10- 27-13 "My Bible"
Reformation Sunday       
Luke 18:9-14

 On October 31, 1517, a man walked up to the door of the church in Wittenburg, Germany and nailed a 95-part message to the door.

He did so with conviction, not contempt. 

Each one was about the length of a tweet, or a face book post. Posts that packed a punch. 

Inspired by the bible, Martin Luther believed with every fiber of his being that others should have direct access to that inspiration as well.

Luther started out as a regular middle class kid making the right moves toward success (laid out by his father) when one day the ground beside him was quite literally struck by lightening. Within 2 weeks he was in a Augustinian Monastery studying for the priesthood. He became a meticulous follower of rules, trying to earn an evasive assurance that God knew who he was and cared. (I"m humming "Blessed Assurance as I consider his plight).  But instead, Luther became depressed.  The closer he got to the center of his religion (literally Rome), the more he saw how the church had disintegrated, been hollowed out. 

It was reading the Bible that put his feet on solid ground. (And now for a verse of "On Christ, the Solid Rock I Stand.....")

When Luther learned that faith was trusting God and God’s promises and that lack of faith was trusting anything else he wrote, “I felt myself born again.” His life work became translating scripture into German so that others could read it as well.  He came to think of the lack of educated clergy as a key part of the crisis.  Scripture was guarded by a select few and used to make their own lives better. 

Do you a special bible with you?  What makes it special?

Many of us have fond memories of people or events attached to our bibles.  
I brought a few of my own. Here's the one my parents received as a wedding present from their Swedish Lutheran pastor in 1959.  Here's the white one I received in third grade from the little Methodist church in Indiana that taught me faith moves out of the building in mission.  Here's the Serendipity Bible I bought for myself when I started leading small groups in college.  There's the Neslte Aland I had to buy in Seminary for Greek class.  Each one represents a part of my journey. 

There’s a new wave of folks tracking down family bibles that have been dispersed through good will, garage sales, and wandering family members. I wonder how many people actually read the bibles they bring back home. These bibles are precious not just for the family ties and memories, but because the inspired word of God shaped the lives of the people who carried and read them.  Yesterday when I went to gather this stack of bibles, I realized I've now given away many in my collection.  It brings me joy to imagine the role they may be playing in the lives they now share. 

We are 3 years from the 500th ann. of Reformation, (which will be in 2017, the same year we pay off the next of our 2 church mortgages, doubel the celebration!) We are on the painful cutting edge of reformation in our own denomination.  We are a faith community finding new energy re-forming our local way of doing church.

In every reformation some things are restored, 
some things are stored away for now, 
Some, like the violence in that earlier Reformation, we pray are gone forever,
and some new work of God is always discovered.  
The bottom line is reset.

Its tough work.

Now, before we go giving Pharisees a completely bad rap, we might remember it’s fairly certain that Jesus was one. (Otherwise its unlikely he would have eaten with them frequently as scripture records.) And before we go giving the Medieval Catholic Church a totally bad rap, we should remember that Martin Luther was one of its priests, educated and ordained.  These are family struggles, not wars with foreign agencies. They are internal reformations.  And the Catholic Church after Reformation is not the same church it was pre-reformation. 

Luther’s public struggle began with the war against indulgences. I won't read all 95. Here are a few:

44. Because love grows by works of love, man thereby becomes better. Man does not, however, become better by means of indulgences but is merely freed from penalties.

45. Christians are to be taught that he who sees a needy man and passes him by, yet gives his money for indulgences, does not buy papal indulgences but God's wrath.

46. Christians are to be taught that, unless they have more than they need, they must reserve enough for their family needs and by no means squander it on indulgences.

47. Christians are to be taught that they buying of indulgences is a matter of free choice, not commanded.

65. Therefore the treasures of the gospel are nets with which one formerly fished for men of wealth.

66. The treasures of indulgences are nets with which one now fishes for the wealth of men.

Here’s a reality check:  what would a reformer today nail to our church door?

If it’s a real reformation wake up notice, it will come from radical encounter with scripture and with the full odd lot of people we share our world with.  Becauce at our heart,  Church is the living custodian of the living word not the keeper of relics. ( Singing, "Wonderful Words of Life.")

The bottom line for Martin Luther was sola scriptura, a healing of the rift between God’s people and God’s word that couldn’t be paid out in coin with the false hope of forgiveness.  We Wesleyans would add the spiritual disciplines by which we stay in love with God, all of which flow out of our encounter with the Holy One of scripture. 

In our Stewardship season we're inspired by words like Sirach 35:12-15
Give to the Most High as he has given to you, and as generously as you can afford. For the Lord is the one who repays, and he will repay you sevenfold.  Do not offer God a bribe, for he will not accept it; and do not rely on a dishonest sacrifice; for the Lord is the judge, and with him there is no partiality.

