Category: Christian Discipleship

Feeling Abandoned by God

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship

I have not posted anything for several weeks as my wife and I were preparing and taking a long trip to Italy and Greece. We have been home a few days now, and below is an email I wrote to a friend who is growing through a rough time.  I thought it might be useful to others in similar situations.

Dear beloved child of God, I want to share some thoughts about your concern that you feel abandoned by God.  First of all, we’ve all been there.  As Frederick Buechner, one of my favorite authors puts it, “Doubt is the ants in pants of faith.”  Like our physical muscles, our faith only grows stronger when it is stretched and tested.  I guess that’s the “no pain, no gain” school of theology.  The first thing that came to mind in my addled jet-lagged brain last night when I heard your concern was Jesus on the cross saying, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  We’ve all been there, including Jesus.  By the way, that is a direct quote of Psalm 22:1.  50 of the Psalms are Psalms of lament from people feeling the absence of God’s presence, and those feelings are so common we have a whole book of Lamentations in the Bible.

I know it’s not much comfort to say “misery loves company,” but I share all that to just say it’s all part of the normal human experience, no matter what the prosperity gospel or the toxic positivity proponents tell us.  And those periods of loneliness and doubt can seem to last forever.  Jesus was tempted in the wilderness 40 days.  Elijah hid on Mt. Horeb for 40 days when Jezebel was after him to kill him.  The Hebrews wandered around in the desert for 40 years before they got to the Promised Land.  The disciples hid out after the resurrection for 50 days before the Holy Spirit came to them.  All of those numbers are not exact dates: they just mean it was a damn long time.

One of my favorite Scriptures is in Isaiah 40 where God is assuring the Hebrews in Exile in Babylon that they will be set free.  The whole chapter is worth reading, but I find the closing verses very helpful when I’m feeling at the end of my rope:

“Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

The Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary,

and the young will fall exhausted;

but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.”

“The song “On Eagles’ Wings” is a great source of inspiration from that scripture.  

Sorry if I got preachy, but I mean these words from my heart and hope they help.  And one final thought – don’t beat yourself up about what you have done in the past.  God understands despair and hopelessness and accepts and forgives all of our weaknesses.  We love you, God loves you, and you are never alone.  

From Suffering to Hope, Romans 5:1-11

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Lectionary Texts, Lenten devotion, Sermon

Paul tells us that suffering produces endurance, which produces character, which produces hope.  Even though this winter has been mild I figure having lived through 77 Ohio winters; I should be one of the most hopeful characters in captivity.

Suffering is not my favorite thing about being a Christian. In fact, if we were to do a top 10 list of my favorite things about being a Christian, suffering wouldn’t even be on it.   I really identify with the Disciple Peter who argues with Jesus in Mark 8 when Peter tries to talk Jesus out of his need to suffer and die, remember what Jesus says to him – “Get behind me Satan, you re on the side of men not of God?”  Pretty harsh reply from Jesus, don’t you think.  But if we look more carefully at that story Jesus goes on to say, “take up your cross and follow me…”    you see, following requires that we line up behind the leader.  Remember those days in elementary school when you lined up to go everywhere, and this leader that we profess to follow, whose name we claim as Christians, makes it clear over and over again that cross bearing is part of what we have signed on for at our baptism. 

For Christians, suffering goes with the territory, unless we want to give up the reward for genuine suffering, which is eternal life here and forever.  In Romans 8, Paul says, “We suffer with Christ so that we may be glorified with him.”  But we still wish it wasn’t so, don’t we?  When I first heard a story about a Good Friday cross walk several years ago when the faithful from several churches gathered in Dublin, Ohio for their walk and realized they had no cross with which to walk, I said, “That’ll preach!”  Wouldn’t we love to have Easter without the suffering and pain of Good Friday and the Garden of Gethsemane? –the betrayal and denial that break Jesus’ heart long before the executioners break his body? 

I would.  I am not a fan of the” no pain no gain” school of exercise or theology.  If there is an easier way to get in shape than sweating and having sore muscles, I’m all over it.  And if someone can find an easy path to salvation, I’ll be the tour guide.  But, oops, there’s that nasty verse in the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 7:13-14  that says the wide easy freeway leads to destruction, and that’s the one without the cross, the one most people choose, because it looks easier and lots more fun in the short run.  But when it comes to matters of faith, don’t we want to focus on goals and consequences for eternity, not just for today?

There are different kinds of suffering, and some are easier to explain or to deal with than others.  First, and easiest in some ways, is the kind of suffering we bring upon ourselves.   Kanye West and Will Smith come to mind as two of this year’s nominees in that category.  Or anyone who was injured trying to take a selfie in a dangerous place?  You can think of other nominees, less famous ones, perhaps, and if we’re honest we could all be on that list at one time or another. 

The difference for most of us is that we aren’t celebrities.  Our screw ups usually don’t show up on channel 10 news or in big bold tabloid headlines for the world to read in the checkout line at Kroger’s.  But that doesn’t mean they are any less painful or hard to live with.    Mistakes have consequences, which mean they usually hurt us and/or other people, and hurting is a form of suffering.  We all make bad choices, it goes with our free will that none of us want to give up.   We make bad choices that impact our health; we drive when we are distracted by electronic gadgets or when our judgment isn’t 100%; we say things in anger that we regret; we break promises to people we love.  We give into worldly pressure to succeed or cut corners, knowing we’re violating our own values, and we may get away with it for awhile, or think we have; but sooner or later, our chickens come home to roost and we suffer.

 That kind of suffering is very painful and hard to deal with, in part because we know there’s no one else to blame but ourselves, but at least self-inflicted suffering makes some sense.  We can understand where it comes from and why.

The second type of suffering makes less sense to me.  It’s been 12 years now, but I still remember the heart-wrenching and horrifying images of the Tsunami in Japan in 2011.   Innocent, helpless people, thousands of them, minding their own business one minute who were suddenly swept up in what looked like science fiction movie about the end of the world the next.  Or name any mass shooting or the inhumane brutality of Putin’s now year old war on Ukraine.  Suffering type number 2 is the kind caused by natural disasters or criminal attacks or lung cancer in someone who has never smoked a cigarette; the kind for which there is no justification or satisfying explanation.  Innocent children who are physically or emotionally or sexually abused.  Faithful spouses who are cheated on, taken advantage of and left with nothing to sustain life.  You get the picture. 

