been said? What is there that we could possibly explain more about God, how He acts as Our Father, or what that love that comes from Him means? Truthfully, our explanations will most always fall short, and what we have to say is difficult and complicated. But I believe that we, as a society, are missing out on one very important basic step in our process of understanding God; our stories. It is the memories we have and the stories we share that create the bonds of family, the bonds of continuity, and the bonds of love that we must continue to share regardless of how many times we share a similar story. I am reminded of an epiphany I had one time when listening to my Poppy tell the same story again that I had already heard many times. The epiphany I had was that I was not bored having to listen to it again, but that I cherished hearing it again, because I had heard it so many times that it was becoming my story now too! In fact, I find myself sharing those stories over and over again as if Poppy is telling them through me. See, we all too often forget that for most of our human history we did not have this great compilation of God’s Holy Inspired Word, that we now call the Bible. For most of our human history we shared stories, we told the stories passed down from generation to generation, we told of our God who created us out of nothing, who loved us into being, who was a jealous God, but ultimately the jealousy is out of love for us. We shared how God flooded the whole earth but saved one family to begin anew. We shared stories of giant fish, of warrior men and women, of imperfect human beings; and we shared those because they not only allowed us to connect with an otherwise other God, but we shared them because in those stories we found ourselves. In those moments of imperfection where men and women, dad’s and mom’s, children, friends, strangers, and all people lived. We shared because their imperfections were familiar to us; because those very same flaws and failures occur in and through us too. And we shared those imperfections because the humanity of it all was loved across time by an Immortal, Indivisible, All-Powerful, God; who despite our failures, still uses us for good, still believes in us, and ultimately loved us so much as to forgive everything we ever did! Undoubtedly there are stories we do not want to continue. There are narratives that involve slavery, systemic injustice, war, death, sinfulness of humanity and the list goes on. But in an ironic way, we actually need to share these stories too. Not to hold over our heads as a weight that drags us to the depths of the seas; but rather, as a constant reminder that when we fail to know our history, when we fail to remember our past, when we fail to see the sin within ourselves before we condemn the sin in others; we only set ourselves up to repeat the sins of our fathers and their fathers. This does not mean we need to memorialize or celebrate our sinful past; but that we must learn and never forget. This is why the Cross is such a poignant part of our Christian story. A symbol of the place where Christ died, a reminder of what it took for us to gain eternal life, and a constant lesson in what a people will do to their own people out of religious misunderstanding and zealotry. What then are we to say? What we are to say is our story. We are to share what we hear in Scripture today. We are to talk about and remember on Father’s Day, Abraham, the “father” of the three mainline monotheistic religions of the world. As we say in church circles, the three Abrahamic faiths; Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. We are to talk about how Jesus Christ came from Our Father, to return us to Him and that in order to do this God recognized that there was nothing we could do in our power to be completely free from the sins of our humanity. That Our Father in Heaven gave the ultimate gift of becoming Incarnate so that we could recognize and learn and re-shape our pathways of hatred, exclusion, and misguided worship to a pathway of acceptance, love of all God’s Creation, and forgiveness. We must share that there is nothing we can do to gain God’s grace, but that it is a freely given gift from our Father to us. And we must share that while there is nothing we can do to gain eternal life, there is everything we can do to love our neighbor as ourselves in celebration of that gift; so that others may know of our story, of our God’s story, of the unconditional love of a Father. We are to share that Our God is a giver of great gifts. That those gifts do not depend on how much we give back, that those gifts do not depend on who we are or where we live, that those gifts are not all the same, and that the gifts of our Father come with only one string attached…Our God only wants us to love Him. Let me say that again if I can; our Father only wants us to love Him! And in my human understanding of this great story that God has shared with me a thousand times over, this great story of