Every generation has to relearn the truth Jeremiah spoke to the God’s people so long ago: Thus says the LORD concerning this people: Truly they have loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet;(14: 10)  …….Can any idols of the nations bring rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Is it not you, O LORD our God? We set our hope on you, for it is you who do all this. (14:22)

I think the bottom line where God longs to meet Brunswick UMC right now, this year, is building relationship to sustain healthy discipleship.         

Martin Luther didn’t get every thing perfect, he had a horrible unexamined case of cultural anti-Semitism. We won’t perfectly embody God’s kingdom here and now.  We’ll carry unexamined assumptions for the next generation to discover and discard. 

But that doesn’t mean we don’t try.

In our increasingly fragmented society, held together by the duct tape of popular entertainment, Reformation means forming deep relationship that are radical in their diversity. Not hunkering down and digging in with others who reinforce our point of view but planting our roots in God’s perspective altering word, branching out with others who are truly different from us.                                    

Life would be so much easier if we could just think of changes in the church as fashion trends, if we could just pat ourselves on the back, and say good enough. Judgment doesn’t come until later…. There’s plenty of time to update our spiritual wardrobe.

But this Jesus we meet in scripture gives us a reality check. He doesn’t want to meet us all decked out in our party clothes.  Jesus wants us clothed in his character:  in forgiveness, in mercy, in justice.

Luke 18:9-14

[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:

 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

 The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.'

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'  I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."

Every generation has to relearn the truth Jeremiah spoke to the God’s people so long ago: Thus says the LORD concerning this people: Truly they have loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet;(14: 10)  …….Can any idols of the nations bring rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Is it not you, O LORD our God? We set our hope on you, for it is you who do all this. (14:22)

But lately I’ve been wondering . . .                                                      
Am I following Jesus or just believing in Christ?
                                    
‘Cause I can believe and not change a thing,
                                    
But following will change my whole life.
                                             
He never said, “Come, acknowledge my existence,
                                    
Or “Believe in me, I’m the Second Person of the Trinity!”
                  
But 87 times he said, “Follow me!”         Bryan Sirchio ,Lyrics to "Follow Me"

  
Gordon Cosby once preached:                           
There is absolutely nothing new about a new form of church. The church, the Body of Christ, is always changing. …we ask what Jesus would want his community to look like now, against this global backdrop. [of our particular period of history].

Jesus had to work out his life in the context of Pax Romana, and also in the context of Jerusalem, his local governing power center. [he summed it up for us in a little talk people call the Sermon on the Mount. That’s the only real peace.]…how are we who are followers of Jesus going to inwardly, faithfully embody God’s essence in our own Jerusalems?

…, I am finding that there are two ‘givens’ – necessary components – for a true embodiment of Christ’s community:

First, I will be a member of a small family group of extreme ‘opposites’ – people who represent diversity in terms of race and ethnicity, economics, education, personality and temperament, in all ways ….. Together we lift the extreme heaviness of each other’s burdens, and … participate in lifting the misery of the ages.

 Second, I will be a witness … – telling others of Jesus, who IS the good news. .. We easily ask each other, “How are you doing these days?” but the more important question, “How are you and Jesus doing?” goes unsaid. .. If we do a number of good works but never learn to introduce someone to a genuine relationship with Jesus and ways to nurture and deepen that relationship, we have failed to witness to the Source of Life itself.

I know many of us have been offended or amused or even disgusted by the ways some have ‘witnessed’ to us, but why should that be an excuse not to speak of the Love that is our Source…. I’m not talking about twisting people’s wills or persuading their minds, but gently picking the locks of their hearts – becoming such well-tuned locksmiths that hearts can be eased open for a mighty in-rushing of Love.[1]

[1] Gordon Cosby was the founding minister of The Church of the Saviour and a member of the Church of Christ, Right Now. “Being Church NOW” is condensed from a sermon preached on August 20, 2006. (MP3 Link)


Pastoral Prayer
God, we give you the praise that is due you,
O you who answer prayer!
To you we come with our brothers and sister around the world.
When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us, you forgive our transgressions.
You bless those who you draw near and satisfy us with the goodness of your kin-dom.  O God of our salvation; you are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. As the harvest comes home and nature clothes itself for winter, your creation shouts and sings together for joy. (adaptation of Psalm 65)

With millions of our brothers and sisters in Christ we pray for the most representative gathering of World ever. Bless the more than 3'000 participants gathering this week for the 10th assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Busan, South Korea this week.

We pray for the dramatic changes in the composition of World Christianity this gathering will represent, moving its epicenter to the South and demographically becoming younger and much more diverse. We hear the intense longings for justice, peace and reconciliation in the divided Korean peninsula …in the Middle East, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and in our own United States.

Bless the delegates as they ambitiously work to formulate a ‘theology of life' that integrates the dignity of all, respects the integrity of all creation and transforms value systems in order to break destructive trends in the global economy.  (adapted from http://www.globethics.net/web/gtl/newsletter)

Thank you, God for living in a state that helps lead the country farm-to-school participation and Maine has come out near the top.  You bless the children in 85% of Maine schools participating in farm-to-school programs, and those that till edible gardens.

