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Jackie Carl Gets a New Name

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Jackie Carl Gets a New Name” Isaiah 9:2-7 and Psalm 22:9-10

for Tillie Blackbear

“Jeezum Crow! That boy has gotten up to a lot of mischief over the years, but this takes the cake.” It was Ruth Underhill. Pastor Bob had gotten an emergency call, summoning him to Ruth’s farm, and it hadn’t taken much imagination to surmise that the “emergency” was related to Ruth’s grandson Jackie Carl. The boy just seemed to be made for trouble.

At the farm, Bob wasn’t surprised to see that Tubby Mitchell had also been summoned to respond to the crisis. Tubby sat at the kitchen table, studying his cup of black coffee, and while Ruth poured Bob his own cup, she launched into Jackie Carl’s latest escapade. It had involved the outside brick wall of the high school gym and a lot of spray paint. To Jackie Carl’s credit, the graffiti was not profane, just rude and wildly inappropriate.

“You name it, I’ve tried it,” Ruth continued, “Counseling, tough love, heart-to-hearts, prayer, bribery.” She threw up her hands. “Nothing works. Nothing!”

Now Bob was studying his coffee cup as assiduously as Tubby was. In the silence that followed, Bob could hear the kitchen clock ticking. Bob thought about all the trouble that Jackie Carl had gotten into over the years. When the boy was only in second grade, Bob suspected him of swiping the special comb that Eugenia Bergstrom used every Sunday to straighten the fringe on the altar cloth. An exhaustive search had eventually found it, tangled in the mane of a stuffed lion down in the Sunday school room. Then, there had been the time in middle school when Jackie Carl had blown out the exhaust system in his school bus by wedging an enormous potato into the tailpipe. Lately, Bob had heard about fights—two black eyes for the boy who had called Jackie Carl a red-headed loser. When Bob thought about it, the only time he’d seen Jackie Carl truly happy in the past year had been on the lacrosse field, the teenager’s lanky, freckled legs dashing down the field at a blistering pace, cradling the ball, dodging defenders, and launching a shot with a fierce intensity that made even the most steadfast of keepers shrink in fear.

Ruth wasn’t done. “I blame it on his father. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in five years. Five years! At least when he was in prison, we knew where he was. Why my daughter took up with him I’ll never understand. You know, the one time he did visit, he spent the whole time smoking cigarettes on the front porch and staring at his phone. He may have named the boy after himself, but he has never shown a lick of interest in the child.”

Tubby sadly nodded along. Tubby had been thinking, too. He remembered meeting the six-year-old Jackie Carl, all knobby knees, freckles, and carroty hair. The boy had called Tubby out of his grief for his dead son, and the two had forged a special bond as the boy tagged along to fish, camp, and hunt. Each morning of those trips, Tubby and Jackie Carl would begin the day by praying together the Haudenosaunee prayer of thanksgiving with its beautiful celebration of the unity of creation, “Now our minds are one.” For Tubby and his wife Irene, the boy had helped to heal the hole left in their hearts when Todd died in Iraq.

Tubby thought about himself, too, he’d lost his parents at a young age in a car accident, casualties of those days when addiction had been so prevalent on the reservation. Tubby knew there was a good chance that he would have ended up as wild and unsettled as Jackie Carl if it hadn’t been for his grandfather. The legendary wilderness guide had driven north to the reservation from his cabin outside the village and taken Tubby home with him. Tubby’s grandfather had always made sure that Tubby knew who he was, Tionatakwente of the Kanien’kehaka people, the great eastern door of the Iroquois confederacy, but Tubby suspected that Jackie Carl had no idea who he was. Tubby and Bob locked eyes across the table and an unspoken agreement passed between the two men.

Bob leaned forward, “How can we help, Ruth?”

This unlocked a shower of tears from Ruth, who could run her dairy farm with an iron fist but couldn’t tame her grandson. Between sobs, Ruth stammered, “I don’t know I don’t I don’t I don’t know.”

Tubby sighed and reached across the table to lay his hand on Ruth’s, “I’ve got an idea, Ruth. Let me talk to Irene about it.”

When Tubby opened the door to the cabin, he was greeted by the scent of balsam and baking. He had cut a six-foot Christmas tree and brought it home where Irene had worked her magic, winding it with lights, hanging ornaments, and topping it with an enormous God’s Eye that their son Tod had long ago made in Sunday school—bright yarn was woven around crossed sticks to remind them of God’s watchful care and protection. Irene was pulling a tray of Christmas cookies from the oven. Her cheeks were flushed and her long hair, bound by a red ribbon the nape of her neck, was shot through with gray.

Tubby leaned in to steal a too-hot cookie. He remembered the first time he saw Irene up on the reservation. He had known immediately that she would be his wife. Tubby wasn’t sure what his grandfather had said to the Clan Mother to convince her it would be ok for Irene to marry his grandson, but it worked. Their wedding day, when he had seen her in her ribbon skirt, shawl, and beaded moccasins, had been one of the happiest moments of his life. Tubby blew on his cookie.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, venturing a cautious bite.

Irene raised her eyebrows. “Thinking? That’s always trouble.”

Tubby nodded, “It’s about Jackie Carl.”

Irene smiled indulgently. “Ah. More trouble.”

Tubby started again, “Well, it’s not just about Jackie Carl. It’s about Todd, too.” Irene’s brow creased, thinking about the beautiful son they had lost in Iraq. She waited for her husband to continue.

Tubby searched for the right words. “Irene, maybe kinship isn’t just about blood. Jackie Carl needs us. Maybe in ways that Todd never did. Ruth Underhill, she needs our help. Maybe God is calling us to something new.”

One by one, Irene transferred cookies to the cooling rack, plying her spatula until the baking sheet was empty. Christmas always made Irene think of Todd. Could there be that kind of space in her heart for someone else, especially someone who was so troubled? She thought of her own parents and elders on the reservation. They told long ago stories of the healing of families that followed times of war. Beloved ones lost in battle left a hole that was sometimes filled by others—even prisoners of war—who were adopted into the clan. Still today, it wasn’t unusual to expand families in unexpected ways.

Irene turned the thought over in her mind and picked up a cookie. She took a bite. Maybe the question shouldn’t be why but why not. Why not a hot-headed teen with fiery red hair? Irene put down her spatula, “Tionatakwente, are you asking if we should adopt Jackie Carl into the clan?”

Tubby looked expectant.

Irene nodded, “Well, I’d better call my Auntie. Lord knows, that boy sure could use a new name.”

Jackie Carl was no stranger to the res. As a boy at the Powwow, he had relished eating stew with thick chunks of venison, made tender by slow cooking. His small feet had shuffled along with the men as they moved to the rhythm of the Thunder Dance. Each year right after school let out, Tubby would drive them north to the St. Lawrence to fish for enormous Muskies that lurked in weeds and promised the fight of a lifetime. Jackie Carl had learned to love lacrosse on the res, the beauty of precision passing, the crack of stick against stick, the cry of “Aho!” when the ball swished into the back of the net. Last summer, Jackie Carl had helped Tubby as the firekeeper at the sweat, carefully passing super-heated rocks with a pitchfork from the fire to the pit at the center of the lodge.

Sometimes on the reservation, Jackie Carl forgot. He forgot that his father didn’t love him. He forgot that his mother had left him. He forgot that he felt angry and rootless on most days, despite his grandmother’s efforts to provide what his parents could not.

Jackie Carl had never been on the reservation for the Midwinter Ceremony. The five days of praying, eating, dancing, and games conflicted with school, but this year, Ruth Underhill made an exception, sending him north in the back seat of Tubby’s Kingcab. Irene had been cooking for the feast for days: golden rounds of Bannock, sweet cornmeal pudding, roasted squash mixed with butter and maple syrup, and vats of potato and macaroni salad. Just thinking about it made Jackie Carl’s stomach growl. On that first day, they had pulled up in front of an inauspicious looking ranch house. Tubby put the car in park, and Irene turned to the boy. “This is my Auntie’s house. She’s the Clan Mother. Are you ready?” Jackie Carl nodded, “Yep,” and they went inside.

A teen about Jackie Carl’s age answered the door, showed them where to leave their shoes, and pointed them toward a closed door, saying only, “They’re waiting.” Inside, it took Jackie Carl’s eyes a minute to adjust to the dark. Windows had been covered with blankets and the only light came from a low fire that burned in the fireplace. This must have been what it felt like in the longhouse, Jackie Carl thought. A circle of Kanien’kehaka people sat on the floor, but just enough room had been left for the three of them. Jackie Carl, Tubby, and Irene took a seat.

 At the head of the circle sat the oldest woman that Jackie Carl had ever seen. “Auntie,” Irene spoke up, “we bring you a gift.” She held out a pouch of tobacco, which was passed around the circle to the waiting matriarch. She gave it an appreciative sniff before mixing it with red willow bark and packing it into the bowl of a medicine pipe. The lit pipe slowly passed from neighbor to neighbor around the circle. To Jackie Carl, the silence of that room felt like an eternity, but for Tubby and Irene it felt like they were settling back into the ancient rhythms of their ancestors.

Finally, the Auntie spoke in Mohawk, then in English for Jackie Carl’s benefit. “What is it you seek, my children?”

Irene answered, “We’ve come to claim the right of adoption. The hole that was left in our clan when Todd was killed needs to be filled. We claim Jackie Carl, that he might have all the rights and status that would have been Todd’s.” There were sounds of affirmation around the circle, followed again by an appreciative silence.

At last, with what might have been a twinkle in her eye, the Auntie said, “It’s about time, Irene. What took you so long?”

The Auntie turned her bright eyes on Jackie Carl, “And what do you have to say about it, young man?”

Before she had even finished speaking, Jackie Carl was nodding, “Yes,” so filled with feeling that he could not find the words or trust his voice. Jackie Carl looked to Tubby and Irene, their faces filled with love, their eyes brimming with tears. Tubby placed a hand on Jackie Carl’s shoulder and for the first time in his life, the boy felt like he had a Dad.

“Very well!” the Auntie continued, “You need a name. A real name.” As if the name Jackie Carl had only been a placeholder for the true life that was about to unfold.

They sat once more in silence. The pipe was filled and passed around the circle again. After a long while, the Auntie spoke. Pointing first to the orange glow of the coals on the hearth and then to the carroty color of Jackie Carl’s hair, she said. “You, my child, are Atsila. That means fire.”