This is a good place to clarify what suffering isn’t.  Shortly after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the governor of Tokyo made a public pronouncement that he believed this disaster was divine retribution on the people of Japan for their greed.  This gentleman is a follower of the Shinto religion, and I have no knowledge whatsoever of what Shinto theology is or believes.  I do know there are those tempted in most religions to resort to blaming God for things when we can’t figure any other way to justify or explain why bad things happen.  Christianity is not exempt from such bad theology, and I remember there were Christian preachers who claimed that hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast in 2005 because of the sin and wickedness of the Big Easy. 

Please understand, I’m not saying actions don’t have consequences or that sin doesn’t cause suffering – those things are built into the natural order of things.  But that does not mean that the loving God I know and worship would kick people when they are down by saying “Gotcha” or “Take that, sinner” over the broken and shattered ruins of a devastated life or city or nation.  When we need God’s comfort and strength and presence the very most, in times of tragedy and loss and despair, would God choose that time to teach us a lesson?  NO, that is the time that Emmanuel, God with us, carries us and comforts us.  When we suffer God is close enough to us to taste the salt of our tears.

Now, I know you can find plenty of places in the Bible where we are told that God punishes sinners with plagues and boils and hell fire and damnation, and we need to deal with that problem head on.   Even in our text for today Paul says we need to be saved from the wrath of God.   The Bible was written over centuries by lots of different authors who were trying to answer the hardest questions and mysteries of life.  Those who experienced God in their suffering as punitive and judgmental wrote about that experience, and almost all of them did so without the benefit of knowing Jesus Christ, who is the best revelation possible for the loving, forgiving, grace-full God we have come to know and love through Jesus.

We need to remind ourselves that the Jews who wrote their Bible, which we call the Old Testament, also knew the loving, merciful side of God, too.  That compassionate part of God’s nature had just not come into clear focus for them as it did in the incarnation of God in Jesus’ human form.  We sometimes forget that most of our great images of God, like the good shepherd of Psalm 23, or God as a mother hen gathering her chicks about her all come from the Hebrew Scriptures.  The essence of Jesus’ teaching, for example the Great Commandments to love God with all one’s heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself are straight from the book of Deuteronomy. 

Paul tells us that suffering produces endurance, character and hope.  We can see how these first two kinds of suffering can build endurance and maybe character, but what about hope?  We need a third kind of suffering to build Hope, and that is what followers of Jesus do when we voluntarily take on suffering as an act of sacrificial compassion.  The reason Christians embrace and even boast about suffering, as Paul describes it, is that com-passion is essential to the Christian faith, and the word “compassion” comes from two Greek words that mean to suffer with.  Compassion is the kind of love Jesus came to teach and live.  Compassion is the love we feel for neighbors and enemies we don’t even know, simply because we share a common human condition.  Compassion is what we feel for the people of Ukraine because we identify and empathize with them and share their suffering as fellow members of the human family.  God doesn’t have grandchildren – just children – so our fellow human beings are not cousins once or twice removed, but are all our siblings – brothers and sisters together with Christ.

Compassion is a key to God’s very nature.  Why else would God allow Jesus to suffer and die for us while we are yet sinners?   When John tells us that God so loved the world that he gave us Jesus – that’s compassion and empathy to the max.    God becomes one of us in human form to share our existence, including our suffering.

The cross of Jesus is often misunderstood as a necessary sacrifice or punishment for the sins of the world, but when we experience the cross of Christ as an act of compassion and sacrificial love it is much easier to embrace and to imitate in our own lives.  The suffering of the cross for Jesus is an example writ large about how a person of faith handles suffering.  Jesus doesn’t repay evil for evil; he doesn’t lash out in violent anger when he is suffering. He continues to live life in harmony with the will of God, bearing the ultimate suffering in love, compassion and forgiveness – staying true to the way of love which is the essence of life and of God.  How can we follow Christ’s example and take on the suffering of life with character and hope?  Paul says, “Hope does not disappoint us [even in the worst of times] because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”  We can’t do it, but God living in us can.

The cross is both a symbol of suffering and hope, because if Jesus’ life ended on Good Friday, suffering would be the final fate of human kind.  Death would define our existence.  But hold the phone; we know the rest of this story.  “Suffering produces endurance and character and hope, and hope does not disappoint.”  For those who don’t give up and leave the ball game when the score looks hopeless, there is good news.  We’ll experience that in its fullness in a few weeks on Easter morning, but for those of us fortunate to be post-resurrection people we already know that suffering and death are not the final chapter in our story.  Thanks to God’s ultimate, victorious will, we can endure suffering and even embrace it because we know it builds our character and makes us people of hope with Easter in our eyes. 

Prayer to Heal Our Addiction to Violence!

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, prayer

Late tonight (Monday), when I should have been going to bed, I heard about yet another mass shooting in California. Not the one Saturday, but a new one on Monday, at least the fourth in the U.S. in three days. I don’t know what to do with my frustration and anger about this uniquely American problem; so I let my heart pour out to God:

Dear God, as you know the bad news of hate and killing just keeps crashing in on us like a tsunami. Monterrey Park, Baton Rouge, Des Moines, Half Moon Bay-all names added to the shameful litany of American gun violence in just the last 3 days. We humans are violent. We’ve known that since Cain killed Abel, but Cain couldn’t reload and kill dozens of people in a matter of seconds. We are tired of the “guns or people kill people argument.” People with guns kill people, and people with access to weapons of war can kill indiscriminately.

Why, O Lord, do we Americans have more guns than any other nation in the world? Yes, we confess our nation was born in violent revolution, oppression of black humans, and genocide of Native Americans. Gun ownership was carved into our Constitution because Southern slave owners feared their human property would rebel against their cruelty. Give us courage, dear God, to face those harsh truths or we will never stem the red tide of innocent blood that stains our collective soul.

Holy One, the fratricide at Gettysburg, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Chattanooga didn’t quench the thirst for American violence. And when the gun manufacturers couldn’t sell their deadly wares to the military after the Civil War they cleverly used racism and fear of “others” to market more and more sophisticated weapons to American men eager to prove their manhood and protect their property and loved ones by owning the latest guns.

God, we are so tired of the discomfort that creeps upon us when we are in a crowd of people and begin to look around to see who might be the next gunman! This is no way to live! The gun lobby has purchased the votes of our elected officials so that no common sense gun control legislation can ever see the light of day. In my state and in others people can now carry concealed weapons without a permit! We are regressing instead of addressing our problem.

What will it take, Lord, to bring us to our senses? How many more innocent people will die before we find the courage to put an end to this madness? Why can’t we learn from what other countries have done? American exceptionalism blinds us to the wisdom and experience we need to glean from other cultures and nations!

