What to do with real people

Sermon for March 11, 2017 at Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Preliminary manuscript, subject to revision.

Texts: 

Acts 15:4-10

Deuteronomy 13:6-10

2 Kings 5:15-19 

In Acts 15 we read about a huge debate in the early Christian church. Did Gentiles who wanted to join the Christian community have to be circumcised and observe all the other life style rules and traditions of the Jewish people? They held a general conference, a gathering of the leaders of the church. Debate was intense. Finally, Peter stood and made a speech. “Look, you all know that God chose me to be the first to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. And God clearly demonstrated his approval by giving them the Holy Spirit the same God gave to us. God made no distinction. So why on earth are you trying the patience of God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?”

To summarize: Peter used two arguments. First, the spiritual life of new Gentile believers was just as good as the spiritual life of Jewish believers. Second, the experience of the Jewish people with their rules and regulations argued against the validity of those very rules and regulations. The Jewish people had found them burdensome and impossible. So why impose them on new believers?

Note, Peter did not quote the Bible in his argument. And for good reason. There was no biblical basis for dispensing with circumcision. In fact, to the contrary. The Bible was crystal clear. Circumcision was obligatory.

There are repeated statements in the laws of Moses, mandating kind treatment of foreigners. Foreigners were to have the same rights in court as native born people. But when it came to religious practice, there was a emphatic distinction. Foreigners were prohibited to eat the Passover. This celebration of the fantastic deliverance from Egypt belonged to the Hebrew people alone. No foreigners were permitted. If a foreigner wanted to participate in the Passover, he was required to first be circumcised. No exceptions (Exodus 12:43-49).

The early Christians understood themselves to be the “true Jews.” They were the authentic inheritors of the spiritual heritage of Abraham. So obviously, Christians had to be circumcised. That was Bible. Advocates of this belief could cite chapter and verse.

But Peter dismissed all this with a wave of the hand. In essence, Peter said, “I don't care about your Bible verses, we know from experience, both from the long experience of the Jewish people and from the immediate experience among us as Christians that it is time to let go of this circumcision rule. Let it go, and welcome the Gentiles the same way that God welcomes them."

Today, we Adventists imagine ourselves as the inheritors of the spiritual heritage of the apostles. We are the true apostolic church. And the temptation is to prove our authenticity by rigorously enforcing every rule and tradition we associate with the early Christian church. Just as for the early Christian church a rule associated with sexuality epitomized "faithfulness to all the laws of God," so now Adventists (along with other conservative Christians) focus on ancient rules associated with sexuality as a symbol of their full devotion to God.

Against the clamor of this tradition, I stand with Peter and say, God has clearly shown his disregard for our boundaries. God has demonstrably gifted people outside our boundaries. Single people, women, homosexuals, divorced people have all demonstrated noteworthy spiritual gifts. Women evangelists contradict our notions of "male-only ministry." Many homosexual musicians have served as highly effective ministers of music. All sorts of people other than married men have exhibited the generosity and kindness of God. They have demonstrated God's lack of pickiness when it comes to choosing whom he calls into service. Further, we have had long experience with trying to squeeze everyone into a particular mold. Over and over and over we have seen people damaged by our efforts to make them conform to our narrow expectations. We have seen church rules and traditions alienate our children from God. It is time to join with Peter and say, “Enough.” If God draws people who are we to turn them away in our devotion to anachronistic applications of ancient rules.

The theological justification of letting go of the requirement of circumcision we read in the writings of Paul came after the conference in Acts 15. The church moved forward because of Peter's speech which cited the evident moving God in the experience of the people of God. The theology came later. 

I am going to cite some Bible stories in support of letting go of some of our ancient rules, rules that are based on actual Bible texts just like the Bible support of circumcision. But let me be clear, I'm citing these stories in support of a truth that God has already made abundantly clear in our experience.

In the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5) we read: Do not make any images. Do not bow down to any images. The command is repeated several times in the Books of Moses. Perhaps the starkest, harshest expression of this prohibition is the law that states that if a friend or relative secretly invites you to participate in worship of another god, you must report them. Even if the person is your own spouse, you must report them and then when the community comes together to stone the idolater, you must throw the very first stone.

Do not bow. If anyone even hints that they are prepared to bow, kill them. That's the law.

Then we read the story of Naaman. Naaman was commander of the army of Syria. He came to Samaria and was healed of leprosy by the prophet Elisha. In gratitude, Naaman pledged himself to worship the God of Israel from then on. “But I have one problem,” the general told the prophet. “Back in Damascus, when my king enters the temple to pray, as part of my duties, I must accompany him. And when he bows, I must also bow. Is that going to be okay?” The prophet answered, “Go in peace.”

Bowing in the temple of Rimmon was obviously not the ideal worship life. But it was the right accommodation to the real life situation of Naaman. It was holy.

The Gibeonites were a Canaanite tribe. God had ordered the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites. Completely. Obliterate them. Genocide. The divine order was crystal clear. The Gibeonites were terrified and decided to try to side step the divine order. They tricked Joshua and the Hebrew leaders into thinking they were not Canaanites and persuaded them to sign a non-aggression treaty. When Joshua's army learned they had been tricked, that the Gibeonites were, in fact, Canaanites, the army insisted that Joshua obey God and destroy the Gibeonites.

Joshua refused.

Joshua refused to obey his army. Joshua refused to obey the very clear, direct command of God. Joshua protected the Gibeonites. Joshua did not just “tolerate” the Gibeonites. When other Canaanite tribes threatened the Gibeonites, Joshua and his army protected them.

The parallel between the situation of the Gibeonites and homosexuals in the church today is obvious. Those who wish to exclude homosexual couples from church membership can cite direct statements in the Bible just as Joshua's army could cite direct statements by God ordering the exclusions and even annihilation of the Gibeonites.

But in this story, Joshua is symbolic of Jesus. Joshua and Jesus are, in fact, different forms of the same name, like Juan and John. If we are going be the church of Jesus, we will follow the inclusion of Joshua, not the holy blood lust of his army.

What was Joshua's justification for sparing the Gibeonites even though God had said to annihilate them? Joshua cited the ordinary human value of honoring his word. I signed a treaty, I will not violate it. I promised. I will keep my promise. Joshua did what any decent human being would do.

When we face the question: how shall we treat our LGBT children, we don't go first to some sentence in the book of Leviticus. We act instinctively out of our identity as mothers and fathers. We build a house that will be a safe place for our children to grow up in. That is simply what decent parents do. Good parents do not attempt to squeeze their children into some predetermined mold. They respond to the children who are actually alive right there in front of them.

Peanut butter sandwiches are perfect food. But we do not give them to children who are allergic to peanuts or have a gluten sensitivity. Tomatoes are marvelous. But if your daughter hates tomatoes, what do you do? You serve something else. That's what good parents do. We bend and adapt to the real children in our homes. We don't imagine they are the theoretical children in a book.