An appreciative chorus of “Aho” and laughter greeted her proclamation. “Atsila,” Jackie Carl tried the sound of his new name. It felt like the moment when the Muskie hits your line and you know you’ve hooked a big one. “Atsila.” It felt like the instant your lacrosse shot slips past the keeper and into the cage. “Atsila.” It felt like the sleepy peace that comes when your belly is full of Bannock, venison stew, and cornmeal pudding. “Atsila.” It felt like home.

Isaiah 9:2-7

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.
3 You have multiplied exultation;
    you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
    as with joy at the harvest,
    as people exult when dividing plunder.
4 For the yoke of their burden
    and the bar across their shoulders,
    the rod of their oppressor,
    you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5 For all the boots of the tramping warriors
    and all the garments rolled in blood
    shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For a child has been born for us,
    a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders,
    and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Great will be his authority,
    and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
    He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
    from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Psalm 22:9-10

Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
    you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
10 On you I was cast from my birth,
    and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

Photo by Cody Hammer on Pexels.com

The Voice from the Margins

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “The Voice from the Margins” Luke 3:1-18

The Christmas preparations have been underway in the village for weeks. First, our lampposts were hung those giant sparkly snowflakes. Then, Berkely Green sprouted a bevy of Christmas trees. Salvation Army bell ringers with their red kettles are stationed at the post office and Kinney’s. Shopkeepers have decked their windows with lights and greens and tempting wares that we just might need to purchase for our beloved ones. Sparkle Village returned to the town hall with those wonderful one-of-a-kind crafts and gifts.

We have been preparing for Christmas at church, too. The Advent wreath has emerged from its basement lair to hang above the chancel and call us to worship weekly. Cherise has done yet another amazing job of greening our sanctuary and doors. Some of us are reading our way to Christmas. Perhaps you took home an Advent devotional, or you are gathering on Thursdays for lunch and book discussion. Scott and the choir have been hard at work on a spectacular anthem for Christmas Eve. The kids, under the direction of Ms. Kim, are preparing to delight us with a special play next week.

I know that there have been plenty of preparations on our home fronts, too. We may be working out final details on travel plans or preparing to welcome guests. Our front doors are sporting wreaths and our eves are dripping with Christmas lights. We are hanging favorite ornaments on our Christmas trees—candy canes, antique glass balls, and golden macaroni wreaths made by little hands long ago. We’ve been shopping, and if we are very organized, we are wrapping. If the baking hasn’t begun yet, it will soon—Christmas cookies, fruitcakes, panettone, stollen, and our favorite family recipes. If you are like me, there is joy in the preparation, a remembering of Christmases past and an anticipation of the holiday to come.

On this second Sunday in Advent, the gospel reading brings us John the Baptist, who gives us an earful about preparing the way of the Lord. When I served the Community Church in Morton Grove, I would tag along with my head of staff Michael Winters to attend a lectionary group. These were seasoned pastors who preached weekly and met to discuss the scripture and work on their sermons. The second Sunday of Advent was near, and we had just read together the reading I shared a minute ago—John the Baptist calling us a brood of vipers and exhorting us to repent. There was a long moment of silence following the reading, then Rev. Debbie spoke up, “Don’t you wish we only had to preach on John once a year for Baptism of the Lord Sunday in January? Who wants to hear about John at Christmas?”

John certainly wasn’t dressed for the holidays and his diet of locusts and wild honey hardly sounds like a tasty Christmas dinner. In 1457, Donatello cast a larger-than-life bronze statue of John the Baptist for the Cathedral in Siena, Italy. In Donatello’s imagination, John has unkempt hair and the burning eyes of a fanatic. He’s impossibly thin, a skeleton with skin, all lean muscle and sinew. He’s clothed in matted furs that part at the side to show bare flesh. His long, bony fingers extend, as if pointing the way to Christ, the stronger one who will follow. The statue is eerie, unsettling, discomforting. There is no bow big enough to dress John up and put him under our Christmas trees. Let’s face it, we would never invite John the Baptist to Christmas dinner because he would be certain to shout, wouldn’t wear a tie, and would probably smell like the wilderness he just rolled out of. No. At Christmas, we prefer the baby Jesus, the holy infant so tender and mild to the disconcertingly wild, wooly, and radical John.

The sermon that John gave doesn’t sound like something you want to read in a Christmas card. Let me channel my inner John . . .

Dear Brood of Vipers,

What is wrong with you?!

Don’t you know that God is coming? That’s right Yahweh, the great I AM. He’s really topped himself this time, dared to wrap himself in flesh and walk among us. He’s on the loose!

And you?! You’re oblivious! You just go on living large. It’s all about you, isn’t it?

And what about this world? God help us! Nation taking up arms against nation. Neighbor trash-talking neighbor. What about the poor, the orphan, the refugee, the folks who struggle to put food on the table or a roof over their heads?

Stop, people! Just stop. Turn it around before it’s too late. You need to remember who is really in charge around here and it’s not you. It’s God Almighty. So straighten up and fly right. Be prepared!

Got it? Good!

Yours truly,

John

On this second Sunday of Advent, the ill-mannered, ill-timed, wild-and-crazy John the Baptist breaks into our lives and throws a big fat monkey wrench into our Christmas customs and timeworn traditions. Truth be told, we need John. We need him to startle us out of our Christmas complacency and call us away from our ordinary lives to a time and place of awareness and anticipation. We need John to urge us to leave, if only for a little bit, our kitchens and Christmas trees, our on-line shopping and office parties, our school books and family festivities. We need John to remind us of the reason for the season and tell us what it really means to prepare the way of the Lord. We need John’s encouragement to repent (metanoia), to thoughtfully and honestly reflect upon our lives, redirect our actions and energies, and re-commit ourselves to God-centered living. We need John to remind us that, no matter what the circumstance of our lives may be, we can be redeemed and renewed. We can come back to God because every year at Christmas, we are reminded that God comes to us with help and healing and love beyond our wildest imaginings.

Our Advent book this year is Season’s Greetings, an imaginative collection of Christmas letters from those who were there at the first Christmas. The author, my friend Ruth Boling, invites us to imagine John as “one of those wacky inflatable air dancers outside a car dealership.” You know those annoying windsocks that rise and fall and gyrate in unexpected ways that captivate our attention? According to my friend Ruth, John says, “I’m here to do that. To get you and everyone else to stop racing around on your Christmas hamster wheels, to get you to take notice and to study what I—wacky inflatable air dancer—am pointing toward. Here, people of God, is the one you want to be chasing . . . Don’t be a hamster, or a lemming, or an idiot. See, here is the one who came to redeem and restore.” It’s Jesus.

In the coming weeks of Advent, the frenzied pace of our Christmas preparations will build to a crescendo. That Kanoodle Ultimate Champion game that we purchased online for our grandchildren will be backordered, and we’ll scramble for a last-minute gift. Grandma’s recipe for authentic German stollen will disappear, and we’ll spend hours trying unsuccessfully to duplicate her kitchen magic through guesswork. Our Christmas trees will dry up and shed boatloads of needles, and we’ll wake up in the middle of the night to worry that our house might burn down. Our children will grow SO excited that they will not sleep a wink on Christmas Eve, and neither will we.

Amid the crazy-hamster-wheel-joy of this Advent season, may we listen for the voice from the margins. The Baptizer still calls out in the wilderness. May the wild one summon us away from the holiday rush to quiet moments with God for reflection, redirection, and renewal. Prepare the way of the Lord, my friends, make his paths straight.

Resources

Troy Troftgruben. “Commentary on Luke 3:1-6” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 8, 2024. Accessed online at Commentary on Luke 3:1-6 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

David Lose. “Commentary on Luke 3:1-6” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 6, 2009. Accessed online at Commentary on Luke 3:1-6 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Audrey West. “Commentary on Luke 3:1-6” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 5, 2021. Accessed online at Commentary on Luke 3:1-6 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Ruth Boling. Season’s Greetings: Christmas Letters from Those Who Were There. Nashville: Upper Room books, 2024.

3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
    make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
    and the rough ways made smooth,
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

10 And the crowds asked him, “What, then, should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

15 As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

18 So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people.

Donatello, John the Baptists, 1457, Duomo di Siena.

The Kingdom Comes

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “The Kingdom Comes” Luke 21:25-36

Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli believed that the end of the world was coming in the year 1504. You can spy his apocalyptic vision in his painting of Jesus’ birth, The Mystical Nativity. The painting has all the usual things we expect in a manger scene—joyful angels, an adoring Mary and Joseph, reverent shepherds, and curious barnyard beasts, but it also bears the disturbing depiction of small winged devils escaping under rocks or shot through with arrows. Botticelli explained his strange vision in an epigraph at the top of his work, “I, Sandro, painted this picture at the end of the year 1500 in the troubles of Italy in the. . . second woe of the Apocalypse in the loosing of the devil for three and a half years. . . we shall see him trodden down as in this picture.”

New England residents thought the end was near on May 19, 1780 when the skies turned strangely dark. According to one witness, “People [came] out wringing their hands and howling, the Day of Judgment is come.” The Connecticut legislature, which was in session when the sky blackened, feared the apocalypse was imminent and moved for adjournment, but one legislator, Abraham Davenport, responded: “The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.” The “Dark Day,” as it came to be known, ended at midnight, when the stars once again became visible in the night sky. Historians suspect that the darkness was caused by an ill-timed confluence of smoke from forest fires and heavy fog.

When Halley’s Comet reappeared in 1910, it induced an end-of-the-world panic. Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory announced that it had detected a poisonous gas called cyanogen in the comet’s tail. The New York Times reported that the noted French astronomer, Camille Flammarion believed the gas “would impregnate that atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet.” Panic ensued. People rushed to purchase gas masks and “comet pills.” The Atlanta Constitution reported that people in Georgia were preparing safe rooms and covering keyholes with paper. One man armed himself with a gallon of whiskey and requested that friends lower him to the bottom of a dry well, 40 feet deep. After the comet passed, the headline of the Chicago Tribune lamely announced, “We’re Still Here.”