Lord, we do have a mental health problem, that’s true, but the paranoia, rage, and desperation are more than individual problems. Our whole culture, economy, and system of government is mentally ill and in denial. Wake us up from this nightmare, Holy God. Bring us to our senses so we can stop doing the same thing (nothing) and expecting different results! We obviously don’t have a clue as to how to stop the madness on our own. Bring us humbly to our knees and give us ears to finally hear and obey the voice of the Prince of Peace. In whose holy name we beg for your healing mercy and love. Amen

On Kingdom Fishing

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Government Reform, spiritual discipline

I discovered the work of Diana Butler Bass last year and continue to be challenged and inspired by her writing. Her training as both an historian and a theologian gives tremendous new insights into how to read Scripture. One of the most helpful of those commentaries on a familiar passage about Jesus’ call of his first disciples to follow him and “fish for people” broke open for me exciting and challenging new ways to read those texts in their historical context.

I urge you to read her short article at https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/sunday-musings-f5c?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0OTI5MDAwOSwicG9zdF9pZCI6OTgxODE1NjksImlhdCI6MTY3NDM3ODIwMiwiZXhwIjoxNjc2OTcwMjAyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNDc0MDAiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.MJ9jJmdaJPiOUGhPHuWGvwVoS3I21lN-cTvriOfXfKo&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email. I hope you will, like me, be inspired to wrestle with this new way of experiencing the call of Christ to be about challenging the injustice of our worldly empires and joining Jesus in the work of building a just and loving kingdom.

Greed: The Deadliest Sin?

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values, Uncategorized

“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Matthew 6:24)

I have long wrestled with the realization that our U.S. economic system is based on greed, one of the seven deadly sins. Nowhere is that tension between Jesus’ values and our culture’s more obvious than this time of year where we devote one day to celebrating gratitude in the midst of the biggest season of consumerism that begins earlier every year. The struggle is symbolically portrayed in the scene above re-created by our niece from a picture she saw somewhere.

Jesus’ words above from the Sermon on the Mount can’t say it any more clearly. “You can’t serve God and money.” It’s an either/or, and yet we are still trying our best to prove him wrong. We are far more likely to follow the polar opposite maxim of Gordon Gekko, portrayed by Michael Douglas in the 1987 movie “Wall Street.” Gekko actually said, “The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right.” That line has been shortened in popular memory to it’s very essence, “Greed is Good.”

Choices about our basic human and cultural values are hard because they are so important, and in this case Jesus is a prohibitive underdog. He is up against a multibillion dollar advertising industry telling us 24/7 that we are what we wear, drive, live in, and how we look. Our consumer goods are made to be obsolete sooner rather than later so we will fill the landfills with last year’s gadgets. No one repairs things anymore; we just toss them in pursuit of the latest device, clothes, or vehicle.

Choice between God’s way and humanity’s foolish pursuits is what Joshua addresses the Hebrew people about on their long journey to the promised land: “ if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15).

Please know I am preaching to myself as much as to anyone else. I love my Apple gadgets and the new car I bought a year ago. I know my iPhone and Apple Watch were made by abused Chinese workers. And yes, I also know I am the keeper of those very sisters and brothers who made these toys I take for granted every day. It pains me to be reminded of that injustice, but so far not enough to do anything about it.

I don’t know if greed is the deadliest sin, but I do know it has been the root cause of most of the injustices in human history. Slavery, colonialism, genocide, nationalism, wars of conquest, systemic racism, sexism, and every economic, government or religion system that perpetuates the power of the haves over the have nots have greed for wealth, power, or control at their core. I don’t have a solution to this basic human flaw that goes clear back to Adam and Eve and their sons, but I do know the first step to addressing any injustice is to admit we are part of the problem.

I don’t agree with a lot of what Marianne Williamson says, but I thought she hit a home run with this quote that popped up on my Facebook page today: “Hate has talked so loudly for so long. Greed has talked so loudly for so long. Love has got to stop whispering.”

Jesus said the same thing this way: “Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.” (Luke 12:3).

This year may the gratitude of Thanksgiving inform the way we approach the Advent season. And as we light the Advent candles may we remember to not let the true light of the world to be hidden under a bushel. It’s time for love to stop whispering!

Just Like Us: A Boy with a Lunch, Sermon on John 6:1-15

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith Development, purpose, Sermon

Note: if you would like to watch the recorded version of this sermon it can be found at nwumc.com/live. The sermon starts about 2/3 of the way through the recording.

I don’t often do it but sometimes I sit in the theater and watch the credits roll after a movie ends, partly to figure out who all these young actresses and actors are, but I also get a kick out of how many different kinds of people it takes to make a movie. I get a chuckle out of titles like “grip,” “key grip,” “gaffer,” and “best boy.” I’ve never been curious enough to google those terms before, but I did learn this week that the obviously sexist term “best boy” means the senior electrician, second in the hierarchy to the gaffer, who is the chief electrician. That’s your trivia lesson for today.

The other fun thing about the movie credits, and there is a point here, I promise, are the minor characters who are listed with descriptions like “bartender,” “taxi driver,” or “second police officer.” If they made a movie about our Gospel lesson for today from John there would be a listing for a minor character, “boy with lunch.”

Here’s John’s brief mention of this boy in case you missed it. When Jesus asks, “How shall we feed all these people?”  “Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.”  This is all we hear about this boy.  No name.  No explanation about why he has such a strange assortment of food with him.  Who eats five loaves of bread and two fish for lunch?  Maybe he was on his way home from the grocery?  Why does this kid not even appear in any of the other Gospels?  The feeding of the 5000 is the only miracle story that appears in all four Gospels and Mark and Matthew even tell it twice, but none of the others mention this boy and his food.  

We don’t know if he was a boy scout doing his good deed for the day and gave his food up willingly.  Did Andrew smell the fish the boy was trying to hide under his cloak?  Did the boy’s mom or dad have to nudge him to share what he had?   Did the disciples somehow shame him into it?  Did his example inspire others to share their stash of food?  That’s my favorite explanation.  Don’t we all carry an extra breakfast bar or some trail mix with us “just in case?”  Most women I know have a whole assortment of things in their purses. I know my wife, a former Girl Scout, certainly does.  And if this lad’s example inspired others to share what little they had till everyone was fed, isn’t that a miracle itself?