At our house right now, we have an illustration of the collision of Adventist tradition and taking care of a real, live person. In our kitchen, there is a whole collection of foods for Joel. High fat yogurt. High fat cookies. Heavy cream. Peanut butter. Coconut oil. Butter.

When we feed Joel vegetables, we soak them in butter. When we make cookies for him, we coconut oil. When we serve him oatmeal, we smother it with butter and heavy cream. Why? Because he is dangerously underweight and has been for a long time.

I'm not going to write a book on nutrition for children and begin advocating ice cream, heavy cream, and lots and lots of butter as an ideal diet for infants. But if someone tried to insist that “the best diet” for our grandson was a vegan diet high in fresh fruit and vegetables I would laugh in their face. Joel is different. He is not normal. So we don't treat him normally.

Since we are an outpost of the kingdom of heaven, our life together is shaped by the principles of the kingdom. Jesus gave very high moral challenges:

Do not hate. Even people who are hateful.

Do not worship while reconciliation is languishing.

Do not damage your enemies.

Practice generosity.

Practice radical honesty.

Practice radical sexual restraint.

Don't be too attached to money.

Practice regarding every human being, especially the needy, as the incarnation of God.

Be a neighbor.

Allow the needs of others to become your problem.

Help.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

This is an exalted ethic. A challenge. A beckoning. A dare. It is far higher, and far more challenging than mere obedience to rules. It requires us to first understand one another before begin attempting to prescribe how to live. After all, that's what we would want for ourselves.

Let's embrace this radically. Let's practice listening long before we speak. Let's be careful not to prescribe for someone else a pattern of life we are not following.

When someone attempts to use ancient rules and texts in Leviticus and Romans to exclude our children, let's stand with Peter and say, “Enough.”

Let's stand with Jesus and say, “Let the children come.”

Have You Noticed Ahab's Repentance?

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists
For March 4, 2017
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Wednesday morning, I was visiting with someone here in the neighborhood. Our conversation came around to the people of this congregation. I said, “I'm a fan of this church. There are good people here.”

I did not admit in that private conversation what I will tell you. I love you. I love the people of this church. The people sitting here. And the people connected with us by kinship and friendship. People scattered all over the world. You have captured my heart. You own me.

Which is hardly surprising. Just look at you. You are beautiful. And if you have a hard time seeing yourself as beautiful, just look at the kids.

Think of the beauty of the children who crowd the steps of the stage here during children's story. They are perfect. Shining eyes. Beautiful faces. Souls as large as the sky. Shy and bold. Prim and proper. Hyper and disruptive. Every week we can hardly wait to see them scurry toward the front. Every week we hold our breath. Will the story teller hold them? Which kid will create the most distraction? These kids disrupt our cool, managed liturgy reminding us that God sometimes breaks out of the boxes we build to manage his presence. These kids are beautiful. And your welcome to them is beautiful. Especially when they mess with our careful plans for order and decorous.

Several years ago, as the kids left the stage, there was a puddle here on the floor. Already I had learned to trust the welcome for children that lives here. I was not worried that anyone would throw a hissy fit. But what happened went far beyond that. Even before all the children had gotten their buckets, two elders had gone for cleaning supplies. By the time all the kids had worked they way down the aisles, it was done. No evidence.

When I laughingly asked others what they thought of our highly competent elders who managed the accident on the stage with such aplomb, they stared at me uncomprehendingly. They had seen nothing. The work of Holly and Kurt was so efficient, so smooth, that no one besides them and me and the child's mother knew anything had happened.

How can I not love a church that lets children pee on the platform and then covers the mess with such elegant finesse an entire congregation remains oblivious? Where else can a child lose control in front of two hundred people and escape with no shame, no embarrassment? How can I not love a church that loves children so skillfully?

But really, it's not that hard, is it? We expect our children to stumble as they are learning to walk. We expect accidents as they are learning to manage their bladders. We expect our kids to say inappropriate things on their way to elegance. We are not troubled when they spill their milk, when they ruin their clothes, when they break their toys. These things are the cost of the bright future we dream of for our kids. We easily forgive and life moves on.

Then our children grow up. And they still make messes. And the messes cannot be covered by the swift and surreptitious application of paper towels. The embarrassment can no longer be covered with laughter. Now we cry.

My son is in prison.

My daughter has abandoned her children.

My son is off his medication and back on the street again.

My daughter is in rehab for the fifth time. Her children are with their father's mother.

My son has committed suicide.

My baby cannot be fixed.

These things happen to us. And leave us reeling. Battered. Angry. Hurt. Bewildered. Perplexed. Outraged. Baffled.

Still, when we sit together and tell our stories, we tell stories about “our children.” That man in prison is a criminal. Yes. AND he is our son. Still. Our heart sits with him, incarcerated. Our love sleeps in fear on a hard bunk behind bars. And when, in a letter, he mentions something he read recently, a book about forgiveness and transformation, our heart leaps. It is a spark of goodness and we pray even more desperately that God will fan it into full flame in his soul. We dream once more of redemption, of restoration, of the future.

When we tell the stories of the aching tragedies in our families, we do not speak of “that man” or “that woman.” We speak of “our son,” “our daughter.” And when we speak that way, we are giving evidence of some element of the divine nature living in us. We have the heart of God.

In the Old Testament, one king stands out as the worst of the worst. He was a puerile narcissist, a puppet of a crafty foreigner whose character is even darker than his own. He ruined his nation. His final act, the event that signaled his doom, was the seizure of a property next door to the palace. Ahab wanted the property. The owner wouldn't sell. When Ahab whined to his wife, Jezebel, about this frustration of his desire, she arranged for the neighbor, a man named Naboth, to be framed for treason and blasphemy. After Naboth was executed, Ahab expropriated the property.

God directed the prophet Elijah to deliver a rebuke to the king. Elijah found the king on the grounds of the confiscated estate. When the prophet confronted him, King Ahab exclaimed:

"So, my enemy, you have found me!"
 "Yes," Elijah answered, "I have come because you have sold yourself to what is evil in the LORD's sight. Now this is what the LORD says, 'I will bring disaster on you and consume you. I will destroy every one of your male descendants, slave and free alike, anywhere in Israel!
I am going to destroy your family . . . for you have made me very angry and have led Israel into sin. As for your wife, Jezebel, dogs will eat her body here in Naboth's yard. The members of your family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by vultures."

The Bible writer then inserts this comment: No one else so completely sold himself to what was evil in the LORD's sight as Ahab did under the influence of his wife Jezebel.