Our gospel reading on this first Sunday of Advent is downright apocalyptic. Sounding a lot like an Old Testament prophet, Jesus warned his listeners of a coming Day of Judgment. There would be signs in the heavens, chaos among the nations, and tumult upon the waters. Amid the discord and disruption, Jesus called his followers to vigilance, saying: stand up, raise your head, be on guard, pray. 

When Jesus stood in the Temple court sounding so prophetic, he was in the midst of a different holiday season—the Passover. From across the Roman Empire, people had come to Jerusalem to remember that God had once delivered them from the bondage of Egypt. With plagues of frogs and gnats, darkness, disease, and death, God had bested Pharaoh, and Moses had led the people forth to freedom. That Passover week, Jesus and his friends remembered God’s deliverance with the sacrifice of a lamb, the singing of psalms, and the sharing of a final Passover seder.

The courts of the Temple were filled with politically-charged tension as Passover memories faced the everyday reality of Jesus’ listeners. Israel was again in bondage, a vassal state of the Roman Empire. A legion of Roman soldiers had ridden out of Caesarea and up to Jerusalem amid the Passover pilgrims. Any dreams of Jewish freedom would be promptly and brutally quashed. It may have been Passover, but the local leaders served the emperor’s purpose, not God’s purpose. As that week continued, this would become increasingly clear as the Temple authorities conspired to arrest and condemn the Lord.

Given the context in which Jesus spoke, his promise of the coming of the Son of Man with power and great glory took on a hopeful tone for his listeners. Jesus was assuring the people that it was God, not Rome, who had ultimate authority. God, who delivered their ancestors from slavery in Egypt was still at work and would one day bring all things to completion in the Kingdom of God. The people needed to live today as if that Kingdom were coming tomorrow, alert and on guard, standing tall with heads up.

On this first Sunday in Advent, we puzzle over Jesus’ apocalyptic promise. We smile, perhaps a bit condescendingly, at the long history of apocalypticism—Sandro Botticelli’s Mystical Nativity with winged devils pinned to the earth by heavenly bolts, New Englanders terrified on the Dark Day, Americans plying gas masks and “comet pills” to ward off the end that was surely coming with Halley’s Comet. But if we are honest, we’ll admit that we are not strangers to apocalyptic worry.

We fear the end is near. Vladimir Putin will push the nuclear button in his prolonged war against Ukraine, unleashing a tide of atomic death to threaten the planet. Israel, Hamas, and Iran have set the stage for Armageddon, years of unstoppable, unwinnable war in the Middle East. Our addiction to fossil fuels will bring worldwide ecological catastrophe. The bitter divisions and bizarre turns of American politics herald an end to democracy and our nation as we know it. We faint with fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.

Our apocalyptic worries may be deeply personal. The death of a beloved one feels like the end of our world. A terrifying diagnosis convinces us that Judgment Day is near. Money troubles fill us with cataclysmic worry and woe. Estrangement in our families puts an end to future plans. It feels a lot like the apocalypse out there. We are confused and shaken, uncertain and frightened.

And so, on the first Sunday in Advent, we need Jesus to remind us that God has the last word. When Jesus made that promise, his friends would soon feel that their world was coming to an end. Temple guards would take Jesus into custody. He would be tried on trumped up charges, handed over to the Romans, and condemned to death on a cross. For three days, it would feel like the end of the world, that Rome and death and sin had the last word. Yet on Easter morning, they learned, once and for all, that God’s love is always stronger than death, always stronger than all the apocalyptic fears that our world may wield.

In Jesus’ life, death, and rising, God launched a revolution of self-giving love that continues to ripple through the corridors of time. The Kingdom comes even when the Romans rule the land. The Kingdom comes when Renaissance Italy feels like the devil has been loosed for 3 ½ years. The Kingdom comes on Dark Days. The Kingdom comes when the sky is falling. The Kingdom comes despite the machinations of scheming despots. The Kingdom comes as the bombs fall. The Kingdom comes amid global warming. The Kingdom comes in political chaos. The Kingdom comes even when our lives are wracked by personal pain, grief, and loss. The Son of Man comes with power and glory.

On this first Sunday in Advent, we remember that the Kingdom comes, and we can be a part of it—if we will only stand up, raise our heads, and go forth to love today as if the world were ending tomorrow. Lutheran theologian Philip Hefner, who taught for many years at the Lutheran Seminary in Chicago, taught that humankind is created to be co-creators. God grants us the agency, freedom, and creative capacity to join our purpose to God’s purpose. If Hefner is right, then we have a part to play in the coming of God’s Kingdom. Our choice to stand up, raise our heads, roll up our sleeves, and go forth with love is a choice for the Kingdom. And as we dare to love our God and our neighbors and even our enemies when it feels like the world is coming to an end, the Kingdom comes a little bit in each of us and in those whose lives we touch.

So maybe Abraham Davenport got it right on that Dark Day in 1780, and he said, “The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.” The world may or may not be coming to an end, but there is work still for us to do. May we stand up and raise our heads. May we love today as if the Kingdom were coming tomorrow.

Resources

Mark Strauss. “Ten Notable Apocalypses That (Obviously) Didn’t Happen” in Smithsonian Magazine, Nov. 12, 2009.

Drew Rick-Miller. “Created Co-Creators” in Science for the Church, July 9, 2019. Accessed online at Created Co-Creators – Science for the Church – Ministry Resources 

David Lose. “Commentary on Luke 21:25-36” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 29, 2009. Accessed online at Commentary on Luke 21:25-36 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Mary Beth Dinkler. “Commentary on Luke 21:25-36” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 2, 2018. Accessed online at Commentary on Luke 21:25-36 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Troy Troftgruben. “Commentary on Luke 21:25-36” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 1, 2024. Accessed online at Commentary on Luke 21:25-36 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Luke 21:25-36

25 “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26 People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” 29 Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. 31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 34 “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, 35 like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place and to stand before the Son of Man.”

By Sandro Botticelli – National Gallery, London, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39054778

King Jesus

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “King Jesus” John 18:33-38a

Who has authority?  When we are very little, our parents are the big authority figures. Even if our first word is “no,” the only “no” that truly matters is the one spoken by our mother or father. As we head into high school, we may find a teacher or coach whom we grant a place of special authority.  That science teacher who tutored us through our Advanced Placement exams or the track coach who brought out our athletic excellence may play an influential role in our development. In adulthood, our workplace often demands our allegiance.  We may put in long hours because we love and are fulfilled by what we do, and if we don’t love it, then we value that paycheck which covers the rent, puts food on the table, and keeps the car on the road. Family can take on ultimate authority for our lives. Devotion to a spouse, taxiing kids to extra-curricular activities, time with extended family, all can control our daily living. How many of us will be gathering with family (or those who are like family) for Thanksgiving this week?

As we age, our doctor is often the one who has an authoritative say. On doctor’s orders, we count our calories, cut out the sugar, avoid the saturated fats, and give up salt or caffeine. I’m from a long line of people with high cholesterol. A doctor once told my Mom that her body could make cholesterol out of spinach. Last year, on my doctor’s advice, I met with a dietician to see if we could tweak my diet to improve my elevated numbers. I used olive oil instead of butter and cut way back on eggs. We ate more fish, more fruit, more fiber. I was feeling pretty impressed with myself until I had new bloodwork done earlier this month. All that hard work reduced my cholesterol by a whopping nine points. Thanks a lot, doc!

In time, we come full circle. One day, we discern that the balance of power and authority has shifted. It falls to our adult children to now tell us the “no” that we don’t want to hear.  We find ourselves moving to a more manageable home, giving up our car, or foregoing the season pass for downhill skiing at Whiteface. 

Those to whom we grant authority shape our lives and influence the course of our daily living.  They have a lot to say about who we are and what our life looks like.  Who has the ultimate authority for our lives this morning?

Our gospel lesson tells of the face-off between Jesus of Nazareth and Pontius Pilate, two men of authority, who allowed very different forces to shape and direct their lives.  For Pontius Pilate, the Emperor Tiberias Augustus had ultimate authority.  Pilate was a career officer in the legions of Rome, a soldier who rose through the ranks, thanks to his political connections and his skill with the javelin. It was rumored that Pilate, married to the illegitimate daughter of Julia—the emperor’s second wife, was a particular favorite of Tiberias. The emperor dispatched Pilate to Judea to quell the chaos left behind when the corrupt King Herod Archelaus was deposed. 

For six years, Pilate had served as the procurator (or client king) of Judea.  He governed, not because he cared about the Israelite people, but because he was duty bound to protect the financial and political interests of his emperor.  Pilate had two key responsibilities as procurator: to ensure that taxes were collected and to keep the peace, the pax Romana, at any price.  Pilate’s chief weapons in achieving his purpose were fear and violence, and he used those weapons liberally. In his first six years as procurator, Pilate had ruthlessly crushed three rebellions. He crucified insurrectionists and slaughtered their followers.

More than any other time of year in this miserable backwater where the emperor had sent him, Pilate dreaded the Passover, which awakened within the Hebrew people the historic longing for liberation from foreign oppression. As Pilate was roused from his bed early on Friday of the Passover Festival, he was told that yet another political dissident was in custody, Jesus of Nazareth, whom the people heralded as King of the Jews.

When Pilate entered the courtyard of the Praetorium to interrogate his prisoner, he expected to find a man not unlike himself, a man with political ambitions who used violence to achieve power and authority over the people. Instead, Pilate found an impoverished, homeless rabbi, who sought not to build an earthly kingdom but to reveal a heavenly kingdom, where God holds ultimate authority.  The kingdom that Jesus served was unlike any that the procurator had ever imagined. It was not forged by fear and violence, rather it was revealed in love and justice.

Because God had ultimate authority in Jesus’ life, he had left his hometown, his kin, and his profession as a carpenter.  From Galilee to Jerusalem, Jesus poured out his life in love and justice. Jesus reached out with holy healing power that cleansed lepers, restored blind eyes, opened deaf ears, fed the hungry, and even raised the dead. He taught about God’s great love for all kinds of people, even those whom society labeled outcasts and sinners. If Pilate would give him half a chance, Jesus would even tell Pilate that God loved him and longed to put Pilate to work in another kingdom. But within hours, Jesus would be wearing a crown of thorns. Within hours, he would be enthroned upon a cross, beneath the title “King of the Jews.”