God my Father, I would add that Our Father only wants us to know we are loved. What then are we to say? See this is one thing I feel our churches need to start doing more of; one thing Christians need to start doing more of…sharing the stories of their faith. Maybe that story is one of trial and tribulation where you feel God is a distant father who is never around, sounds like Job to me. Maybe yours is a story of wonder and awe at the very fact that we would be created at all, sounds like Genesis to me. Maybe yours is a story of a humble servant being called to great things despite their short-comings, despite their failings, despite their sordid past or sinful history, sounds like let’s see: Exodus, Jonah, Jeremiah, 1 Samuel, Acts, all of Paul’s letters, Esther, Ruth, and many more! Or maybe the story you wish to share is one where the world was given a chance to change and it did not realize it until it was too late; but now, no matter how late we are, we still have that chance. Sounds like the Gospels to me, or the Prophets, or even Revelations. But please hear me say this, you do not have to be a biblical scholar to share the stories of the Bible. Your life, the stories you share, are the Bible. Your faith through thick and thin is the story that people want to hear. Your trust in God regardless of outcome is what our world needs. Your faith in the eternal life guaranteed by Jesus Christ without being able to see or know is the faith people will gravitate towards. And while you may not realize it, the impact those stories have, the continuity you provide, is what future generations will one day celebrate. Yes, the Bible is God’s Holy Inspired Word, but you are God’s Holy Creation living and breathing, making and sharing, writing the pages of future Bibles that have yet to be printed; the story of God, Our Father, in the world each and every day through your hands and feet! I could tell you stories of a dad who carried me on his shoulders, who taught me to catch fish (or not how to catch fish, right dad!), who threw a baseball with me, who was imperfect and yet also perfect, who was patient and impatient, who was there and not there, who to this day I know loves me and I hope knows how much I love him. And while this is my story, this is also your story. So what we are we then to say on this Father’s Day of 2020? We must share the stories the world has heard a thousand times already, because it needs to hear them again. We are to share the stories that make up our lives. We are to share the stories which make up our faith. And when we have nothing to say, we can fall back on the old standards, the stories we have heard a thousand times over. And in that comfort that comes through knowing the end; through knowing how the whole story ends, it is there we will find ourselves, our fathers, our lives, and our God. Happy Father’s Day, Amen “The Substance of Trinity” – Rev. Tony Romaine – June 7th, 2020
Richard Rohr in an article in the magazine Sojourners said in 2016, “The widespread Christian failure to understand and experience God as Trinity has provided a breeding ground for both implicit and explicit racism.”[1] And so to help us understand the “Substance of Trinity,” I thought it best we talk about diversity and unity within the Trinity. As a UCC and UMC church, we believe that we should be united and uniting. As such, theologian Randi Jones Walker says, "The essential questions facing United and Uniting Churches center on the question, for what purpose are we united?” And answering her own question, she states, “In a world filled with people who, in the eyes of the world are poor, unworthy, guilty, unlovable, shameful, or oppressed, the Church is called to offer family."[2] The family we are called to offer is Trinitarian in structure. We are called to God's vision for humanity, the united difference that exists within the Trinity, and we are called to re-visit our sources of faith to rely on the Holy Spirit, not our own human ability. As such, we are called to venture into our doubts and fears and rely on our ability to be a covenantal people in union with those we encounter. As we strive toward being more welcoming for those of different races, genders, sexes, etc. we will not always have all the answers. In fact, most of the time we will not have any answers, and this is okay. But to help us understand better and perhaps grasp at some answers, Richard Rohr when talking about how God as Trinity dissolves racism once said, “To understand a sin (racism) that is as old as history, it is helpful to go back to one of the oldest questions of human inquiry. How can there be any primal unity to reality when what we see is so much obvious and seemingly conflicting diversity? Is there any unifying pattern to “the ten thousand things” that overwhelm our horizon?”