But notice what comes next:

When Ahab heard this message, he tore his clothing, dressed in burlap, and fasted. He even slept in burlap and went about in deep mourning. God sent another message to Elijah:
"Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has done this, I will not do what I promised during his lifetime. It will happen to his sons; I will destroy his dynasty."

Who is this God? Like mothers in this congregation who have tried a thousand times to save their son. Mothers who have cried and gotten angry and scolded, and tried being nice and tried being tough. Mothers who have dreaded to go to sleep because they don't know where their son is sleeping tonight. Mothers who are afraid to wake up because who knows what bad news will come in the morning. Mothers whose hearts are numb with decades of bad news. . . . But let that son take the slighest step in the right direction. Let him merely mention going back into rehab. Let him for just one day, act like a responsible son and and do something helpful at home. Let that son for get a job and hold it for three weeks. And that numb heart leaps for joy. It's completely unreasonable, but it is the natural response of a heartbroken parent. Three decades of proof after proof after heartbreaking proof that their child is beyond fixing. Then their son shows some bit of humanity, a little bit of responsibility, an ounce of conscience, and the numb heart leaps. We tell our friends, our closest friends, the ones we can trust not to mock us, not to shake their heads, at least not while we are watching.

This is God and Ahab. For twenty years God had sent rebuke after scolding after lecture to Ahab through various prophets. Over and over Ahab showed his weakness, his inability to take even two steps away from mess he was making of things. In many ways his story reads like the story of an addiction, Ahab's drug of choice was Jezebel. We can imagine him blaming Jezebel but that would be
just another sign of his own failure. He was king. He could do what he wanted. And his desire to do right was less vital than other desires that dragged him and his nation down.

It is a miserable, heartbreaking story. Ahab is weak and evil. God is exasperated and angry.
Finally, God is finished. God announces doom. Irrevocable, total doom. And Ahab has earned it. You can imagine angels in heaven cheering when God finally says, “I've had enough. I'm through.” The angels all say, “It's about time.”

Then for a day or two Ahab acts like he's sorry. And does God do? He calls out to his prophet, “Elijah, Have you seen Ahab's repentance?”

It's a crazy question. What person in his right mind would Ahab's repentance seriously? The answer is no one. But parents are not reasonable. Our love for our kids is not reasonable. It just is. And when our wayward, perverse children give us some slight sign that maybe, finally they are turning around, our hearts leap. We hope again. We renew our prayers.

This is God.

Unreasonably, God hopes again that his son Ahab will do right. God dreams that his wandering son will come home. It's crazy.

As much as any other story in the Bible, this tale of God and Ahab connects God and us. God has hopes for Ahab. God gets frustrated, hurt, and angry. Ahab is weak. He is evil. He should do better. He could do better. He making a mess. Stop it, God screams. Stop it. Stop it. Ahab doesn't. God finally announces the ultimate tough response. Doom. Ahab's dynasty is over. His family is going to be obliterated. This is just. Ahab has used up all his chances and a million extra beyond what is reasonable.

Then for a few days, he appears to be sorry. For just a little while he repents. And God swoons with hope.

“Elijah, did you see? Have you seen Ahab?”

That's what God is like.

That is what we are like.

This is what I am like. I am a prisoner of hope.

Last week during children's story, a kid leaned over to me and announced in an excited whisper, “This week, I had dry pants three mornings!” I loved it. Not, “four days this week I failed” but “three mornings this week I was a champion.”

We handle the failures. They are non-events. Non-news. Unremarkable. We forgive them and look to a better future.

But its the successes that hold our attention. The barest, slightest, fuzziest successes. Yes! Yes!

May God grant that this light-hearted truth of ordinary childhood may penetrate deep into our souls. May we join with God in noticing even the repentance of Ahab. And find hope for ourselves and hope for our world.

Whose Side Are You On?

Sermon for Sabbath, February 25, 2017
At Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists


Joshua was God's man. No doubt about it. Moses, the famous leader of the Hebrew people, the invincible leader who had led them out of slavery in Egypt and had managed this horde of uncivilized former slaves for forty years had died. Joshua was the new leader, the new chief.

The succession had been announced by Moses before he died, and now God confirmed it by appearing to Joshua. God appeared to Joshua and announced, “I was with Moses. I will be with you. Moses got the people out of Egypt. You are going to get them into the Promised Land. Moses brought them across the Red Sea. You will take them across the Jordan River.” God ended his encounter with Joshua with these words:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

It's hard to imagine a more rousing affirmation than this.

Joshua sent two spies across the Jordan River to check out the country ahead. In the city of Jericho they were suspected and would have been arrested except for the quick thinking of an inn-keeper named Rahab. She hid them from the police and told them that the entire population was quaking in fear. According to Rahab, everybody knew that God had promised to give the Hebrews the entire land, that God was on the side of the Hebrews. And everybody had heard about the victories the Hebrews had achieved in their fights with the Egyptians and several other nations. They appeared to be unstoppable. Rahab's own protection of the spies was motivated, at least in part, by her desire to win favor with the invaders. Look, she said, I've saved you life, now you save mine. And the spies agreed to do so.

When they finally made it back to Joshua, the spies reported.

The LORD has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us.” Joshua 2:24

Joshua must have been pretty pleased to hear this. It's one thing to have a high opinion of our own calling. It is something else when others, especially our enemies, confirm that God is with us, that God is on our side.

Some days later, on the morning the Hebrews were going to cross the Jordan River and enter the land of Palestine proper on the other side, God appeared to Joshua and gave this reassurance:

Today, I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Joshua 3:7

It was a dramatic day. The massive crowd of Hebrews marched down to the bank of the Jordan River. At their head were priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant. The priests carried the sacred box down the slope toward the water. The river rolled on in front of them, in spring flood.

The priests finally reached the water and stepped in. At that moment the water from upstream stopped and the water began dropping away downstream. This kept on until the river bed present a bare, gravel path to Palestine.

The people poured across and began setting up camp on the other side. Joshua set up a monument to commemorate this incredible event.

The Bible offers this summary statement.

On that day the LORD magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life. Joshua 4:14

I guess so! Moses opened the Red Sea. Joshua opened the Jordan River. Clearly, God was with Joshua. He was God's “new man.”

News of the crossing raced through the land. The local people had been following the progress of the Hebrews for four decades, ever since they escaped Egypt. Those wild people out there in the desert were a threat. What if they came toward Palestine? In recent months that potential hazard had suddenly become an acute risk. The distant threat became an immediate danger. These wild desert people were now on the wrong side of the river, on the Palestine side. Chapter Five begins:

Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites. Joshua 5:1

The Israelites were unstoppable. For the Canaanites, the future was dark. The Israelites were on a roll. And God was on their side. And Joshua was God's man.

While Israel was camped there on the west side of the Jordan, Joshua headed out of camp for a walk down by the river. At some point on the walk he suddenly finds himself face to face with a stranger, raised sword in his hand.