This is not the only time the Gospel writers drop in a reference to a nameless person to pique our interest.  Did you know there’s a streaker in the Gospels?  The Gospel of Mark includes this line right after the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Mark 14:51 says, “A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him,but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.”  And even more curious is the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus in all three synoptic Gospels.  Mark and Matthew even say of her,

“Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” And yet thanks to the patriarchal rulers of the church for centuries she is mostly forgotten.  

I found something very helpful in a book I read recently by Brian McLaren to describe the dilemma about how to interpret Scripture.  McLaren suggests we need to take a literary approach to biblical stories and not a literal one. 

Here’s part of what McLaren says: “The literary approach begins with this assumption: Jesus must have been so extraordinary as to become legendary. The Latin root of the word legendary means read, so the word suggests, ‘This person is so extraordinary that people will read about him or her in the future. ‘The word legendary can also mean fictitious. And many of us feel the tension between extraordinary and fictitious every time we read the gospels. When traditional Christians tell us that we have to take every word, every detail as literal fact, we find that hard to do, as much as we might like to. But that doesn’t mean we must throw out the gospels—and Jesus—entirely.”

I like the way McLaren describes that approach because of the power stories have to affect us holistically – that is, to move us emotionally and ethically, not just rationally or logically. And what’s more, stories are easy to remember and pass along. Remember, none of the Gospels were written until decades after Jesus’ resurrection.  So stories about Jesus passed from person to person were what gave those early Christians the courage to keep the faith in spite of horrible persecution by the Roman Empire. 

And consider this story about the boy with a lunch; there’s nothing logical about giving up my lunch with no promise that I’ll get it back or even more crazy to believe I’ll get more back counting the leftovers.  A literary approach doesn’t make Bible stories less “true.”  Truth with a capital T is more than just cold hard facts.  We feel Truth in our hearts, not just our heads.  A tear in our eye when we hear a special song or witness an act of compassion reminds us that whatever builds the blessed community and makes for peace and justice is True, and anything that destroys community is not the Truth Jesus meant when he said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  

How many of you are or were Beatles fans?  I have a trivia question for you.  Which Beatles’ song mentions a preacher?  Here’s a hint:  “Father McKenzie, (pause) writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear, No one comes near.”  Ok, that’s a little depressing.  The song is “Eleanor Rigby,” but it’s the refrain of that song that comes to mind when I think of this crowd that comes to Jesus when he and his disciples are trying to find a quiet place for some much needed R&R.  Mark’s account of this story says they were so busy teaching and healing that they didn’t even have time to eat.  So the disciples were hungry too.  And the refrain to Eleanor Rigby speaks to that hunger.  It says “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”

Jesus sees the crowd coming and immediately recognizes their hunger.  It’s not just hunger for pumpernickel and sardines; it’s a deep hunger for the bread of life.  “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”  Neither John nor the Beatles tell us where they come from, but we know to whom they come – the church, and that doesn’t mean this building or The Church for All People, NNEMAP, or the Manna Café; it means the Universal Worldwide Church, the body of Christ that alone can satisfy our deepest hunger.  

But of course we do know where some of the lonely/hungry people come from.  They come from Wright Elementary School, from Abby Church and other neighborhoods right in our zip code, from homeless shelters and from people who are just down on their luck.  They come as refugees from violence in Central America, or from war – Ukrainians and Russians alike.        They are victims of Hurricane Ian and climate refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa.  All the lonely people, where do they all come from? And like the startled disciples we ask, “Where are we to buy food for all these people? We’re having enough trouble just dealing with our own hunger, grief, and loneliness!”

But you know what?  Those lonely people can feed us also.  Our amazing Brown Bag Lunch crew has provided thousands of lunches to families in our neighborhood over the years, but listen to these stories of sharing in return.  Denise Gorden told me of a day she and Doris were invited in to share a snack with an Iraqi family on the brown bag route. “With so little,” she said, “They brought out fruit and other goodies for us to eat. It was very moving.”

And Doris told me that once, “On a very hot day- One second grader on the BBL route saw me getting out of the church van with lunches and ran back inside his apartment and gave me a bottle of water. He said, “Ms. Dorrie- (He calls me Dorrie since it’s easier to pronounce)  looks like you need some help- it’s too hot today, drink some water so you can keep going. On a separate day, during reading buddies- we sat down to read books outside under a large tree in front of their home, and he said, “Ms. Dorrie, here is a bottle of water for you. Since you’re giving food to everyone, why don’t you take some of mine, here are some cookies. Eat with us and then I will read stories to you.” 

Our current sermon series is exploring how the characters in the Bible are “Just Like Us.”  So what can we learn about ourselves from this unnamed boy with a lunch?  How is he just like us?

I remember my first dramatic roles in elementary school.  We did two short plays.  In one I was the star as Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up.  That’s probably why I’ve been so short all my life!  In the second play my only part was from off stage where I was to make bird noise sound effects at the proper time. My prop was a small whistle shaped like a bird.  You filled it with water and blew into it to make chirping sounds.  Nothing to it, right?  Only one problem; before it was time for the birds to chirp I got thirsty and drank the water in the whistle; and those birds never chirped.  Mrs. Kay, our teacher was not pleased.  It turns out that “small” part of making bird noises was just as important as starring as Peter Pan.

To borrow a phrase from Donatos Pizza, every part counts.  Every voice in the choir or bell in the bell choir contributes to the whole musical sound.  The person who sanitizes the Operating Room prior to surgery is just as important as the surgeon or the anesthesiologist.  It’s a team effort.

The nameless boy in John 6 is used by Jesus just as much as Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene.  Most of us are fairly anonymous in the world’s scheme of things.  We are more like the gaffer or the key grip than Lady Gaga or Matthew McConaughey.   To paraphrase Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg, “The world will little note nor long remember what we do here,” but God will; because every one of us counts.  We can all make a difference to someone by simply sharing what we have and who we are.  Notice in this story that Jesus doesn’t ask the boy to give more than he has; that would be very unfair.  Jesus simply asks the boy to share what he has.  After all, we are just giving back to God what God has given us.  It isn’t our stuff anyway.

When we start thinking we own parts of God’s creation we get possessive and worry about losing it or that we don’t have enough.  We live in a scarcity mindset.  But when we live in
God’s abundance and share what God has given us there is enough to feed 5000 people and have enough leftovers to feed the next bunch of hungry people already coming down the road. 

Jesus never asks us to give more than we have, just all that we have, just as he gave his all for us. 

We are all like the boy with his lunch.  We all count – nameless or not, because God knows our name and knows we can all make a huge difference in the world. 