As Pilate confronted Jesus, two kingdoms stood in tension, two very different ways of exercising power and authority.  In Pilate’s kingdom, peace was secured with the sword and kept with the brutality of crucifixion.  In Christ’s kingdom, peace was proclaimed by meeting people in their places of greatest need with caring, compassion, and love.  In Pilate’s kingdom, soldiers were dispatched to inspire fear and maintain order. In Jesus’ kingdom, disciples were sent out to heal, teach, and transform the social order. In Pilate’s kingdom, oppressive taxes stole from the poor to line the pockets of the rich. In Jesus’ kingdom, the rich shared from their abundance to meet the needs of the poor. In Pilate’s kingdom, the emperor declared himself a God and demanded the tribute and sacrifice of the people. In Jesus’ kingdom, God chose to become a man who would sacrifice his very life to redeem the people. Pilate’s kingdom would rise and fall, but Jesus’ Kingdom would reign forever.

Christ the King Sunday was first commemorated in 1925 to assert the authority of God in a world that was increasingly secular. The fires of rabid nationalism were being stoked in Europe. That year, Benito Mussolini dismantled Italy’s democratic institutions and assumed his role as dictator, adopting the title Il Duce (“The Leader”). In Germany, Adolf Hitler, newly released from prison for his role in an attempted coup, had just published the first volume of Mein Kampf. That same year, he founded the SS—the violent political soldiers of the Nazi party—and he was maneuvering to assume leadership which would propel him into the role of German chancellor. In America, it was all about the money, money, money. The roaring twenties were in full swing. Prohibition filled Saranac Lake with speakeasies and bootleggers. The stock market had begun a period of explosive growth; its value would soar from $27 billion in 1925 to $87 billion in 1929, before the crash of the Great Depression. Whom would the world serve? Dictators, mad men pedaling hate, the unchecked forces of capitalism, or King Jesus? The world needed at least one Sunday to ponder who and what should have ultimate authority.

On Christ the King Sunday, we are asked to affirm whom we will ultimately serve—Jesus or the powers and principalities of this world.  Whom will we allow to hold authority for our daily living?  The way of the empire can bring personal rewards—power, wealth, and worldly prestige. Who doesn’t want that?  And yet, the price of our triumph is the oppression of the world around us, the exploitation of neighbors and nature, and the wounding of our world with violence and death. Just ask Pontius Pilate. 

Christ our King challenges us to choose another way, another kingdom. In Christ’s Kingdom, God has ultimate authority, and the driving ethic is one of love and justice. We serve that holy kingdom by choosing to live as Jesus did, reaching out to heal and to feed, to welcome and forgive. The reward for our service is peace, healing, and redemption, not only for ourselves but also for those around us—for family, friends, community, and ultimately our world. Who doesn’t want that? 

Those to whom we grant authority shape our lives and influence the course of our daily living.  They have a lot to say about who we are and what our life looks like. Above all earthly powers, the crucified and risen Lord alone claims our adoration and allegiance. May we go forth to follow King Jesus.

Resources

Paul S. Berge. “Commentary on John 18:33-37” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 22, 2009. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christ-the-king-2/commentary-on-john-1833-37-6

Jaime Clark-Soles. “Commentary on John 18:33-37” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 25, 2012. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christ-the-king-2/commentary-on-john-1833-37

Susan Hylen. “Commentary on John 18:33-37” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 25, 2012. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christ-the-king-2/commentary-on-john-1833-37-3

PCUSA. “Christ the King/Reign of Christ” in Book of Common Worship. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018.

John 18:33-38a

33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” 35 Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” 37 Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

Unlikely Heroes

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Unlikely Heroes” Mark 12:38-44

On December fourth, the eastern New York region of the American Red Cross will hold their “real heroes” celebration. It’s an annual dinner that honors Central and Northern New York residents whose acts of heroism or volunteerism have assisted those in need within their communities. It’s a feel-good evening of fun, food, and fundraising that honors everyday people who do extraordinary things.

This year, the Adult Good Samaritans Hero Award goes to four people who saw a car veer off the road and into a retention pond in the town of Clay. Tom Drumm and Lasaros Milian swam to the submerged car, removed the driver, and brought her to safety. Then, once on shore, Judy Kilpatrick and D. Paul Waltz provided further aid until emergency responders arrived.

The Community Impact Hero Award will go to Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh. To stem the tide of gun violence in the city, Walsh pledged one million dollars of the city’s budget to meeting the crisis head-on. He created the Mayor’s Office to Reduce Gun Violence. The office has implemented a coordinated strategy to work with residents, law enforcement, and other community stakeholders. The innovative effort includes the Safer Streets initiative, which works directly with gang members to keep them out of trouble.

The Disaster Services Hero Award goes to two women: Melissa Roy and Danielle Martin. They coordinate the Community Schools Program for the City of Rome. Like our local Community Schools Program, Melissa and Danielle work year ‘round with at-risk families to ensure that students are fed, cared for, and successful in school, equipping them to become productive, engaged, and healthy citizens. When an EF4 Tornado tore through Rome on July 17, leaving a swath of destruction through south Rome and into the downtown, Melissa and Danielle worked non-stop alongside the Red Cross to feed the community and distribute much-needed supplies.

These unlikely heroes have shown courage, dedication, and character through their selfless acts to assist their neighbors.

Our gospel lesson this week introduced us to an unlikely hero. Jesus and his followers were in Jerusalem for that fateful, final Passover celebration. While visiting the Temple, the Lord took a break from teaching to do some people watching. Jesus’ friends must have been surprised by what he noticed.

First, Jesus considered some of the wealthiest and most influential people in the Temple courts: the scribes. These experts in the Torah played an important role in the life of Israel. They were highly educated to equip them to interpret the scriptures. They served as judges, rendering justice in Israel’s courts. They were also spiritual leaders, whose authority was passed down in families from generation to generation. Who wouldn’t want to be a scribe—privileged by birth, literate, wealthy, and respected? As they strode through the Temple courts in their costly robes and blessed the people with their flowery prayers, the scribes had the respect and adulation of the pilgrims who had come from across the Roman Empire for the Passover.

Jesus, however, wasn’t impressed. As only he could, Jesus saw beyond the fine clothes and eloquence to the very heart of the scribes, and he didn’t like what he saw. In a patriarchal world where women did not have property or inheritance rights, widows depended on the fairness and generosity of their husband’s heir to provide for them as they aged. In cases of neglect or abuse, a case could be brought before the scribes for justice. Or, in a case where there was no clear heir, property could be held in trust by the scribes, until a minor boy child reached adulthood. Although the scribes were well-versed in the Bible’s imperative to care for their vulnerable neighbors, Jesus saw that these Torah-experts were enriching themselves at the widows’ expense, devouring their houses by taking bribes, making biased rulings, and spending for their own benefit what they held in trust. Jesus’ indictment of the powerful and well-respected scribes would have shocked his listeners.

If the disciples were surprised by Jesus’ scorn for the Scribes, then they would have been even more amazed by his praise for the poor widow at the Temple’s Treasury, outside the Court of the Women. The Mishnah tells us that the treasury consisted of thirteen large metal boxes with an unusual shape, broad at the bottom and very narrow at the top, a bit like an inverted funnel, a shape that ensured that you couldn’t reach a hand down in to take money out.  In those days long before paper money, a large gift of coins dropped into the narrow mouth of the treasury made a loud noise as it rattled down to the bottom. A small gift dropped into the treasury made very little sound.

The gift Jesus’ widow made was very, very small. She gave two lepton, two tiny coins, worth 1/64th of the daily wage for a laborer. In today’s economy, where a day laborer earns $14.54 an hour, this woman’s gift was worth $1.82. In the grand scheme of Temple economics, the widow’s gift was practically worthless. Yet, Jesus saw into the widow’s heart and realized that she had made an extraordinary gift. In Greek, the words Jesus used for her offering are holon ton bion autaes, it literally means that she gave “her whole life.” She dedicated her time, her talents, her leptons, all she had and all that she would ever be to God. It was a gesture of radical love and trust, an offering of tremendous gratitude in the midst of loss and grief.  She gave her very self to the Lord.

I know it has been a tough week for many of us. Last week, I asked us to remember that, no matter what the outcome of the election would be, half of us would be disappointed. I reminded us that God is with us in the chaos and encouraged us to be gentle with one another. This week, my phone and computer have blown up with calls, texts, emails, and messages from folks, far and wide, who are deeply dismayed. I hear you, especially those who feel that the “scribes” have won the day to the detriment of the “poor widows” of our nation.

On Wednesday, I went to the local Department of Social Services. They facilitate assistance to people in need. I was accompanying an incredibly hardworking neighbor, who provides for a large, extended family. They had lost their SNAP benefits because they worked too much overtime. Sitting in that sterile, institutional office, across the desk from an overworked and under-resourced social worker, I pondered the crumbs that we throw to the poor. I couldn’t help but realize how incredibly privileged I am. I have more education than most people would probably ever want. I own a home. I never worry about whether I can put food on the table, if I have clothes to wear, or if I can repair my used car. I imagine that most of us are like me. Whether we like it or not, our lives, in terms of material resources, bear a closer resemblance to the scribe than they do the poor widow of today’s reading. What a terrible privilege and awesome responsibility that is!

I’ve been thinking about those real heroes, the ones that the Red Cross will honor on December fourth. They don’t fly or have superpowers. They don’t wear red capes and tights. I suspect they are a lot like us—ordinary people who dare to care and respond. Tom, Lasaros, Judy, and Paul saw someone in trouble and sprang into action. Ben Walsh had the gumption to seek to stem the tide of gun violence in his city. Melissa and Danielle’s hearts were touched by neighbors in crisis, and they walked into the breach left by the tornado with food and support.

If the 2024 election and the deep divides in our nation call us to anything, it is to do as much good as we can right where we are, to use the privilege, power, or authority entrusted to us to make a positive, caring, righteous difference in our world. We can be unlikely heroes, like the widow, like those Red Cross honorees. We can give holon ton bion autaes, our whole lives, to the Lord. We can make a difference in the lives of our neighbors, especially those who do not benefit from the advantages that are ours. Are you with me?

When Jesus called his friends over to celebrate the poor widow, I’m sure he was thinking of another gift, a heroic gift, soon to be made. The widow’s gift anticipated the offering that the Jesus himself would make. Within days, Jesus would be arrested and unjustly tried, tortured and condemned to death. Within days, the beaten and bloody Jesus would be marched through the streets of Jerusalem to his execution. Within days, he would hang on the cross, flanked by criminals, jeered at by spectators. Within days, Jesus would give his very life—holon ton bion autaes—for the redemption of our world.