I imagine Joshua's hand finding the hilt of his own sword. “Whose side are you on?” Joshua demands. “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

It's a scene right out of the Prince's Bride. I couldn't help myself. As I pictured this scene this week I kept hearing, “My name is Inigo Montoya . . . Prepare to die!”

I wait to see Joshua whip out his sword and launch into a fierce duel.

But it doesn't happen.

“Whose side are you on? Are you for us or for our enemies?”

“Neither.”

Neither??????  How can that be? Everyone has heard about the advance of the Hebrews. Everyone knows that all of Palestine is living in dread of these wild desert people. You are either with them or agin' em. There are only two sides. It's us versus them. Whose side are you on?

“I am not on anybody's side. I am the commander of the army of heaven.”

Joshua's hand fell away from his sword. He bowed himself to ground. “I am at your service, Sir. What word do you have for me?”

Take your shoes off. The ground you're on is holy ground.

Joshua removed his shoes.

Note the change of posture.

When Joshua first encountered the stranger, he was full of swagger and bluster. He imagined himself as the greatest, ready to take on every challenge, every challenger.

When Joshua realized who he was talking to, when he encountered God, he bowed.

His language changes. Instead of issuing a challenge, he now voices readiness to accept direction.

This kind of transformation is the mark of direct encounters with God. Meeting God changes us. It creates humility. It creates a readiness to listen.

Again, I want to emphasize, Joshua's idea that his world could be neatly divided into two sides—our side and the enemies—and that God was on his side . . . this was perfectly natural. And it was wrong.

It shows up repeatedly in the history of Israel. It even showed up among the disciples in Jesus' day.

Once the disciple John reported to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name. But he wasn't part of our organization, so we told him to stop. That was the right thing to tell him, right?”

“Wrong.”

Adventists believe that one of our founders, a woman named Ellen White, had a prophetic gift. We believe God spoke through her. This is wonderful. Unfortunately, fundamentalists among us have fallen into Joshua' error imagining that the spiritual realm can be divided into two camps—friends of Ellen White and enemies.  The current international president even went so far as to urge Adventist universities to invite only friends of Ellen White to speak on their campuses. (A position he has backed away from at least tacitly)

The most famous Christian story of an encounter with God is the story of Saul who became Paul. He was a young zealous conservative scholar on a crusade to protect his people from heresy. The purity of Jewish identity was being threatened by a new community that formed around the disciples of a rabbi named Jesus. This new community included non-Jews, Romans, Etiopians, Syrians, Spaniards, etc.

Saul did everything he could to exterminate this new people. When he had managed to rid Jerusalem of the last public evidences of the community—forcing them into exile or hiding—he asked for authorization to go after the Christians up in Syria. Authorization granted, he headed off with a team to Damascus.

He was on the outskirts of Damascus when God interrupted him. A blinding light stopped him in his tracks.

Who are you?

I am Jesus. The one you have been persecuting.

Saul, the Christian killer, became Paul, the Christian evangelist.

Saul switched sides.

It is generally not a good idea to ask God, are you on our side? You don't really want God on your side. If God is on anyone's side, the Bible is uniform in naming God's side: God is on the side of the loser.

The Bible never says God is on the side of the rich, the successful, the comfortable.
God is not on the side of the rich. And we are rich.

God is not in the side of America. And we are Americans.

God is not on the side of white people. And we are white.

God is not on the side of the powerful. And we are powerful.

God is on the side of foreigners and the lowly and downtrodden, the poor and sick, the blind and lame, the widow and orphan—or in our culture, the single mother abandoned by her children's father.

When we encounter God, the wise response is to bow and ask, What word do you have for me? First God will invite us to remove our shoes. To spend some time being touched, shaped, purified, invigorated by the divine presence. Then God will send us to act as his agents in helping the world take one more step in the right direction.

Pedestrian Visions, Direct Encounters with God - 2

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church

Sabbath, February 18, 2017

Texts: Genesis 18, Hebrews 12:28 – 13:3, Matthew 25

I grew up in Memphis. Winter there is a little like winters here in Seattle. Most of the time it's above freezing. We get rain not snow. Except for rare occasions which completely shut down the city. Winter is dreary. Unlike Seattle, Memphis does not have the magic of mountains carving the horizon, holding snow, inviting you to come and ski or snowshoe. There are no vast areas of public land where you can hike, camp, wander. Visually winter was a bleak time. 

I was not a fan of winter. I was not a fan of gray skies. I did not enjoy cold—even moderate cold. But there was one bit of visual magic in my memories of Memphis in the winter. My cousin lived on the south edge of town. I remember wandering fields with him and his dogs. A sweep of rolling pasture, rich brown grass spreading out under a soft sky, the gray overhead thinning in places to white and even swathes of shy blue. The dogs ranging ahead of us.

There were no strong lines in this picture. None of the drama and majesty of the mountains. Just an enchanting, beckoning play of light and subtle color and a sense of space and room and freedom.

I don't know if I would have remembered these scenes . . .  Maybe I wouldn't have even noticed them in the first place . . . except for the magic of art. More specifically, watercolor. Hanging over my bed from as far back as I could remember was a large watercolor of ducks at a winter gathering spot. Ducks on the water. Ducks in the air. Scattered across the marsh were islands of golden brown grass. After grad school we moved to Long Island, New York. There again, I tasted the magic of winter skies above sweeping marshes. And watercolor paintings that distilled irresistible beauty onto paper. 

In my mind the magic of days under winter sky and long, rich moments transfixed in front of a painting that brought sky and water and marsh grass and ducks and hunters and dogs or boats got all mixed together until now I cannot tell which memory in my head has come from the human artist and which has come from the Creator artist. 

The artists have not created some fictional beauty that is available only on paper. They train my eyes and heart to see. Now when I find myself looking out across some marshy landscape in the gloom of winter, I see colors I would have never noticed if the artists had not educated me to see. I notice beauty in the play of shape and light that would have been completely invisible to me if I had not spent hours contemplating watercolor paintings. 

When I'm out in the field, enchanted by the soft beauty of winter sky and winter grass, I thank the artists for teaching me to see. When I'm staring in rapt appreciation at a watercolor painting of such a landscape, I thank God for creating the glory reflected on the paper.

The Bible is a work of art. It is like a masterful watercolor. It evokes the glory of God. It trains our eyes to see.

Our Old Testament reading today is a classic, foundational story.

Abraham was a wealthy Bedouin. He lived in the grass lands of upper Palestine. His animals and herders spread out over several square miles. Cows, camels, donkeys, horses, goats, sheep. On the day of the story he's sitting at the entrance of his tent surveying the world. Perhaps he was thinking a strategy for improving the ox herd or how to get the best price for camels at the next market gathering in Damascus. Because he's a rancher, he's always thinking about markets and breeding. Because he's a chief, he has all kinds of people challenges to manage. Because he's rich, he has time to think. Time to ponder questions beyond mere survival. Questions of God and justice, purpose and destiny. 