We recently passed the day on the calendar marked Fall Equinox, but we don’t need a calendar to tell us that the hours of daylight we have now are shorter each day and the temperatures are dropping.  Calendars help us count our days, but it is up to us to make our days count.  You don’t have to be a biblical or other kind of heroine or hero.  Notice most of the characters in the Bible are just like us, flawed and fallible human beings who remind us that all of us have what it takes to make a difference in the lives of those around us.

Jesus himself was a poor peasant boy who never traveled more than 200 miles from the tiny village where he was born, and yet his disciples all over the world will feast at his table and remember his call upon our lives on this World Communion Sunday.   As we gather at his table today, pray for God’s guidance to show you how to maximize your witness.  Each of us has a different role to play, but each one is important to the worldwide kin-dom Jesus calls us to help create.  Amen

Preached at Northwest United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio, October 2, 2022

Schism: Ecclesiastical Divorce

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, purpose

The long-expected schism in the United Methodist Church finally hit close to home for me. I learned recently that the congregation I grew up in will be voting soon to disaffiliate from the United Methodist denomination. The move to sever ties, as in other congregations, is being officially described as being based on the one true (literal) way to apply “Christian” scripture, values and laws to contemporary issues of ethics and morality.

Hidden among the pious platitudes proof texted from the Bible is the real reason for the denominational divorce. No matter what the Wesley Covenant Association, the architects of the new Global Methodist Church claim, the real reason for the schism is fundamental disagreement over a few sentences inserted into our “Book of Discipline” 50 years ago excluding LGBTQ persons from ordination.

The debate has become more heated in recent years as LGBTQ rights have been recognized in society and not in the church. Instead of transforming the world as forerunners of radical hospitality the church has been playing catch up. Many courageous and progressive UMC bishops have decided to be loyal to the all-inclusive Gospel proclaimed by Jesus instead of the legalistic and exclusive letter of the United Methodist law. The modern day Pharisees in our denomination are calling those bishops and those of us who agree with them heretics subject to hellfire and damnation unless we repent and see things their way.

I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper recently in response to an article describing another congregation’s decision to vote on disaffiliation. In response a member of that congregation wrote his own letter to the paper making the standard arguments and accusations. I had to chuckle over his attempt to rebut my claim that the real issue was LGBTQ ordination and marriage. He cited a church he knows of that has a head usher who is gay. Translation: “We’ll let them in the pews, just not the pulpit,” completely ignoring the central issue of this argument which is ordination. Our current “Book of Discipline,” in similar fashion talks out of both sides of its mouth. It says LGBTQ persons are “of sacred worth,” and in the next breath says that does not make them “sacred” enough to be ordained.

Talking to a friend who is still a member in my home church reminded me that I wrote a short post about all this way back in the pre-covid era. It was after a special General Conference of the UMC was held in 2019 to once more attempt to come to some mutual agreement over this controversial topic which is an existential reality for our LGBTQ siblings. What I wrote then still pretty well sums up how I feel. I titled it “Know When to Walk Away, Know When to Run.”

“If that house will not welcome you shake the dust from your feet and walk away.” Those words from the Gospel of Matthew kept running through my mind as I followed the struggles of the United Methodist General conference last week. Leaving a significant relationship is never easy, but sometimes it is the best choice to make. I have been an ordained United Methodist pastor for almost 50 years. For all but 3 years of my entire ministry my denomination has been arguing over LGBTQ acceptance.

Like Charlie Brown I dared to hope that just maybe this time the General Conference wouldn’t pull the ball away before Jesus could kick a field goal. It pains me greatly that once again my denomination has failed to be the church. Isn’t 47 years long enough to wait for the UMC to produce good fruit? Far too many good people have been damaged by the judgmental policies of our church. Far too much time and precious resources have been wasted fiddling with this unwinable debate while the world burns from hunger, poverty, climate change, racism and rising nationalism.

The world is in desperate need of authentic ministry to the marginalized, the immigrants and oppressed, and a church that cannot even accept its own LGBTQ children so we can all join hands to care for God’s children is not a a church worthy of Christ’s name.

I will of course pray long and hard for everyone wounded again by this rejection and for the rejectors. But I will also be praying about my future relationship to the UMC. My decision may be easier because I am retired. It will be a much harder choice for others in active ministry. I will wait to see what last week’s vote for an even harder line rejection of my beloved sisters and brothers actually means. Like Congress church politics are messy and convoluted. Even those who were in Indianapolis at General Conference are not sure what the so-called “Traditional” plan means. Parts of it were apparently declared unconstitutional by the Judicial Council before the vote which probably means the battle will continue, and even more LGBTQ people and their progressive supporters will be alienated from Christ and his redeeming, inclusive love.

Even though we don’t know what the future holds, these things I do know for sure. God isn’t finished with us yet. For people of faith resurrection always follows death. It may feel like Friday, but Sunday’s coming! The Christ I have come to know and love says, “Come to me ALL (not just those we deem worthy) who labor and are heavy laden.” And in that verse from Matthew where it says to shake the dust from your feet, listen to Jesus’ final warning to those who refuse to welcome God’s blessed ones: “Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town.” (Matthew 10:15)

Whatever emerges from the coming schism I for one am ready to shake the dust of judgement and rejection from my feet and align myself with those who are welcoming and inclusive. I don’t know yet what that looks like organizationally, but Jesus knows it’s not the name on the church door that matters. It’s the hospitality inside the fellowship of believers that makes us a church.”

“Distracted Hospitality,” Luke 10:38-42

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Sermon

[I preached this sermon at an ecumenical vespers service at Wesley Glen Retirement Community in Columbus, Ohio, July 17, 2022]

Have you ever had someone drop in unexpectedly when your home wasn’t ready for company?  Tom, one of my clergy friends tells one of those stories that are funny when they’re over, but not so much as they unfold.  He and Elizabeth, his wife, lived in one of the tiny efficiency apartments on the campus of the Methodist Theological School.  They were one-bedroom apartments with a kitchenette that was half the size of a closet.  They were relaxing one Sunday afternoon when Tom got a call from his District Superintendent saying he and his wife were in the area and would like to stop in for a visit.  

When you are a Methodist in seminary you usually haven’t learned yet that it’s ok to say “no” to a District Superintendent because they are the people you depend on for a job when you get out of seminary.  So even though the apartment was a mess and the little kitchenette was stacked high with dirty dishes Tom said, “Sure, come on over.” When she heard that, Elizabeth went into a panic.  She said to Tom, “I haven’t showered yet; so since you invited them over you can deal with cleaning up the apartment.”