May we dare to be unlikely heroes.

Resources

Jon Moss. “Syracuse anti-violence program making progress, more needs to be done, officials say” in Syracuse.com, June 5, 2024. Accessed online at Syracuse anti-violence program making progress, more needs to be done, officials say – syracuse.com

Sean I. Mills. “Worst tornado in 40 years to hit Oneida County; survey team outlines path, destruction” in Daily Sentinel, July 18, 2024. Worst tornado in 40 years to hit Oneida County; survey team outlines path, destruction | News | romesentinel.com

Micah D. Kiel. “Commentary on Mark 12:38-44” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 11, 2012. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 12:38-44  – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Henry Langknecht. “Commentary on Mark 12:38-44” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 8, 2009. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 12:38-44  – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Karoline Lewis. “Whole Life Living” in Dear Working Preacher, Nov. 1, 2015. Accessed online at Whole Life Living – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Mark 12:38-44

38 As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces 39 and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! 40 They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” 41 He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43 Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

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The Beautiful Feast

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “The Beautiful Feast” Isaiah 25:6-9

In October, we revived the pre-pandemic tradition of Committee Night, a monthly evening when the committees of the church gather. The evening begins at 5:30pm with a potluck supper. You never know what will turn up on the dinner table, but it is always good and plentiful. Last week, we had homemade soup, bread, charcuterie, fresh and dried fruit, salad, and a host of desserts, including not one but two birthday cakes for me. What a feast!

We typically transition from the dinner table to our small workgroups around 6:00pm. But as we laughed, swapped stories, and enjoyed the meal, time, as it often does when there is good food and good company, slipped away. About 6:20, I reluctantly shifted us from feast mode to work mode. Committees met, plans were made, and tasks assigned, all in time for choir practice to start at 7pm. That potluck meal felt like a victory as we shrugged off the vestiges of the COVID-19 pandemic and returned to right rhythms of eating, caring, and serving together.

In our reading from Isaiah, God granted the prophet a vision of the beautiful feast in the Kingdom of God. The table overflowed with sumptuous food and the finest of wine. The people of Israel and all the nations of the world rejoiced, feeding on the bounty that God had prepared. Every belly was full, every face flushed with satisfaction. The sound of laughter and song and heartfelt conversation rose in a blessed crescendo. Almighty God, that most generous and loving of hosts, met every hunger, dried every tear, and comforted every sorrow. Then, God had God’s own feast, to the amazement of all. God swallowed up death, ending forever the mortal shroud that parted the holy from the ordinary. What a feast! Isaiah’s vision has prompted hope and delight ever since.

This church is no stranger to the hope and delight that our beautiful feasts can engender. Back in 1927, we called the Rev. Hiram Lyon to serve as our pastor. The recent seminary graduate was a young bachelor with a flair for cooking. On several occasions, he put on summer dinners at Split Rock Farm for the church’s Men’s Club. We don’t know the menu, but since it was a bunch of guys, I think we can trust that there was grilling involved. There is a record, though, of what happened after dinner. The men sat around the campfire until late in the evening, watching the moon rise and the night fall. They pondered the billion stars of the Milky Way and the great mystery of the divine.

Perhaps the church’s fanciest feast took place in 1985. We had building on our minds—the extension of the church to create the Great Hall and the Christian Education classrooms. To share plans and kick-off the church’s fundraising efforts, we hosted a dinner at the Hotel Saranac. Invitations were mailed. Neighbors from the community were invited. I hear the food was excellent and the hall filled with hopeful expectation as we dreamed together about the blessing that would flow for us and for the community when our building effort reached completion.

I may be a little biased, but I think Duane’s and my wedding reception in the Great Hall, almost nineteen years ago now, was another echo of the beautiful feast. It wasn’t fancy. The deacons cooked up seven crockpots of soup. Duane and I provided an abundance of sandwich wraps, cheese and crackers, punch, and a fabulous wedding cake made by Dawne’s sister. Duane’s friends came all the way from Virginia to provide bluegrass music. Little girls twirled around the dancefloor in their princess dresses. And, the golden girls of the United Presbyterian Women sampled and provided commentary on every single soup. What a feast!

It might surprise us to learn that when Isaiah shared God’s hopeful vision of the holy banquet, the Hebrew people didn’t have a lot to celebrate. Gone were the days of unity for the twelve tribes. The northern clans had long ago split to form the Kingdom of Israel. The southern tribes confederated under the banner of Judah. Waves of foreign invasion had wracked the two kingdoms. Indeed, when Isaiah spoke, the northern kingdom had fallen to the Assyrians. Many of their northern kin had been deported, sent to the far corners of the Assyrian Empire. The invaders had almost vanquished Judah, too. They encamped around the walls of Jerusalem and sought to starve the kingdom into submission. Only the forethought of King Hezekiah, whose men had tunneled beneath the city walls to allow access to fresh water and supplies, allowed the hungry city to outlast the siege. As Isaiah spoke the vision of God’s beautiful feast, foreign invaders were again on the horizon. The Babylonian army was rising in the east in what would prove to be an unstoppable tide.

Our beautiful feasts don’t happen in a perfect world. When Hiram Lyon hosted those starry suppers for the Men’s Club, Saranac Lake was at the height of the tuberculosis pandemic. Sanatoriums and cure cottages overflowed with desperately sick neighbors who had come to our village in the hope of a cold air cure. Hiram Lyon knew all about that. He came to the village as a tuberculosis patient, having contracted the disease while a student at Union Seminary in Morningside Heights, NYC. He stayed in the village to pastor our church for ten years and minister to the sick whose experience he had shared.

When we banqueted at the Hotel Saranac and dreamed of a bigger, better building, we weren’t too certain about the future. The church’s Christian Education building—Gurley Hall—had originally been built as a stable and had not withstood the test of time. Under-insulated and poorly heated, it was no longer fit for classes or community use, and our efforts to excavate below the sanctuary to create the Lower Room hadn’t provided nearly enough space for our programs. We were renting space from St. Luke’s and the Methodists. In fact, we debated closing our doors and merging with our neighbors. And then there was the matter of funding. Someone—probably Sally’s husband Bill—had the vision to build, but we definitely didn’t have the money.

When Duane and I danced a bluegrass waltz and the children blew bubbles to bless us in the Great Hall on our wedding day, the church had been through bleak times. There was a full-blown schism with the departure of Pastor Chuck, and we had weathered a lengthy interim with the tough but wise Pastor Carol. People had left the church. We were plagued by poor communication and rival factions. I had inherited a $45,000 budget deficit. We would either make it or we wouldn’t, but we needed to turn the corner fast.

Isaiah’s vision affirms that our beautiful feasts do not happen in a perfect world where everything is blue skies, sunshine, and lollipops. It also affirms that God is present in the midst of our chaos. God longs to feed us, nurture us, dry our tears, and comfort us. The world is filled with war and the threat of war, pandemics, declining mainline churches, and bitter divisions. Yet Isaiah reminds us that God is more than a match for our chaos. God is in the middle of it, fighting to deliver us from all that makes our hearts tremble. Indeed, the God who swallows death whole has raised Jesus from the dead and broken down every barrier that can ever separate us from God’s eternal, unstoppable love. One day, we will all be seated at God’s table, bellies full, laughter ringing, conversation flowing, joy complete. What a feast!

Today, we will celebrate our own feast, here at the Lord’s Table, where generations of Presbyterians have been fed. Our beautiful feast does not happen in a perfect world. Bombs are falling in the Middle East. Children are starving in Gaza and Yemen, Afghanistan and Congo, Somalia and Sudan. We are days away from a hotly contested election that will leave at least half of our neighbors bitterly disappointed, no matter what the outcome. Yet we dare to come to this table, to remember that God is with us even when the world is at its most chaotic. God longs to comfort the grieving, feed the hungry, and dry the tears that flow. The Lord holds out to us the hope that one day all people, all nations, will gather at God’s banquet table—peaceful, beloved, and satisfied. Lord, speed the day!

This morning, like Isaiah, we engage in a prophetic act. As we share the Lord’s Supper, and we pledge our gifts to support the church in the coming year, we acknowledge that we do not live in a perfect world. But with God’s help, we can nudge this world a little closer to the Kingdom. With God’s help, we can live with hope and delight. With God’s help, we can feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and bless the children. With God’s help, we can build a world where all are welcomed to the table. What a feast it will be! Amen.

Resources

Evelyn Outcalt and Judy Kratts. A History of the First Presbyterian Church of Saranac Lake, written in celebration of the church’s centenary, July 25, 1990.

Anathea Portier-Young. “Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 1, 2015. Accessed online at Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Amy Erickson. “Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 4, 2012. Accessed online at Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Julianna Claasens. “Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 1, 2009. Accessed online at Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Corinne Carvalho. “Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 7, 2021. Accessed online at Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Isaiah 25:6-9

6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
    a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
    of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
7 And he will destroy on this mountain
    the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
    the covering that is spread over all nations;
8     he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
    and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
    for the Lord has spoken.
9 It will be said on that day,
    “See, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
    This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
    let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

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Threading the Needle

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Threading the Needle” Mark 10:17-31

Next Saturday, walkers from this church will join our ecumenical neighbors in the annual Saranac Lake CROP Walk. We’ll be raising funds for the international hunger programs of Church World Service and the Interfaith Food Pantry here at home. CROP walkers say, “We walk because they walk.” It’s an acknowledgment of our solidarity with global neighbors who daily walk for food, water, work, school, and firewood.  The average distance that women in the developing world walk every day for water for their families is 3.4 miles. Elma Kassa of Ethiopia walks for water. Although Elma would like to go to school, she cannot because she helps her mother wash clothes to support the family.  Four times every day, Elma collects water, using a five-gallon clay jar.  Perhaps next Saturday as walkers stride down LaPan Highway from the Alliance Church to our church, they can think of Elma, with her heavy clay jar atop her head.