This particular day he's sitting at the entrance of his tent, thinking. Suddenly, he notices three men out on the track that ran through the region. He jumps to his feet and hurries out to greet them. He invites them to stop awhile.

To state the obvious: There was no Facebook or Instagram. No Twitter. No New York Times. No Washington Post. No Kiro News. No NPR.

People back then craved news just we do. Humans like to talk. To hear the latest. In that world, travelers were valued news carriers. News. Newness. Someone whose story you didn't already know.

It's not surprising that Abraham invited them to come sit for awhile. Wash their feet. Rest their legs. Get out of the sun. Have something to eat. And talk.

They accepted. And the four men retired to the shade of the oak tree while Abraham's wife and servants prepared dinner. When dinner was ready, Abraham stood like a waiter, watching his guests plates. Refilling them every time there was any empty space.

It would have been fun to listen in on that conversation. Maybe we could have hidden in the kitchen with Sarah and listened. The reason I'm so curious about the conversation is that I know these travelers were not what they seemed. 

I imagine Abraham asking, “So where are you coming from? Where are you headed?” And what would these visitors have said? “We left heaven this morning, visited Antartica, then stopped by a place that will some day be called New York, then checked on Jerusalem and Damascus before coming here.” Would the visitors have made up bald lies like we do when we are trying to trick one of our friends into showing up for a surprise party? Would they have practiced careful evasion, diverting questions and giving non-answers. Given Abraham's hunger for news, I can't imagine him being satisfied with evasion and non-answers. 

Abraham would have wanted to know the latest intrigue in the palace at Damascus, and the current price of camels in the market there.

From the story, as we have it, it appears that the visitors managed a persuasive disguise all the way through dinner. At some point, one of the guests asks about Abraham's wife and predicts she will have a son. Abraham and Sarah hear this as the sweet flattery of a guest. It is so crazy, given Sarah's age--like 90 years old—that Sarah starts laughing in the kitchen. No, the guest insists, I'm not joking. You will have a baby next year. 

Finally, it's time to hit the road. The guests get up and Abraham walks with them to see them on their way. It is only there, out on the track that leads off toward the valley cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, that God finally drops his disguise. 

By now Abraham has become so comfortable with his guest, that when the guest “comes out” as God and announces a devastating judgment on the cities of the valley, Abraham protests. “You can't do that! Just imagine the collateral damage. Think of all the innocent civilians! What if there are fifty good people in the city? Would you destroy those fifty just so you can get all the bad guys?

No. God says. I'll check it out. If there are fifty good people in the city, I will spare the entire city.

Abraham thinks, wow, that was easy.

Listen, what if there are only 45?

God: I will spare the city for 45.

Abraham keeps bargaining. And God keeps dropping the number of good people needed to justify sparing the entire city.

Commentators have fun trying to figure out the precise identities of the three visitors. Was this the pre-incarnate Jesus and two angels? God the Father and a couple of angels? The three members of the Trinity all dressed up as travelers? I'll leave that debate to others. What is crystal clear is this:  when Abraham invited the three travelers home for lunch, he was welcoming God into his encampment. When he dished food on their plates, Abraham was feeding God. When he washed the feet of his guests, he was handling the feet of God. When he asked about the price of camels in Damascus, he was talking to God.

And for more than two thousand years Bible scholars have reminded us that sometimes God shows up incognito. Sometimes God is not obvious.

Sometimes encounters with God are so powerful and overwhelming, the person is immediately and irrevocably changed. This was the kind of experience Isaiah experienced. We examined that story in last week's sermon. Isaiah was never the same after that vision.

This kind of overwhelming, immediately transforming experience is something that happens to us. We cannot program it. We cannot practice for it. We can't put it on our calendar for later this spring. It is at least as unpredictable as an earthquake. 

Most encounters with God are more like the visit of God to Abraham. It seems like just ordinary life. If we were watching a movie of God's visit to Abraham, when the moment comes that Abraham realizes he is talking with God, we would be as astonished as Abraham. What? How? I thought . . .! We would replay the scene in our mind over and over. Were there clues we missed? How could someone enjoy and entire dinner with God without knowing it was God?

Some approaches to spiritual life and religion emphasize the distance between God and humanity. Any hint that someone has diminished the chasm between God and the ordinary is labeled blasphemy. 

Islam is haunted by this obsession with “blasphemy.”

In Christianity, scholars have frequently equated “holiness” or the quality of God with “otherness.” Difference. Not us. Not ordinary. In Greek Orthodox theology scholars write about apophaticism—the notion that God is far exalted above every human conception, that every attempt to speak of God is automatically, inescapably false. 

There is a place for all this transcendent, exalted stuff. But the story of Abraham tells a different story. God looks like a traveler. God looks like someone who could use a shower and a good lunch. God looks like someone who would enjoy a hour resting in the shade. God looks a lot like us.

The Bible is like a heavenly watercolor distilling for us a vision of heavenly beauty that is so subtle we might miss it without the education of our eyes by the art of the book.

In Adventist circles, it is common for people to made a great fuss about about “inspired” and “not-inspired” writings. Supposedly, God is in the inspired writings but not in the “not-inspired” writings. If you had been in Abraham's kitchen listening to the guests would you have ignore what the guests said until after you found out they were divine? If so, you would have missed nearly all of the heavenly conversation.

Central to the Gospel—that is the stories and teachings of Jesus—is the conviction that God shows up in humanity.

The kingdom of heaven is made up of . . .  not “gods” or angels . . .  the kingdom of heaven is made up of children. Ordinary, diaper-filling, sleep-disrupting, heart-breaking, noise-making glorious children.

We cannot command God to show up in dazzling power. We cannot program a life-transforming, overwhelming experience. But we can practice treating every child as a “god,” god with a lower case perhaps, but still the habitation of divinity, or the camouflage of divinity or the temple of God.

Maybe only one out of a hundred of the children we encounter is actually God in disguise. Still would we treat each child like royalty rather miss out on one opportunity to entertain God?

In the grand climax of the final sermon cycle in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus echoes the lesson of the story of Abraham and his visitors. In the story of the sheep and goats, Jesus declares that we encounter God in ordinary human need. We engage with God as we respond to the pedestrian needs of real, live human beings. We distance ourselves from God when we turn away from humans in need.

Since this is Black History month, I want to make a specific application of this truth to the issue of race. 