 Elizabeth took the fastest shower of her life and came out of the bathroom to find the District Superintendent and his wife chatting with Tom in the living room.  The apartment looked like a photo from “Better Homes and Gardens;” so the whole time they talked she was dying of curiosity about how Tom had pulled off such a miracle.  After a short visit their guests left, and as soon as they were out of earshot Elizabeth asked Tom what he had done with all the dirty dishes and other clutter?  He sheepishly led her into the kitchen and showed her where he had put all the dirty dishes – in the oven, refrigerator, and cupboards—and then to the closet where he had thrown all the magazine, books and things that had been on the tables, couch and chairs.  After a good laugh they started washing the dishes and reorganizing the books and magazines.

I don’t know if Martha and Mary were expecting Jesus in Luke’s account of his visit.  We can’t tell from these few verses, but I want you to notice something in the very first verse of that story.  We almost always list Mary first when talking about these two sisters.  Mary and Martha just flows of the tongue better than Martha and Mary, doesn’t it?  But when Luke describes this incident, notice that it is Martha who is named first.  She’s the one who invites Jesus into her home, and then we learn that she also has a sister named Mary.  

Mary gets Jesus’ praise at the end of the story because he says she chose “the better part,” namely to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to his teaching, but I think Martha deserves some credit too.  Which role in this mini-drama would you choose?  If Jesus knocked on your door, would you sit and listen to his every word, or would you be like Martha scurrying around trying to be the hostess with the mostess?  After all it would be a real faux pas to not offer a guest some food or drink, and an even bigger no-no not to offer the very best hospitality to Jesus!

Mary reminds me of a song from “Fiddler on the Roof” where Tevye sings about what he would do if he were a rich man.  After listing the fancy house he would build and all the privileges of being wealthy, he says, “If I were rich, I’d have the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray, and maybe have a seat by the Eastern wall. And I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day, and that would be the sweetest thing of all.”  But Martha shows up in that song too.  Tevye sings about Goldie, his wife, having all the servants she needs to cook and do other household chores, that is take care of hospitality.

A very dear friend of ours named Sonnie died earlier this year after a long illness.  Sonnie was a great cook, and one of the things I said about her at her funeral was that Sonnie never met a person she didn’t feed.  I especially miss her carrot cake, which was the best ever.  But hospitality is so much more than food and drink.  My wife and I visited Sonnie in the hospital early on in her illness. While we there two women whom Sonnie had recently welcomed into our church the first time they came to worship also came to visit Sonnie.  The fact that these two women became active members of our church might have happened anyway, but not nearly as quickly if Sonnie had not extended hospitality to them on that first Sunday.

After the two women left the hospital room I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that I asked Sonnie if she knew if the two women were a couple.  You need to know some history before you can appreciate Sonnie’s response.  She grew up on a farm in one of the most conservative counties in Ohio – wonderful people live there, I know, but for many of them their hospitality includes only those who look and think like they do.  So, I was a little shocked and very pleased when Sonnie responded to my question.  She said, “I don’t know if they are a couple or not, and it’s really none of my business.”  That’s real hospitality.

Like all biblical stories, we need to put the Martha and Mary story into the larger context of whole Gospel.  Even though Jesus says Mary has “chosen the better part,” he often himself provides the Martha-like hospitality to those who need it.  He makes water into wine at the wedding in Cana.  He feeds the 5000 when his disciples urge him to send the crowd away to McDonald’s; and that story also says there was enough food for the women and children in the crowd, namely those who had no standing in society.  Jesus included them all.  Robert Frost was once asked, “What is the ugliest word in the English language?” His response was “exclusion,” the polar opposite of hospitality. 

Extending hospitality to people we love is easy, at least most of the time, but both the Old Testament and Jesus tell us and show us a much more radical kind of hospitality.  Even the book of Leviticus, one of the most rigid and exclusionary books in the Bible, also includes some of the best words of hospitality.  Leviticus 19 includes these words often quoted by New Testament authors: “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”  I still remember teaching a Bible study on that passage, and the good church folks in the class said, “But that doesn’t apply to us today does it?”  Oh, yes it does, and it is never clearer than Jesus telling us in Matthew 25 that how we treat the “least of these,” including the strangers/immigrants/foreigners, even those we label enemies, is how we treat Christ himself.

So, the bottom line about Martha and Mary is this, like so much in the Scriptures and in life, the choice between listening to Jesus and doing acts of hospitality is a false dichotomy.  It’s not an either/or, it’s a both/and.  The letter of James captures that perfectly when it says, “Faith without works is dead.”  We need times of prayer, Bible study, and worship, but sitting at Jesus’ feet is meant to help us have an attitude of radical hospitality toward everyone we meet. 

Now I know you all don’t have to do yard work or cook and clean anymore, and I’m jealous of that.  But it’s because Wesley Glen (a local retirement community) is a place of hospitality for all of you at whatever level of care and service you need.  But that doesn’t mean you can only be on the receiving end of hospitality.  How you treat the people who clean your rooms and those who prepare and serve your meals can either be hospitable or not.  The way you interact with people here who may be hard to love can be hospitality or it’s opposite. 

Now I know very well that kind of hospitality can be hard to do sometimes.  When my chronic back pain is really bad, or when I’m stressed or overwhelmed with things I need do, it’s all too easy to be anything but hospitable to people who move too slow in traffic or even in the grocery aisles.  That’s because I’m “distracted and worried by many things,” just like Martha.  I don’t think Jesus was being judgmental about Martha’s acts of hospitality; he was concerned about her being distracted and worried by many things.

These days it is almost impossible not to be worried – about the sad state of affairs in our nation and the world; about what the future holds for our kids and grandkids and great grandkids; and about our own health and mortality.  How do we deal with all those concerns that distract us, all those things we really have no control over?  When we take time to sit at Jesus’ feet and hear the good news of salvation, we can trust God to be victorious over all the evil and sin humankind can create.  We can rest in awe over the incomprehensible pictures we’re getting from the Web telescope.  If our God can create such a magnificent and endless universe, God can certainly welcome us with unconditional hospitality.  And that is why no matter what happens to us or around us, we dare to sing “It is Well with My Soul.”  (This beautiful hymn was written by Horatio Spafford in1873 after he and his wife had experienced a horrible tragedy.  If you don’t know their story you can find it at https://www.bethelripon.com/life-stories/horatio-gates-spafford.)