[3] Rohr then further explains, “Let’s look at one of the very destructive effects of a diminished image of God on the ever-present issue of racism. Today, most Christian notions of the Divine are much more formed by pagan and Greek conceptions than by the central Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Even the Latin word for God, Deus, is a direct reformulation of the Greek word for the head of the gods, Zeus. I believe racism is often rooted in this distorted view of divinity; rather than reflecting the One who created all things in God’s own image and likeness, we instead make God into a mascot who, as Anne Lamott brilliantly quips, hates all the same people we do.” In essence, we make God out to be a white, male, authority figure and from this viewpoint, stems the systemic racism which pervades our humanity, theology, and history. We make God to fit inside our box and look like us, instead of being the Omnipotent, Triune God. Instead, what our Trinitarian beliefs are calling us to be; what the church needs to be to the world, is a witness to the fact that difference does not have to delineate. That in this ever-diversifying world, Christianity can come together and celebrate the diversity within its broad arms without hate speech, judgment, or degrading those who are different. In this manner, the church will return to its roots of being on a mission Jesus led us toward during his lifetime. We will be on mission to love our neighbor as ourselves and in so doing demonstrate love to a world that needs it desperately. The Korean theologian Chun-Hoi Heo writes, “The price of peace is not the elimination of differences.”[4] In other words, as we come together in a new and multicultural context, our differences should be lifted up as a strength of a broader community, not lifted up so as to create walls of segregation. Or as Rohr says, “God is precisely one by holding together very real difference. The Triune Godhead itself maintains separate identity between Three, with an absolutely unique kind of unity, which is the very shape of Divine Oneness. God’s pattern and goal has never been naïve uniformity, but radical diversity, maintained in absolute unity by “a perfect love” that infinitely self-empties and infinitely outpours—at the same time.”[5] But herein lies the problem. See, we humans, we like infilling, we like ourselves to be connected and in tune with God. But we do not like outpouring and we do not even know how to make room for that infilling we say we want! Thus, the historical and theological problem that prevents us from truly understanding the Trinity. And the eternal spiritual problem that prevents us from moving beyond denomination and race and gender and class. Our inability to understand and love one another as the outpouring of God’s love; is in and of itself, racism, sexism, classism, ageism, lookism, homophobia, transphobia, imperialism, patriarchy, and all that our tradition refers to as “sin.” So, brothers and sisters, what if instead we focused on what brings us together in diversity instead of what separates us? I am not arguing for a blanket unity where one cannot be different from one another, rather the utopia I am dreaming is Trinitarian; one where, we hold each other’s differences in unison with what holds us all together, not a blind uniformity, but radical diversity bonded in the perfect love of God. A love which is eternally filled via God, a love which we are called by God to pour out unto the world. A love which Rohr describes as why Jesus had to dramatically come. Jesus had to, “personally exemplify the entire path of self-emptying to us, making room for the diversity within God’s creation, and had to teach us how to love one another. Because, the Jesus path is a constant visible lesson in both allowing in and handing on, receiving and giving away what is received. Jesus makes the Trinity visible and attractive, so we can trust this always-daring process ourselves, so we can trust that indeed God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit; even though diverse and unique, are also God.” So we can trust that differences unite us and unity is diverse! For only when we fail to see difference as something that fractures our society, only when we stop seeing uniqueness as something which prevents unity, only when we end the historical cycle of delineating and power pyramids and social classification based on race, sex, gender, or creed; only then will we finally celebrate the diversity within God’s creation, within our world, and within ourselves. And only then, will we finally comprehend and live “The Substance of Trinity!” [1] Richard Rohr, https://sojo.net/articles/how-god-trinity-dissolves-racism, August 25, 2016. [2] Walker, 44. [3] Rohr, https://sojo.net/articles/how-god-trinity-dissolves-racism, August 25, 2016. [4] Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, From Times Square to Timbuktu: The Post-Christian West Meets the Non-Western Church, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2013), 105. [5] Rohr, https://sojo.net/articles/how-god-trinity-dissolves-racism, August 25, 2016. |
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