In the world I grew up, Memphis, deep south, the 1950s, racism was blatant and universal. My siblings and I rode the city bus across to attend school. I remember my puzzlement about the black women. They got on the bus at the same stop we got on. But they always walked to the back. Even when there were no seats back there. I was naive. I did not know this was the way it was “supposed” to be. 

Our mother was a stay-at-home mom. In addition, we always had a maid at our house, a black woman. I wondered, who takes care of the maid's boys and girls while she was at our house? As I moved into my teens, I remember debates among my parents' friends about paying social security taxes for domestic help.

At the heart of this unequal treatment was a failure of vision. The Federal Constitution counted each slave as three fifths of a person. We simply did not see the face of God in the face of our Black neighbors, the people who swept our floors and mowed our lawns and worked in law offices and doctors offices in the parts of town with deficient streets and impoverished housing.

We were blind. 

Even in church.

When we painted pictures of God, God had blond hair and blue eyes. Even angels were blonds. So even in church, we failed to see. When we rehearsed the story of Noah, we remembered that Noah's son Ham was cursed along with his descendents. And we knew that Black folk were the descendents of Ham. If God had cursed them, who were we to argue? We used the Bible to blind ourselves and celebrate our blindness.

But God is calling us to higher ground.

Black folks are not the descendents of Ham. They are descendents of Abraham's visitors. 

We are learning to see. Black children, just like white children, and Asian children, beautiful children and ugly children, and gifted children and disadvantaged children, --all children are those who comprise the kingdom of heaven.

We can prepare for the kind of encounter Abraham had with God. We can practice hospitality. We can practice attending to people. We can give attention to eloquent words that call us higher, beautiful words that help us see.

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman? --Sojourner Truth, Delivered 1851 at the Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio 

We hear Sojourner's words and we promise ourselves, if we had been there, we would have seen. We would have felt the pathos of her lost children. We would have felt the bite of the slave driver's whip on her back. We would have felt her hunger and demanded an end to the system of slavery.

My plea is that we will hear her words and promise ourselves, that since we are here, we will do what we can here and now. We will spend time in contemplation Bible's vision of the beauty of God dressed in humanity. We will practice welcoming God, no matter what his disguise.

Ocean of Divine Favor

Column for the February, 2017, Green Lake Church Gazette

It was another morning waiting for dawn. The sky was murky. Occasionally the crescent moon found a thin spot in the clouds. The brightening in the east was hesitant, timid. Still, darkness retreated. Gray warmed toward orange, then gaps in the clouds leaped to life with pinks and purples and yellows and reds and oranges. For a brief moment the sky was gloriously aflame.

As the day advanced, the clouds would thicken. This was, after all, Seattle in January. Rain would come. But I carried with me all day the vision of that golden, fiery sky and the conviction it called up in the core of my being: we live in an ocean of divine favor.

My central ambition is to imbibe as deeply as possible this blessing, to take it in and savor it, enjoy it, relish it, allow it to suffuse my entire self, and then to share it, to pass it along, to pay it forward. This is the essence of my religion. It is a hopeful, radiant vision.

Always, I dream of expressing more richly the reality of God's favor and grace. I aspire to exemplify in my own life the sweetness and generosity of the heavenly lover which means I can always imagine better, higher, purer. But since I am swimming in the ocean of divine grace, the space between what I have accomplished today and what I can imagine accomplishing does not haunt me with remorse or guilt. I have no taste of condemnation in my mouth. I simply keep alive the dream of living out ever more fully the divine favor that surrounds me.

That morning watching the dawn my enjoyment was qualified somewhat by another awareness. I know that many people who are precious to me live in an atmosphere of divine wrath. Like me, they learned from classic Christianity that all humanity is the target of a divine scowl. God hates sin. All humans are intrinsically, fundamentally sinful. So God has an essential hatred of our humanity. In this religious perspective, the default destiny of every human is damnation, a destiny that can be avoided only by mastering certain religious prescriptions. For some Protestants the requirement is believing a particular theory about the meaning of the death of Jesus. For some old time Adventists the requirement was flawless behavior, including eating a perfect diet. Old time Adventist perfectionists and American evangelicals are united in their conviction that humans live in an atmosphere of divine wrath. It is time to replace this fear of a dark and scowling God with a clear vision of God as light and life and love.

Hear the testimony of the Gospels:

Matthew

Jesus pictured God as the abundantly generous supplier of sunshine and rain. The ubiquity of these gifts of the heavens is a statement about the character of God (Matthew 5).

Jesus pictured God as an attentive parent, someone who is aware of children's needs and moving to supply them even before the kids themselves could think to ask (Matthew 6).

In Matthew 7, Jesus said the ordinary instinct of a parent to provide for the ordinary needs of their children is a reliable pointer toward the profound goodness and generosity of God.

Mark

While Jesus was preaching in the synagogue in Capernaum, a man with an “unclean spirit” disrupted the service, shouting fear and belligerence at Jesus. In response, Jesus drove out the unclean spirit and left the man whole (Mark 1).

Jesus and his disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee. In the wild country on the far side, they encountered another victim of an “unclean spirit.” Like the man in the synagogue this man raged his fear and hostility. And like Jesus in the synagogue, Jesus rescued him, giving him back his sanity and his life. Without request, without permission. That's just the way Jesus was. As Christians, we insist, that's the way God is. (Mark 5)

Luke

In just one chapter, 15, Jesus gives three pictures of God. God is a shepherd who will not rest until all sheep are safe in the fold, a woman who will not rest until all her treasures are back in her possession, a father whose door is ever open to his sons. The shepherd is not scowling while he hunts his sheep. The woman is not frowning as she sweeps her house in determined pursuit of the lost coin. The father is not a “hazard” to be crossed in pursuit of “safe-at-home.” In each of these pictures, the “lost one” has nothing to fear from wrath. Because there is no wrath. Instead we observe divine hunger for restoration and return.

A young man was being carried out for burial just as Jesus was entering the town. Jesus did not ask permission. He received no request. He stopped the procession and resurrected the young man. It seems Jesus can't help himself. It is his nature to heal and save. Indiscriminately. Prodigiously. As Christians we agree that Jesus is the best picture of God. It is the nature of God to heal and save. God is like the dawn.

I have discarded the dark doctrines of total depravity, “the close of probation,” “not one in twenty,” divine wrath, universal guilt, and “salvation only if _______.” (You can fill in the blank.) I have replaced all these gloomy conceptions of God with the Gospel picture of God as the radiant sun and vivifying rain. Let's bask in God's light. Let's marinate our souls in the heavenly rain. Let's enjoy this ocean of divine favor and pass it on.

Great

Psalm 113 (all)

Luke 22:19-20; 24-27 

Thursday afternoon, I headed east from Enumclaw on Hwy 410. The sky was gray and dark and wet. On both sides of the highway industrial forests spread out in various stages of their life cycles from current harvest to thirty-year-old woods. Snow littered the ground.