CROP Walks seek to eradicate hunger.  That’s a formidable task.  The Global Hunger Index tracks the state of hunger worldwide, country by country. Their 2024 report shows that little progress has been made in reducing hunger since 2016. Forty-two countries still experiencing alarming or serious hunger. Globally, 733 million people lack access to sufficient calories, and 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Acute food insecurity and the risk of famine are on the rise, and starvation is proliferating as a weapon of war. Worldwide, 148 million children are stunted, 45 million children are wasted, and almost 5 million children die before age five from hunger-related causes. The situation is most severe in Burundi, Yemen, and Niger—and it is on the rise in Afghanistan, Argentina, and Mongolia. Hunger kills more than nine million people each year, more than AIDs, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. 3.1 million of those deaths are children. 

People are hungry in the United States. The USDA estimates that 44.2 million Americans nationwide live in food insecure households. These are homes where meals are skipped or kids are sent to school without breakfast because there aren’t sufficient resources to put food on the table. 28% of households with children indicate that kids were not eating enough because families could not afford food, thanks to inflated prices and the end of federal pandemic relief support. Feeding America reports that more than 53 million people turn to food banks, food pantries, and meal programs for help. That’s one-third more than prior to the pandemic. Our food pantry volunteers will tell you that the Saranac Lake pantry downstairs is a busy place on Saturday mornings, serving all kinds of neighbors—seniors, single moms, traditional families, and people living with homelessness, mental illness, developmental disabilities, or physical handicaps.

Jesus’ encounter with the rich man invites us to consider the responsibilities of our relative affluence in a world plagued by persistent hunger.  Breathless after his run, kneeling in the dust of the road at Jesus’ feet, the rich man wanted to know what he must do to inherit eternal life. This righteous man was relieved to hear Jesus reciting the instructions of the Torah—no murder, adultery, stealing, lying, or defrauding. Be sure to honor your parents. The man had kept all these commandments from his youth, and he must have done so with great earnestness and integrity, because Jesus loved him for it and invited him to become a disciple.

There was only one thing lacking. Although the man was expert in keeping the Torah, he seemed to have fallen short in tzedakah or almsgiving, one of the most essential principles of Jewish piety.  Our Jewish ancestors believed that, ultimately, everything belongs to God.  While God could have created a world where everyone had exactly the same distribution of God’s bounty, God chose not to do so. Instead, some, like the rich man, were given much, while others had little. This uneven distribution of resources was how God invited faithful people to join their purpose to God’s purpose, to live lovingly and generously so that God’s goodness could abound for all. Faced with Jesus’ invitation to sell what he owned for the blessing of his impoverished neighbors, the rich man turned his back on a life with Jesus and went away grieving.

When it comes to wealth, we don’t consider ourselves rich, certainly not rich enough to be labeled “the rich man” or “the rich woman.” But when we see ourselves through the eyes of the world, we are more than blessed. The average daily wage in the United States is about $162. Developing countries with unstable political and economic conditions do not fare nearly so well. In Nepal, the average daily wage is $3.75; in Sudan, it’s $2.71; and in Afghanistan, people try to survive on less than a dollar a day. I have said it before, and I suspect that I will say it again, my friends. We are blessed—we are rich.

I’m not saying that we don’t work hard to earn what we have. We may spend long years striving in tough jobs to give our families the sort of home life and advantages that we wish them to have. I see a lot of hard workers when I look out at our pews on Sunday mornings. But I wonder if we see our relative wealth in the same way that Jesus invited the rich man to think of his money. Our relative affluence is a generous gift from God to bless our lives and to bless the lives of our impoverished neighbors. I wonder what our household expenditures might look like if Jesus were writing the checks. Today Jesus gives the rich man—and us—an uncomfortable reminder that we are meant to share God’s blessing with others.  When we do so, we get a foretaste of God’s Kingdom, where all are welcomed to the bountiful feast that Jesus has prepared.

I want to share how our participation in the CROP Walk can allow us to be a blessing to our neighbors, near and far. Our CROP dollars will help world neighbors like Moize Munenwa Joseph, one of over 800 people in Tanzania who participated in a CWS-sponsored vegetable farming program. Moize learned valuable farming skills like seed selection, pest control, and farm cleanliness. This helped him to improve his harvest and increase his income. Now Moize is sharing what he learned with others in his community. Moize says, “I can take care of my family and ensure we consume healthy food.”

Our CROP dollars can help world neighbors like Hak Nhy in Cambodia. For generations, her family has lived off crops from their vegetable farm. Challenges from climate change and the pandemic affected their harvest, leaving Hak and her family with barely enough to eat or sell. Hak enrolled in a Church World Service gardening program that taught her how to plant a more productive and nutritious garden. Hak says, “I have [gained] skills and knowledge on vegetable gardening, adapting to the changing weather conditions, and compost making.” Her family now has a better diet and her garden’s increased harvest allows her to sell surplus vegetables.

Our CROP dollars also help world neighbors like Alodia González, who lives in rural Paraguay. Alodia’s family struggled to have a stable income until she participated in a CWS training that focused on planting seeds and food production. Alodia learned about beekeeping and making honey. She also learned to organize and launch a community garden. Alodia says, “With a good production of honey, we are generating significant income to support our families. With the garden, we are able to eat lettuce and other vegetables produced by us.”

Our CROP dollars can be the kind of blessing that Jesus had hoped the rich man might share with his impoverished neighbors. I’m not talking about selling everything we have and giving it all away this morning. The good news for us is that even a modest gift that is well within our budgets can make a big difference in the lives of our needy neighbors.  A $20 pledge can provide chickens for a family—chickens are a lasting resource for eggs and meat. $60 is enough to help three families with seeds and training for home gardening. They’ll have better nutrition and the extra income that comes with plenty of veggies. A $161 pledge would be enough to enable a farmer to plant an acre of sweet potatoes, to provide both food and income. Are we feeling especially generous? $1,499 buys the whole farm—seeds, meat animals, and training to provide a family with reliable sources of food and income to meet their needs for years to come.

The rich man may have turned away from Jesus, saddened by the invitation to discipleship that Jesus shared with him. But I suspect that this morning, as we consider the call to discipleship and the impact of CROP Walk, we are getting inspired, eager even, to make a difference in the lives of hungry neighbors.  We are blessed, my friends, so that we might be a blessing to others. May we go forth to follow Jesus, sharing generously of our abundance to make a difference in the lives of our hungry neighbors.

Resources

Concern Worldwide. “Global Hunger Index 2024.” Accessed online at 2017 Global Hunger Index: The Inequalities of Hunger (concern.net)

Mehdi Punjwani. “Average salary in the U.S. in 2024” in USA Today, Sept. 26, 2024. Accessed online at Average Salary in the U.S. in 2024 (usatoday.com)

World Data. “Average income around the world” October 2024. Accessed online at https://www.worlddata.info/average-income.php

Church World Service. CWS (cwsglobal.org)

Mark G. Vitalis-Hoffman. “Commentary on Mark 10:17-31” in Preaching This Week, Oct. 11, 2015. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 10:17-31  – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

David Lose. “Commentary on Mark 10:17-31” in Preaching This Week, Oct. 14, 2012. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 10:17-31  – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Matt Skinner. “Commentary on Mark 10:17-31” in Preaching This Week, Oct. 11, 2009. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 10:17-31  – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

To make a donation: https://events.crophungerwalk.org/cropwalks/event/saranaclakeny

Mark 10:17-31

17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not defraud. Honor your father and mother.’ ” 20 He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” 21 Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” 22 When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

23 Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

28 Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Sowing the Seeds of Peace

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Sowing the Seeds of Peace” Zech. 8:3-17

Since 1940, churches have observed a world-wide communion on this first Sunday of October. It’s a sign of our unity in Christ. As we gather at the table, we remember that we are made one in Christ. And as we go forth from worship, we resolve to take the unity, peace, and love of Christ with us, so that our actions in our families, communities, and beyond might anticipate and promote the unity that God longs to see for our world.

That first World Communion Sunday was a prophetic act, undertaken in a time that was descending into worldwide violence. In October 1940, France had fallen to Hitler’s invading army. The Vichy government had just proclaimed the end of Jewish status, denying their Jewish citizens the most essential of rights and freedoms. Concentration camps across German-occupied Europe were filled with men and women, conscripted into forced labor in inhuman conditions. Hitler was meeting with Mussolini at the Brenner Pass in the Alps, where they devised plans for world domination. Within days, the Blitz would rain bombs on the streets of London, Bristol, and Coventry, England.

World Communion this year coincides with the anniversary of the Hamas terror attack on southern Israel. On October 7, 2023, 1,195 Israeli civilians were killed and more than 200 were taken hostage. In response, the Israeli Defense Forces launched a war against Hamas in Gaza. 41,431 Palestinians have been killed, more than half of them women and children. 1,706 Israeli soldiers have died. About 120 journalists, reporting on the war, have lost their lives, as have 224 humanitarian aid workers and 179 United Nations Relief Workers (UNRWA). 60% of the people in Gaza have lost a family member this past year. This week, we held our breath while Israel took the fight to Lebanon, targeting Hamas and the anti-Israeli militant group Hezbollah, which is equipped by Iran. Predictably, the Iranian response launched 180 missiles into Israel’s airspace. It is estimated that 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon this week, fleeing the escalating violence.

We do not know what will happen in the coming year as Israel continues their offensive and Iran responds. We do not know what will happen as Vladimir Putin pursues his grievous war against the people of Ukraine. We do not know what will happen as Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch missiles at passing cargo ships. We do not know what the future holds for the civil war in famine-ridden Sudan. We do know that we need World Communion today every bit as much as we did when it was initiated in 1940.

Our reading from the Prophet Zechariah promises peace and abundant life for people in a time of struggle and wavering hope. Written in the year 522BCE, the Israelite people lived in a landscape that had been scarred by war. Some of the people were newly returned from years of exile in Babylon. Clans that had been separated by more than half a century of captivity were learning how to be family again. And they were seeking to do so amid trying circumstances. Fields and orchards had gone fallow. Trade routes were disrupted. The city of Jerusalem lay in ruins—its walls breached and the temple burned to the ground. When the Persian Empire defeated Babylon, the people had rejoiced as they were sent home to their Promised Land with resources and the blessing to rebuild. But where would they start? Who could do the work? Would the land ever again flow with milk and honey?