Pentecost Prayer

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, prayer

Oh, dear God, sometimes we feel like those first apostles, confused and grieving over the violent death of Jesus at the hands of the Romans.  Given the horrific events in Uvalde, Ukraine, Tulsa and the nightly multiple deaths on the streets of Columbus and other American cities, we like Peter and the other disciples feel adrift and overwhelmed with doubts and fear for the safety of our children, teachers and for all of us.  

We humbly pray, O Holy One, that you will bless us this Pentecost day with the assurance and power of your Holy Spirit as you did so long ago.  As your current disciples we stand in the need of the strength and power you alone can provide for us in the living of these difficult days.  We may not feel a mighty wind or tongues of fire, but we ask that you reveal to us your ways of peace and justice in whatever form you choose in your wisdom to know the needs of our hearts.

The Pentecost story reminds us that you alone can break down the language barriers that divide your children from each other. We pray for your Spirit to build bridges over the gaps that separate us into different camps.  May the winds of Pentecost knock down the barriers between political parties, between the NRA and those asking for stricter gun laws, between law enforcement and those who fear or criticize them.  Touch us all with your universal tongue that breathes love into broken hearts, peace into fearful children and parents, and into all those on the margins of society who feel helpless to have their voices heard.

We pray that you will inspire this congregation of your church to grow in our ability to be a place where the Gospel of Christ is proclaimed in word and deed in ways that are understood by all of your children, no matter what languages we speak.  Help us articulate the good news that no matter what happens in our earthly lives you continue to love us and assure us that nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from your eternal love.  Your holy wind is stronger than inflation, more powerful than any weapon of mass destruction, mightier than our grief and fear, and better than any app that translates our human words into a common language.  Your universal language is agape love where we understand that we are all loved and embraced by you no matter what transpires in our nation and world.  We are humbled and our hearts are filled with gratitude and trust that you will make a way for us in the days ahead as you always have.  

We pray as always in the name of the risen Christ who in his death and resurrection conquered all fear forever.  And so we join our voices now in the prayer Jesus taught us…

“Peace Be With You,” John 20:19-31

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, hope, Sermon

I spent most of the 1980’s doing youth ministry and was blessed to have a whole crowd of wonderful volunteer adult leaders, including one who played guitar and led our youth groups in singing.  One of the songs we did often came to mind this week as I was working on this sermon.  It’s an old Peter, Paul and Mary song called “Day is Done,” that includes these lyrics:

“Tell me why are you crying my child, I know you’re frightened like everyone.  Is it the thunder in the distance you fear?  Will it help if I stay very near?  I am here.  All will be well when the day is done.”

In our Scipture for today Jesus is saying to the disciples, “I am here.”  He says that with the phrase, “Peace be with you.”  In these 13 verses from John’s Gospel Jesus utters those 4 words not once or twice but three times.  And those words are the first thing he says when he appears mysteriously in a room with locked doors.  “Peace be with you.”  Why are those doors locked?  Because of fear.  And what do we need when we’re frightened- we need peace.  Jesus understands that his friends are afraid, and he has come to bring them peace that only he can provide, the peace that passes all human understanding.

Don’t we all yearn for that kind of peace?  Many tomb stones or sympathy cards include the phrase “Rest in Peace” That prompted someone on Facebook to ask recently, “Why do we only rest in peace? Why don’t we live in peace too?”  The good news in this post resurrection text from John is that we can.  We don’t have to die first.

I had an insight on Maundy Thursday this year about the disciples falling asleep while Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.  We worshipped on-line and then I sat down to read.  But I couldn’t stay awake, and I wrote a short blog post about that experience.  In part, I said, “I’m not physically tired, just exhausted with world news overload. Maybe it’s compassion fatigue or just frustration that there seems to be so little I can do to save the world from its warring madness. I can’t not watch the news, and if the scenes from Ukraine or the New York subway shooting aren’t fatiguing enough they are interspersed with incessant mean-spirited and fear-based political ads.

Instead of judging the disciples for napping, maybe they were just worn out from all the weird stuff going on around them. They had to be confused trying to understand Jesus’ determination to put himself in harm’s way and with all his talk about death and resurrection. They had been on an emotional roller coaster from Palm Sunday’s high to this strange trip to the Garden in the dark. Jesus’ strange behavior, insisting on washing their feet, a job only done by servants, not a Messiah. And what did he mean about his broken body and his blood shed for them?

It was too much to comprehend. Maybe their bodies just shut down to get a respite from the confusion in their minds and spirits. They had hoped he was the one to throw off the Roman oppressors and bring them peace, but they were wrong.”

I had stopped at a Tim Horton’s earlier that day which was just two days after the subway shooting in New York.   As I waited for my coffee I found myself looking around for a place to hide if shooting suddenly broke out.  That’s a symptom of the low-grade fear that clings to us like a dryer sheet on a pant leg.  We try to shake it off by turning off the TV and social media, but we can’t unsee those pictures of Putin’s crimes against our sisters and brothers in Mariupol and Kyiv.  We can dress up and have Easter egg hunts and excellent worship to mark Holy Week and Easter (or Passover or Ramadan), but we’re still afraid of what’s happening to our world.  We’re already so awfully tired of COVID.  Wave after wave of extreme weather keeps leaving a path of destruction as they sweep across the country on a weekly basis, and still many people are in denial about climate change. We’re tired, Jesus!  Where is that peace you promised?

I find it helpful to step back and examine this need for peace through the stages of grief developed by Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her classic book, “On Death and Dying.”  She describes 5 stages of grief people go through if they or a loved one are dying:  Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally a stage of peace she calls acceptance I think the disciples in the Holy week experiences are in the early stages of grief.  Jesus has told them goodbye at their Passover meal, and they are already grieving.  Sleeping in the garden could be a form of denial, an escape from the reality of the moment.  When the soldiers come after Jesus one of the disciples grabs a sword and lops off the ear of a servant – that’s anger, another natural part of the grieving process.  

And now on Easter night John tells us that the disciples have already been told that morning by the women who were first-hand witnesses that Jesus is alive again.  Two of the disciples, being guys who don’t trust a woman’s word, ran to the tomb to see for themselves.

They call Missouri the show me state because people there insist that only seeing is believing. I don’t think any of the disciples were from. Missouri, but they act like it.   The disciples have not yet seen the risen Christ; so who can blame them for still locking the door?  They are like a little girl crying in her bed during a thunder storm.  When her daddy goes in to comfort her he hugs her and reminds her that Jesus is always there with her.  She looks up at him and says, “I know, Daddy, but sometimes I need someone with skin on them.”  Don’t we all?

Peace comes in many shapes and forms; a hug, a kind word, or just a willingness to sit with someone in their sorrow.  