Eventually, I reached the national forest. There were fewer clear cuts. Between the cuts, the trees were larger. Still, No individual tree stood out. They were indistinguishable bits in the sea of green.

Just past the Skookum Falls viewpoint. I parked, pulled on my microspikes and headed up the Palisades Trail. As usual, I had snowshoes strapped on my pack. But if you had been there watching me, you would have noticed an additional odd item strapped on top my snowshoes. A stool!

About a mile up the trail, I dropped my pack. Set up my stool. Pulled out my stove and heated some water. Then sat down to eat a sandwich, sip my hot water, and keep company with a great tree. The greatest tree in the Dalles Creek valley, maybe the greatest tree in the entire White River drainage.

It is a huge Doug fir. Winter or summer, even when I'm running and trying to make time up the trail, when I come to this tree I stop. I take a moment to pay respect to this great citizen of the green world. It is nearly invisible, standing in a forest of large trees, its top hidden in a jungle of green overhead. It's trunk is one among thousands in the valley. It is ordinary. Until you stop and pay attention. The more attention you pay, the grander the tree becomes.

How big? Yesterday, I took a tape measure with me. It has a circumference of 21 feet. is 18 feet around. Much bigger than I had previously guessed.

I spent half an hour yesterday in the company of this tree, letting its greatness touch me, inspire me, awe me.

I let words run through my mind. Dignity. Longevity. Immense. Magnificent. Huge. Wondrous. Elegant. Quiet. Enduring. Alive.

I gave the tree my full attention, letting my eyes and mind drink in its grandeur. I traced furrows in the bark, noting their patterns. I drank in the color changes up and down and across the trunk. I used my imagination to climb higher in the tree, above where the trunk was obscured by the green, feathery canopy. In short, I practiced contemplation. Sitting on my stool, I quieted my soul and kept company with this truly great tree. I gave it intense, persistent, respectful, affectionate attention.

I contemplated its patience and endurance. Its dignity and strength. It's grandeur and beauty.

The tree's greatness is stealthy. I have passed it dozens of times. I've stopped and touched it. Paused and admired it. But yesterday I went further. I climbed the slope behind it and found places where I could see its entire height. I watched its perfect trunk climb skyward, tapering slowly. As I studied it from this distance, I could see that even among its large neighbors, this tree was unique.

I imagined having a conversation with a younger Doug fir in the forest: “Young tree, if you are looking for a model for your future, be like that tree. If you dream of being a truly great Doug fir, practice living like that one.”

But enough about trees. Let's talk about people.

A week ago I spent half an hour in the presence of a truly great person. We were standing in someone else's kitchen chitchatting and I asked about her work. Not the work she gets paid for. I already knew about her career. I asked about her other job. Being a mother.

The longer we talked the larger she grew.

I thought of all the times I walked past that Doug fir, never realizing how truly great it was until I stopped to measure it, spent time sitting beside it in contemplation, climbing the slope to survey it from different angles.

As I listened to this mother, with every paragraph she became greater and greater and greater. Yes, she benefited from the assistance of professionals. But at nearly every step, she had to fight for that help. She had to fight entire systems to get the help her child needs.

It was not the first time I've been in the presence of human greatness. A geologist friend in Colorado has cared for his son for fifty, going on sixty years now. A carpenter friend here in Washington, shaped his entire life for more than two decades around the needs of his daughters. And mothers. I cannot count the mothers I know who have loved and served and cared and hoped and fought for years and decades. With no applause. No acclaim. No obvious reward.

At some point in our conversation last week, I said to the mother, “I could never be a mother.” I was struck by her response.

“Yes, you could. You would.”

She was dismissing her heroic service as the natural, instinctual goodness that God has planted in the human heart. If your children have special needs, you become a special provider. That's the way God has made people.

And the reason God made people that way is because that's how God is. That's who God is.

When we enter the kind of service good mothers give, we are entering most deeply into greatness—human greatness and divine greatness. At least that's the way Jesus saw it.

Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me." After supper he took another cup of wine and said, "This cup is the new covenant between God and his people--an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you. . . .

Then they began to argue among themselves about who would be the greatest among them.

Jesus told them, "In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they call themselves 'friends of the people.' But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who serves. Luke 22:19-27

Great people serve. Great people take care of others.

Where did Jesus get this idea? Did it originate with him? Was this a brand new idea that Jesus invented? No. Jesus' idea that serving others is the highest mark of human goodness came from his vision of God—a vision rooted in the words of the Old Testament prophets and in the actual care Jesus received from Joseph.

The great tree that Jesus sat under, the tree that provided the inspiration for his magnificent moral vision was the magnificent tree of divine goodness.

In Matthew 5, Jesus noted that God sends rain to good people and to bad people, to the just and the unjust. The gifts of seasons are not pulled from heaven by worthy people, they are poured from heaven by our generous God.

In Matthew 6, Jesus pictured God as an attentive parent who is aware of children's needs before the kids themselves are.

In Matthew 7, Jesus insisted that the goodness and generosity of ordinary, decent parents is a pointer toward the profound goodness and generosity of God.

These presentations by Jesus are an echo of the Hebrew prophets. Throughout the Old Testament, over and over and over, the prophets picture God as the champion of the poor, the friend of widows and orphans. God's greatness is explicitly described as his character of providing for poor people and animals. God is not pictured as the friend of the rich. Not because the rich are bad or because God doesn't like rich people. There are plenty of good rich people in the Bible. But God does not go out of his way to announce his friendship for the rich because they do not such an intense need his friendship. They're doing all right. Life is going well for them.

Like a good mother, God gives special attention to the children who need special care. So the poor, the falsely accused, the sick, the people who can't afford a lawyer, the people who cannot buy a place at the table—these are the people specially befriended by God. At least, that's what the prophets say.

Over and over and over again.

One of the most important functions of religion is to help us pause in the race of life and pay attention to authentic greatness, especially the most magnificent greatness of all—the greatness of God.

Church is like a stool set on the trail beside the greatest Doug fir inviting passersby to pause, to stop, and spend some sweet moments in contemplation of true greatness, divine greatness.

This is why we come together in worship. Here we spend time in contemplation of the character of God. We give close, sustained, communal attention to the mightiest tree in the universe. We worship the God who sends rain on the just and the unjust. We worship a God who delights far more in reconciliation than in vengeance, a God who prefers mercy to punishment, a God who finds ways to save sinners, and restore the fallen.

Here in worship we delight in the truth of the beautiful God, the true measure of what is great.