Into this trying time, God spoke a word of encouragement and hope through the Prophet Zechariah. God promised a rebuilt Jerusalem, where the streets would be filled with blessing: everyone would live to a ripe old age and the sounds of children laughing and playing would ring out. God would sow the seeds of peace, and there would be a harvest of abundance: grape vines heavy with ripe fruit, golden fields waving with ripe grain, rain falling to water the land, a people living as a blessing to the nations. Can we imagine how good those words sounded to the people who heard Zechariah speak?

The people would play their own part in bringing that peaceful abundance to pass. There would be the hard physical work of tending fields and flocks, raising up the walls, and rebuilding the Temple. And, according to Zechariah, there would be some demanding personal work. The people would need to sow their own seeds of peace. They would need to speak truth and ensure that justice was passed at the court of the city gate. They would need to turn from evil and work for the good of all their neighbors. They would need to put an end to the lies that divided communities and prevented justice in the land. God would plant seeds of peace, and so must God’s people, sowing peace and justice one household, one neighborhood, one city at a time. This was the Lord’s vision, God’s best hope for God’s people.

It’s a beautiful vision that God continues to hold out to faithful people all around the world this morning. Even now, God is sowing seeds of peace. God envisions a world where Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran will come to the table of peace. God sees a time when the people of Ukraine and Russia will beat their weapons of war into plowshares and pruning hooks. God dreams of the time when famine-stricken and civil-war-torn places like Yemen and Sudan will end their strife and the people will eat the bread of peace. The seeds of peace will grow and flourish in a world-wide harvest, the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and the people will know war no more. Lord, hasten the day!

We do not know what will happen this year in all those conflict-ridden, war-torn, frightening places, but this morning we do know that there is work for us to do. God’s people always have a role to play in bringing God’s hopeful sowing of the seeds of peace to an abundant harvest. Zechariah told us so. It starts here with our personal resolve to do the things that make for peace. Are we ready?

First, we are to speak truthfully to one another, not only expressing what is true, factual, and responsible but also listening to the truths of others. As truth is spoken and ears are opened. We find a way to move forward, past times of division and misunderstanding.

Next, we are to ensure justice for all people, whether it is the court of public opinion, our local town courts, or our broader legal system. In the words of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, jr., “No justice, no peace.” We all, especially those among us who are marginalized, impoverished, and at-risk, deserve our day in court and justice for all.

We also need to rethink our definition of neighbor. If we accord the honor and care of “neighbor” only to those who look like us, think like us, and act like us, then we are doomed to always live in the land of “us and them.” Can we instead dare to find common ground and work together for a world community where everyone is a neighbor and a beloved child of God?

Finally, we cannot honor lies as truth, or as Zechariah puts it, we cannot “love perjury.” That calls for personal vigilance that calls out old family stories that perpetuate division and misunderstanding. That calls for communities that refuse to scapegoat vulnerable people, like immigrants or minorities, blaming them for all our social, civic, and economic ills. That calls for doing our due diligence to ensure that we do not repeat stories that are not factual, whether we heard it on the street, saw it on social media, or watched it on television. As long as we accept lies as truth, we cannot live in peace. Can I get an amen?

This morning, the Prophet Zechariah reminds us that God has sown the seeds of peace. The Lord, through the Prophet Zechariah, has even given us a roadmap to the things that make for peace. It starts with us, my friends. The only question remaining on this World Communion Sunday is, “Will we do our part in bringing God’s generous sowing of peace to a full and abundant harvest that is a blessing to all?”  Zechariah–and the Lord–hope that our answer is a resounding, “Yes!”

Resources:

PCUSA. “A Sowing of Peace” Presbyterian Peacemaking Program. Louisville: PCUSA, 2024.

David Petersen. Haggai and Zechariah 1-8. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984.

Peter C. Craigie. Twelve Prophets, vol. 2. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985.

AP News. “What to know about fighting in Lebanon and Gaza” in The Associated Press, October 5, 2024. Accessed online at https://apnews.com/article/israel-lebanon-what-to-know-hezbollah-incursion-c44358cb4c70db69bdab4b254cb2ed76

–. “Casualties of the Israel–Hamas war” in Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, October 4, 2024. Accessed online at Casualties of the Israel–Hamas war – Wikipedia

Zechariah 8:3-17 (HCSB)

3 The Lord says this: “I will return to Zion and live in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, the mountain of the Lord of Hosts, and the Holy Mountain.” 4 The Lord of Hosts says this: “Old men and women will again sit along the streets of Jerusalem, each with a staff in hand because of advanced age. 5 The streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in them.” 6 The Lord of Hosts says this: “Though it may seem incredible to the remnant of this people in those days, should it also seem incredible to Me?”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts. 7 The Lord of Hosts says this: “I will save My people from the land of the east and the land of the west. 8 I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem. They will be My people, and I will be their faithful and righteous God.” 9 The Lord of Hosts says this: “Let your hands be strong, you who now hear these words that the prophets spoke when the foundations were laid for the rebuilding of the temple, the house of the Lord of Hosts. 10 For prior to those days neither man nor beast had wages. There was no safety from the enemy for anyone who came or went, for I turned everyone against his neighbor. 11 But now, I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts. 12 “For they will sow in peace: the vine will yield its fruit, the land will yield its produce, and the skies will yield their dew. I will give the remnant of this people all these things as an inheritance. 13 As you have been a curse among the nations, house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you will be a blessing. Don’t be afraid; let your hands be strong.” 14 For the Lord of Hosts says this: “As I resolved to treat you badly when your fathers provoked Me to anger, and I did not relent,” says the Lord of Hosts, 15 “so I have resolved again in these days to do what is good to Jerusalem and the house of Judah. Don’t be afraid. 16 These are the things you must do: Speak truth to one another; make true and sound decisions within your gates. 17 Do not plot evil in your hearts against your neighbor, and do not love perjury, for I hate all this”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

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True Abundance

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “True Abundance” John 10: 7-10

Plastic is perhaps the greatest pollution threat to our planet. In the past fifty years, it has become the primary material used in our packaging industry, replacing paper, cardboard, metal, and glass. One million plastic water bottles are purchased every minute worldwide. Five trillion plastic bags are used each year. 460 million tons of plastic are produced annually, and that production is anticipated to increase by one-third in the next five years.

Plastic is an environmental threat. Whether we bury plastic in landfills or dump it untreated into our waters, plastic is slow to biodegrade, taking twenty to five hundred years to decompose. A plastic bag buried in a landfill is estimated to take 1,000 years to breakdown. There is an estimated 75 to 199 million tons of plastic waste currently in our oceans, with a further 33 billion pounds of plastic entering the marine environment every single year. Ocean wildlife mistake plastic waste for prey. Unable to digest the plastic they eat, fish, turtles, and birds suffer internal injuries and starvation. A sperm whale that washed up at the Wakatobi National Park in Indonesia in December 2018 had more than a thousand pieces of plastic in its stomach.

When plastic biodegrades, it lingers in the environment as microplastics—tiny plastic particles less than five millimeters in size that make their way into water, farmland, and the food we eat. Studies have found that our personal annual consumption of microplastics is equivalent to eating 50 plastic bags per year or one credit card each week. The chemicals in these microplastics are linked to a bevy of health concerns, like reproductive problems, obesity, organ disease, developmental delays in children, and chronic inflammation.

Plastics sure are convenient. Just about everything—our breakfast yogurt, laundry detergent, shower gel, and ice cream—is neatly and durable packaged. But our dependence upon plastic is a problem for the planet, perilous to wildlife, and bad for our health. It’s a twenty-first century problem, yet I like to think that on this Care for Creation Sunday Jesus might have some first century wisdom to help us rethink our relationship with plastic.

In our reading from John’s gospel, Jesus characterized himself as the “good shepherd,” drawing upon a key metaphor from the Hebrew Bible. In Ezekiel 34, evil and corrupt kings were characterized as bad shepherds of the people, who ruled with force and harshness, scattering and destroying the flock. God promised to rescue the flock of Israel from their evil rulers. God would be Israel’s good shepherd. God would seek the lost, gather the scattered, and feed the people on rich pasture.

Jesus had seen some bad shepherding for the people of Israel. Herod Antipas, Herod Philip, and Pontius were all Roman appointed rulers. Their mission was to collect taxes to fill the emperor’s treasury and put down any whiff of rebellion. Instead of shepherding the people, they exploited them to line their own pockets and ensure their position and power. Even the chief priest in the temple was a Roman appointee, part of an elite class religious professionals who had controlled the worship life of Israel since the Roman invasion.

Jesus saw the suffering of his people at the hands of bad shepherds and longed to fulfill God’s plan to shepherd them. Jesus promised his friends “abundant” life. The Greek word that Jesus used for abundant is perisson. It means a life that is more, a life that is over and above what we have come to expect. An abundant life provides enough to meet our needs. Think of Jesus feeding the multitudes, welcoming outsiders, and healing the sick. Jesus’ abundance surpassed this, not in ways that would grant political power or bring fabulous wealth. Jesus wanted his followers to find more life, eternal life, in his Father’s Kingdom, a life that could not be bound by time or space or even death. Abundant life is blessed now as we live a balanced life with love for God and neighbor. Abundant life is blessed eternally as we anticipate that far brighter light on that far better shore. Abundant life is found in Christ the good shepherd.

One of the great challenges that we face in our world today is that we have forgotten what true abundance looks like. Jessica Maudlin, who heads the PCUSA’s Earth Care Congregations initiative and resources the ecumenical thinktank Creation Justice Ministries, cautions that we confuse true abundance with excess, with acquiring more stuff than we will ever use and consuming more than our world can sustain. Our excess is an idolatry that lulls us into thinking that we save ourselves when only God can do that. Our excess threatens the planet that has been entrusted to our care. Our excess is a failure to love our neighbors to come—the generations who must live with the legacy of what our excess leaves behind.

On this Care for Creation Sunday, Jesus might invite us to be reoriented, to trade our excess for his true abundance. It may not be easy. We begin by affirming that Jesus is our good shepherd, who has provided for us the blueprint for true abundance. As we rely upon the Lord instead of ourselves, we learn to shift our priorities from acquiring more and stockpiling excess to ensuring that there is enough for ourselves, our neighbors, and the wild world around us. We can follow Jesus by becoming better shepherds of our resources, so that the abundant life promised by the Lord is a promise for the planet and for generations to come.