I have had a springtime ritual for years that I’ve ignored during the COVID years.  For many springs before that I have watched Susan Sarandon and Kevin Costner in my favorite baseball movie, “Bull Durham.”  I happened to see it listed as I was channel surfing recently and recorded it; and Diana and I watched it about the time baseball season started.  What struck me this time through were some words that Costner’s character, Crash Davis, says to Annie in the final scene.  Crash is a veteran Minor League catcher, which means he’s good, but not quite good enough to make it to the Major Leagues.  He has just quit the game after setting the dubious record for most home runs in the Minors.  He comes back to Durham and to Annie who is a die-hard baseball groupie and intrepid philosopher of the game.  When Crash, bedraggled and exhausted, tells Annie that he’s hung up his catcher’s gear for the final time she launches into one of her treatises about baseball being a non-linear game.  Crash holds up his hand to stop her.  He says he wants to hear all of her crazy baseball theories but not tonight.  Tonight he says, “I don’t want to think about baseball or anything else.  I just want to be.”  

Isn’t that the peace of mind and soul we are so hungry for?  To rest, to stop worrying and thinking. And just BE.  In the Rock Opera “Jesus Christ Superstar,” there’s a scene about just that.  Jesus is frustrated because his best efforts to move people closer to God’s kingdom of peace and justice are being ignored.  His friend Mary Magdalene tries to comfort him.  Many people see that scene and get distracted by theories that there was a romantic relationship between them, but that’s not the point.  Mary sings a sweet lullaby to Jesus where she says, “Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to problems that upset you, oh don’t you know everything’s alright, yes, everything’s fine, and we want you to sleep well tonight. Let the world turn without you tonight.”

That kind of peace is what Kubler-Ross calls acceptance – the final stage of grief, making peace with the new reality that a loved one is gone or a job has disappeared or a relationship is irreparably damaged.  Or a world has gone mad.  It’s the peace the risen Christ offers his disciples and you and me, but there’s a paradoxical irony in this story.  John tells us that before Jesus offers peace to the disciples he breathes on them.  You have to let someone get very close to breathe on you if you can remember back before the 6 feet of separation we’ve lived with recently.  Breath, of course, in the Scriptures is the word that also means God’s spirit that can create something out of nothing. So the paradox is that we have to have enough peace to let Jesus get close enough to give us real peace! 

I don’t know about you, but on my less faithful days I’m not sure I want Jesus getting that close.  I’m afraid to be that vulnerable; so my own  or doubts  keep Jesus at a safe distance because of fear –fear of judgment, or rejection because I haven’t always lived a virtuous life.  But here’s the key to this story and to the Good News of the Gospel.  Remember that the disciples to whom Jesus offers his peace are the same guys who just 3 days ago denied and abandoned Jesus in his greatest time of need.  If Jesus offers them God’s peace he certainly can do the same for us. 

That’s the friend we have in Jesus we can take everything to in prayer.  If we try to hide parts of ourselves from God we are not only kidding ourselves, we are also revealing our mistaken belief in a God who is way too small.  St. Paul in Romans 8 says “nothing in all creation can separate us from love of God in Christ Jesus.”  And that nothing means nothing. No powers, no principalities, and no Putin can stop God from loving us.   No matter how many of the big 10 commandments we’ve broken Jesus offers us peace. He makes us new creations by breathing the peace that breaks the chains of addiction, hatred, isolation, guilt, and despair.

Rev. Fred Shaw, a friend and colleague and a wonderful Native American storyteller, put it this way recently in a Facebook post.  I liked the way he said it and asked if I could quote him.  He said, “We move too quickly from Good Friday to Easter, and then we fairly fly from Easter back to “normal.” I want to carry both with me throughout my life.

On Good Friday, the most significant words uttered by human lips are heard again, “It is finished!” The Greek word for “finished” carries the meaning of completion, wholeness. For Native people, it is the fullness of the Circle.

All of the love that our Creator has for us from the beginning of time came to fruition in the death of Jesus on the cross. The greatest horror of which humanity is capable, the murder of God’s own innocence. Even that could not separate us from God’s love.

The curtain in the temple that had divided the people from the Holy Presence of God was ripped…from the top down! God’s full acceptance of who we are, and God’s declaration that God loves us anyway, was declared beyond words.”  Let me say that last part again: “God’s declaration that God loves us anyway was declared beyond words.”

What does all this say to our broken, fearful world today? We don’t know when, where, how or even why God will forgive humankind’s unfaithfulness, but in God’s good time, not ours, it will be done. Even if we destroy ourselves and this precious earth God has entrusted into our care, we and all of creation will live and move and have our being eternally in the cosmic source of all Being. Because we put our trust, not in weapons of death and destruction, but in the power of resurrection that assures us that “all will be well when the day is done.” 

You know the line about opera – that it isn’t over till the fat lady sings?  I thought about that when I heard that John Lennon’s son Julian recently sang his father’s wonderful song, “Imagine.”  What makes that remarkable or ominous is that Julian has always said he would never sing that song publicly.  And at least once he qualified that remark by saying, “maybe if it was the end of the world.”  I don’t know if the state of the world had anything to do with it, but he recently sang “Imagine” publicly. 

I’ve always loved the hope that song describes.  Nothing has ever been created that wasn’t first imagined, and those of us who have received Jesus’ gift of peace are called to keep the dream of peace alive, especially when it seems so absent. The song says,

“Imagine all the people
Livin’ for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one.”

Easter is our invitation to join those who dare to imagine a world of peace.

You may have noticed the white post out by the parking lot as you came up the hill this morning.  We’re going to dedicate it after the service today.  On that Peace Pole are the words “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in English and seven other languages representing God’s children in every part of the world—including Spanish, Hebrew, Swahili, Arabic, ASL, Chinese and Japanese.   The Peace Pole is there where we will see it each time we come and go from here as a reminder to us of God’s peace and as a symbolic beacon of hope in a world bloodied by the ways of war.

Peace is our hope and our prayer, but wishing won’t make it happen.  Prayers without works are dead on arrival, and that’s why Jesus says something else to the disciples and to us after he says “Peace be with you.”  He says, “As God has sent me, so I send you.”  We can’t be peacemakers until we have surrendered to the peace that comes when we get up close and personal with Jesus.

I want to leave you with a thought from a Brazilian writer and journalist, Fernando Sabino.  He wrote, “In the end, everything will be all right.  If it’s not all right, it’s not the end.”  That’s the message for this frightening time in our world.  “Peace be with you.”