Holy Courage

Sermon manuscript (revised) for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists 

For Sabbath, January 24, 2017

It was the end of March, spring time in Memphis, 1968. The azaleas were approaching their peak bloom. The days were gloriously warm and bright. The street we lived on was lined with massive elm trees that arched across the street. They were vivid with new baby leaves. There was one flaw in this glorious spring. The garbage was piling up by our back gate. In our neighborhood, garbage trucks drove the alleys instead of the streets. But for the last six weeks, there had been no garbage trucks in the alley. The garbage men were on strike.

This was not acceptable. If the mayor goes on vacation, nobody notices. If the garbage men miss one day, it's trouble. If they miss a week, we are in deep mess. There had been no garbage collection in Memphis for six weeks!

We were mad at the garbage men. What right did they have not to work? What business did they have demanding better pay. After all, they were mere garbage men. And on top of that, they were black. Lots of black people in Memphis were unemployed. So these garbage men were supposed to grateful for any paycheck at all. Yes. They worked in miserable, dangerous conditions. A couple of garbage men had been crushed to death in a compactor. That's what precipitated the strike. But hey, accidents happen. Get over it.

The garbage men refused to get over it. The mayor demanded they return to work. They refused. The main newspaper in town, the Commercial Appeal, cheered the mayor on as he swaggered and talked tough. The white population cheered every insult the mayor hurled at the recalcitrant strikers.

The garbage men—sanitation workers—held on. They refused to obey the mayor. They refused to agree that they deserved lower pay than the white drivers of their garbage trucks. They refused to agree that their families should live in poverty while they collected the garbage in the alleys behind large homes on tree-shaded streets.

But it was hard. All the powers were arrayed against them. The mayor. The police with their dogs and mace and billy clubs. Major local businesses. Justice hung in the balance.

Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Memphis to encourage them, arriving on Friday, March 29.

Monday and Tuesday at school, I listened to the rumors swirling among my classmates. A group of white men had bound themselves with an oath to guarantee Dr. King would not get out of town alive. Communist agents were in town to agitate the black people and provoke them to violence. The strikers were quitting their strike. Dr. King was wasting his time.

Wednesday came. Wednesday night Dr. King addressed a huge crowd. He cited the Hebrew prophets and their bold protestations against the perversion of justice by the powerful. He talked of the ultimate triumph of non-violence, about the glory and risk of that present moment in the great march of history toward justice and peace. Police violence would not win. Mace and billy clubs would not triumph. Not ultimately. Not if the people stayed united and true to their principles.

Then at the heart of his sermon, he told the story of the Good Samaritan.

A man was traveling the wild, desolate road from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was jumped by thieves and robbed and beaten. Two religious dignitaries passed the injured man. First a minister, then a deacon. They could see he needed help. They probably wanted to help. But they asked the very sensible question, “What will happen to me if I help?”

Then along came another man, a Samaritan—a Muslim in Christian America, a Black man in White America, a Mexican in Anglo America, a Jew in neo-Nazi America, a Republican in Seattle (I say this with a good-natured smile)--this other man changed the question. He did not ask what will happen to me if I help. He asked what will happen to him if I do not help?

The question asked by the religious dignitaries—what will happen to me—is a sensible question. But it was not the right question. The right question was, “What will happen to him, if I do not help?” Dr. King applied the question to the situation in Memphis. He challenged his audience, “What will happen to the strikers who have risked their families and their entire future struggling for justice if you do not help? What will happen to the children of these strikers, if we leave them to struggle alone? What will happen to this city if we fail to come to the aid of those who need us now?

What will happen to them if we do not help?

This question remains one of the most probing questions we can ask. It is the burning question facing us right now across the United States and Europe. The entire western world is being seduced by the allure of the reasonable, smart-sounding question: What will happen to us if we help? The world is richer than ever before in history. There is enough food, enough money, enough money. But we are weary with helping.

Still, the noble challenge presented so clearly by Jesus in the story of the Good Samaritan and given new voice by Martin Luther King confronts us: what will happen to them if we do not help?

What will happen to the children born in a poverty they did not earn if we do not help?

What will happen to senior citizens who spend their entire careers working in day care?

What will happen to the people who have manicured our lawns and washed the dishes in our favorite restaurants and cleaned the bathrooms in the airports we passed through on our way to our vacations in Mexico? What will happen to them when they get sick or old?

What will happen to families coping with mental illness?

What will happen to grandmothers raising grandchildren because the middle generation got lost in addictions?

What will happen if we do not help?

Across the nations that used to be Christian, there are louder and louder voices celebrating the privilege of the privileged and denouncing the need of the needy.

I am not optimistic in the short term about our ability to avoid a sharp lurch into the ditch of fear and narrow self-interest. But I am confident of this: We—the members of this family, citizens of the Beautiful City, devotees of Jesus—we will ask the right question. We will not allow the teachings of Jesus to be muted.

When Dr. King talked about asking the sensible question, “What will happen to me if I help?” it was not a theoretical exercise. The air was full of threats. He knew people wanted him dead. Men heavy with hatred and guns. Coming to Memphis was a dangerous move. Still he came because the brothers in Memphis needed help. Their struggle for justice faced deeply entrenched opposition. So Martin asked the right question, What will happen if I do not help. And he came to Memphis knowing there he was wearing a target.

Helping sometimes requires great courage, holy courage. But that is the native culture of the Beautiful City.

In our New Testament reading we heard the cynical challenge to Jesus from the religious conservatives of his day.

Some Pharisees warned Jesus that Herod was out to get him. They advised him to leave town. (They, of course, cared nothing about Jesus' well being. They were trying to scare Jesus into leaving town. They wanted to get rid of his bothersome presence.) Jesus laughed them off. Go tell that old fox that I am going to keep doing what I do. I will be casting out demons and healing people here. And three days from now I will be in Jerusalem doing the same thing. If you are going to do me in, you might as well do it in Jerusalem, that's where all good prophets go to die.

The same thing is happening today. Religious conservatives are trying to silence the annoying teachings of Jesus. A famous evangelical preacher New York recently told an interviewer, the teachings are Jesus are not the main point of Christianity. Jesus saves us from out guilt. That's the big thing. Those teachings about loving our neighbors and laying down our lives for our friends and serving the least of these—all of that is quite secondary. What matters is getting myself saved.

We do not agree. We do not believe the most important question is what will happen to me? We join Jesus and Martin and the ancient prophets, Amos and Jeremiah, in asking what will happen to them? And not just on Judgment day off in the future, but today. Here. Now.

What will happen if we do not help.

We do not wait until it is convenient to ask the question. We do not wait until we have power. We simply own the question as central to our religion as followers of Jesus. We claim this question as central to the constitution of our spiritual city: What will happen to them if we do not help?

When people threaten us with the power of the swaggering, belligerent Herod, we reply, “Tell the old fox we will continue our ministry. We will continue to do what we can to heal and help. And we will not be silent.”

It may cost us. But that is what courage is for. To pursue truth and justice.

May God help us.