I want to circle back to all those concerning facts about plastics that I mentioned at the start of this message because I think it’s a place where we need to—and can—make a difference. We can begin by reducing our plastic consumption. If you google the words “plastic footprint calculator,” you’ll find some useful web-based tools that will help you track how much plastic you use each year and guide you in thinking about ways to use less. Check it out. We can also purchase the new generation of bioplastics. Made from corn or bamboo, bioplastics are a little pricey, but they compost and biodegrade easily in landfills.

We can also move away from single-use plastics by reusing. Carry a water bottle or a reuseable coffee cup. Remember to keep a stash of cloth shopping bags in your car. Invest in a durable stainless-steel straw and skip the plastic straws used in convenience stores. Bring your own containers for leftovers when you dine out.

We can get better about recycling. Only 14% of plastics get recycled. You know what happens to the other 86%. Look for a trash service that recycles. Sort it yourself and make sure you get everything in the right receptacles at the transfer station. Did you know that you can now recycle plastic bags and wraps locally? The Women’s Civic Chamber is collecting clean, dry plastic bags. Partnering with Trex, a company that makes composite decking, they’ll turn our bags and wrappers into park benches. You can donate yours at collection bins at Nori’s, Woods and Waters, Kinney Drugs, and Harrietstown Town Hall. They started this in May and have already collected enough plastic—1,000 pounds—to make the first bench. Trex reclaims about a billion pounds of plastic each year.

We can also try removing the plastics that we find. Take a bag along on your neighborhood walk and pick up the trash. This morning as I took Gybi around the block, I picked up: a chip bag, a wrapper for Chips Ahoy, a single-use water bottle, a big bottle for Arnold Palmer (aka iced tea mixed with lemonade), a zip lock bag, a candy dispenser, and a plastic mini-basketball—and there were two plastic bags filled with poop from another dog (at least I hope it was a dog). If you are hitting the trail or paddling the waters, take care to ensure that everything that comes in with you goes back out—and pick up what others leave behind. And don’t forget that our fall highway clean-up will be scheduled in the coming weeks. We’ll be collecting trash along Rte. 186 in Lake Clear. There will be plenty of plastic: soda bottles, carry-out containers, masks, compact disks, diapers, and more. Sign up to help out and see who can collect the most plastic.

Well, my friends, an abundant life doesn’t need to include an abundance of plastic. It just needs the good shepherd. With our careful shepherding of resources, the abundant life promised by the Lord can be a promise for the planet and for generations to come. May it be so.

Resources

Aaron Marbone. “Building benches with plastic” in Adirondack Daily Enterprise, May 11, 2024. Accessed online at Building benches with plastic | News, Sports, Jobs – Adirondack Daily Enterprise

Jessica Maudlin, et al. “Plastic Jesus: Real Faith in a Synthetic World,” in Creation Justice Ministries, Earth Day Sunday 2024. Accessed online at Plastic Jesus – CREATION JUSTICE MINISTRIES

Statista. “Global Plastic Packaging Industry—statistics and facts.” Accessed online at statista.com

United Nations Environmental Program. “Our Planet Is Choking in Plastic,” an interactive  resource for individuals, schools, and teachers in UNEP Interactives, 2024. Accessed online at https://unep.org/interactives/beat-plastic-pollution.

–. Plastic Footprint Calculator. Plastic Bank. Accessed online at Plastic Footprint Calculator – Plastic Bank

John 10:7-10

7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

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Come as a Child

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Come as a Child” Mark 9:30-37

Perhaps the only positive outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic was a temporary decrease in the number of American children living in poverty. Federal economic security programs kept 53 million people above the poverty line in both 2020 and 2021. Child tax credits, increased food assistance, the extension of unemployment benefits, and three rounds of stimulus checks drove child poverty down to an all-time low of 5.2%. With the expiration of these programs in 2022, child poverty was again on the rise. According to the Annie E. Casie Foundation, 16% of American children now live in poverty. That’s 11.6 million kids. New York’s child poverty rates are among the worst in the nation. We rank forty-first out of the fifty states.

The likelihood of child poverty is higher here in the North Country. In Franklin County, 21.3% of our children live in poverty. Those numbers are higher for families of color. About 32% of racial ethnic children live below the federal poverty line. The impact of child poverty can last a lifetime. Impoverished families have less access to healthy food and quality medical care. A poverty diet is high in processed foods, fat, and carbohydrates. That’s a recipe for childhood obesity. Children in poverty are more likely to live in substandard housing, experience homelessness, and be exposed to crime and substance abuse in at-risk neighborhoods. Children in poverty have lower readiness when entering school and are more likely to have developmental challenges. Families in poverty live in chronic stress that leaves kids feeling anxious, depressed, and frightened.

When we further consider families who work in low wage jobs that lift them above the federal poverty threshold but don’t pay enough to meet monthly expenses, then we begin to see the enormity of the child poverty crisis. The Ouimette family of AuSable Forks is a case in point. William works for the town of Jay’s highway department and also serves as a volunteer firefighter. Miranda is a stay-at-home mom to their three kids between the ages of 6 and 9. William says, “It’s harder and harder for people just to get by on a job like working for the state or the town or anything now.” The Ouimettes struggle to pay for essential things like car repairs and new items for their kids. They fear they will be priced out of the home where their family has resided for generations.

Child poverty is nothing new. In Jesus’ day, 90% of people lived in poverty with little resource for rising above the circumstance of their birth. Within that impoverished time, children were particularly vulnerable. They were considered the lowest status members of society. Children lacked legal standing and protection as individuals and were instead deemed the property of their fathers. Indeed, children could be sold into slavery to settle a father’s debts. Although children were seen as a gift from God, a safeguard against extreme poverty in old age, children were expected to be unconditionally obedient and subject to the strict discipline of parents. The Book of Proverbs instructs, “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.” According to Exodus and Leviticus, the punishment for children who curse their parents or fail to honor them was death – judgment and stoning by the community. In the Gentile world, unwanted newborns were routinely exposed, left out in the open to die—or to be taken in by strangers and raised as slaves or prostitutes.

Given the low standing of children in the disciples’ world, we can imagine the shock that they felt when Jesus placed a child among them as someone to be welcomed and emulated. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus warned his friends of the suffering and death that would await him in Jerusalem. But along the way to Capernaum, instead of discussing better ways to protect Jesus and guard against betrayal, the twelve argued about who among them was the greatest. They compared genealogies and miracles, sermons and bank accounts, patrons and illustrious acquaintances, all in an effort to assert their personal worth. That child that Jesus held in his arms didn’t make any sense. Why would Jesus identify with a child? Why would he expect them to welcome and serve the lowest status person in the room?

Biblical scholar J.D.M. Derrett says that when Jesus scooped the little child up in his arms, Jesus was engaging in a symbolic act. In the Hebrew tradition, receiving or placing someone else’s child on your knee or in your embrace in front of the witnessing community was a rite of adoption.  We see this in the Book of Genesis, when the childless Sarah and Rebecca brought their servant women to their husbands to conceive children, insisting that those children would be born “on their knees” as rightful sons of the patriarchs. If J.D.M. Derrett is right, then Jesus was saying that the most vulnerable of people, like children, especially belong to Jesus. The disciples could not love and honor him without loving and honoring them.

Beyond that simple call to humble service, Jesus was reminding his friends, many of whom had left their families behind to follow him, that he had adopted them. They were his children. As his sons and daughters, they must demonstrate toward him the obedience, honor, and respect that they would a father. The disciples were meant to be brothers and sisters in Jesus’ family, not rivals for greatness. That tender embrace that the child found in Jesus’ arms reflected the love and support that the disciples found in Christ, who welcomed them, not because of their great achievements, but simply because he chose to love them, regardless of their status. In that unconditional love, they would find the courage and inspiration to be servants of all.

As messages go, today’s reading is clear. The “least of these” are deserving of the service and welcome that we would extend to the Lord. When we see vulnerable neighbors, we are to think of Jesus, responding with the sort of compassion and care that were the hallmark of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Beyond that, Jesus would have his followers see that in God’s Kingdom there is no us and them—no low-status children and high-status disciples. Rather, we are all God’s children. The social and psychological constructs that we create to assert our greatness—that separate rich from poor, have from have-nots, first world from third world—those constructs are false dichotomies. We are kin, all children of an infinitely loving God. We belong to one another, just as we belong to God.

If the pandemic taught us anything, it is that we can end childhood poverty. If we can lower the rate of childhood poverty to 5.2% in only two years, imagine what we could do if people really cared, if we had public policy that regarded vulnerable children the way that Jesus embraced that child. There is enough. We just lack the social and political will to make a lasting difference in the lives of families who need it most. We do not believe that every child is deserving of unconditional love and welcome. We pitch a paltry ten percent of our federal budget at programs that address poverty while income inequality in our nation—the gap between rich and poor—grows and grows and grows. Lord, have mercy upon us.

Jesus thinks his disciples can do better. We can do better. He imagines a world where no child lives in poverty. It’s a world where our most vulnerable neighbors are known and held, blessed and helped. It’s a world where disciples realize that true greatness is found not in our professional titles or advanced degrees, not in our big bank accounts or public accolades, not in our athletic prowess or our physical beauty. It’s a world where the greatest of all are servants of all. It’s a world that looks a lot like his Father’s Kingdom. He hopes that we will imagine that world, too. May it be so.

Resources

Danilo Trisi. “Government’s Pandemic Response Turned a Would-Be Poverty Surge into a Record Poverty Decline” in Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Reports, August 29, 2023. Accessed online at Government’s Pandemic Response Turned a Would-Be Poverty Surge Into a Record Poverty Decline | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cbpp.org)

Alek LaShomb. “Efforts to Address Child Poverty in New York’s North Country” in WCAX News, June 14, 2024. Accessed online at Efforts to address child poverty in New York’s North Country (wcax.com)

Courtney V. Buggs. “Commentary on Mark 9:30-37” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 22, 2024. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 9:30-37 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Micah D. Kiel. “Commentary on Mark 9:30-37” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 20, 2015. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 9:30-37 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

C. Clifton Black. “Commentary on Mark 9:30-37” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 19, 2021. Accessed online at Commentary on Mark 9:30-37 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Thomas P. Napoli. “New York Children in Need,” a report of the Office of the NYS Comptroller, May 2024. Accessed online at Report Titl (ny.gov)

Mark 9:30-37

30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it, 31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. 33 Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

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