Guide our own beloved United Methodist Church through the disturbing and sacred changes that rock our boats.  From the cowardice that dares not face new truth, from the laziness that is contented with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth, God Lord, deliver us, AMEN     (UMH 597, Kenya)

 

 

 

 *Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 Luke 17: 11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.  As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean.

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"

Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

Nine went on.  Did they even realize they’d been healed? 

Can they even tell their own story?
  Did they keep on keeping on without hope to open their eyes? 
  Or was realizing something was different so disorienting that they clung to habit, putting one foot in front of another?
  Or did realizing something was different disorient them with delight?
The scripture lets us imagine our way in. 

One knew.  He saw that he was healed and turned back to say thank you.
  And he was a Samaritan,

He was descended from the same ancestors as Jesus’ folks, but by a family branch allowed to stay in the land when others were taken into Babylonian captivity. Their stories had diverged and religious practices grown subtly apart until the relationship between the two people became one of those extended family aversions.

 “They’re different.”

Those nine who didn’t stop, I wonder whether the words of the psalm might have been so familiar that they’d stopped paying attention to what they meant, like the favorite familiar tune that lodges in our peripheral awareness, where we hum.   I wonder whether, like the hometown crowd that turned on Jesus when he let out that he was God’s good news, these folks had lost the fresh eyes of hope. 
Can any of us blame them?

Because of that strange one, the foreigner, who recognized and remembered what was going on, we hear his hope-full story. I’m struck again by how open ended the story is.  What will the one who came back do next?

"Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

Hope comes from those who remember,

From those of us who can tell the story of new life God has brought through our little deaths: deaths of dreams, deaths of relationships, even the deaths of those we’ve loved.

We wish we felt better.
We hope for resurrection.

Wishing entertains, it distracts.
 Hope empowers, it overcomes despair.

You may have seen it in the news:
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Just five months after the lives of hundreds of innocent bystanders changed forever, 11 of the Boston Marathon bombing survivors made their way onto the Gillette Stadium field prior to Thursday’s Patriots-Jets game to a rousing standing ovation. …Prior to kickoff, the 11 survivors, including 27-year-old double amputee Jeff Bauman, emerged from the player tunnel wearing customized Patriots jerseys. Accompanying each of them were wounded military veterans from the nonprofit organization, Operation Warrior Wishes, who have overcome similar injuries while serving our country.

 The honored guests lined the Patriots sideline for player introductions before holding a moment of silence for those who lost their lives during the bombings last April - Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell and Lingzi Lu. www.operationwarriorwishes.org.

While the article was primarily about the day’s celebration, with public support for survivors of both the Boston Marathon bombing and military incidents, about visits by cheerleaders, and the generosity of the Kraft family’s donations to the Boston Strong fund, the real underlying story is of people with enough hope to work their way back from devastating injury; people now willing to share that hope with others.

It’s an incredible parallel to the Jesus story that draws us here each week.
Friends of the Spirit, build up one another’s hope.

“See How They Love One Another.”  

Hope is very different from wishful thinking, though we often use “wish” and “hope” interchangeably.

 Wishes escape from reality, its about what’s not there.
 Hoping is rooted in experience, and in relationship. 
  Hope reaches for what may seem impossible and creates with whatever is available

If the wise men had stopped in their travels to wish upon the star without traveling on in hope, we would not have their story of unlikely discovery in a manger.

Do your dreams really come true when you sit and wish upon a star?

It’s a lovely whimsy.  It rarely produces what lovers with broken hearts or parents holding the bodies of their children long for.

Hope inspires action that is hope full.
Wishes long for fulfillment.
When we stop at wishing we are help less.

There was an interview on NPR a couple of weeks ago with one of this year’s MacArthur winners, Jazz musician, Vijay Iyer.  He's the creator of the Veteran’s Dream Project:  about how veterans live with the weight of those memories.

IYER: Mike did a lot of interviews with…  [Iraq war]veterans, and so many of the pieces on this album are derived from their telling of their dreams. But some of the people he interviewed said they didn't sleep at all, or didn't dream at all, and if they did, it was a medicated kind of sleep. That's where the song "Rem Killer" comes from: It's a litany of all the medications that people would take to not have to relive some of these memories in the course of sleep….This project is, first and foremost, for the veterans — it was created with and by veterans and it's very much for that community to experience. For me, one of the best responses we got was from Lynn Hill herself, who's one of our collaborators. She said that after being involved in this project, she was able to leave therapy and she stopped having nightmares, and now she's married and has a baby. So she underwent a certain healing process through the telling and through being heard. That, to me, is far beyond what we ever expected or anticipated. So the healing potential of this kind of work — whether it's this project or another one that it might inspire — I think that's what I would like to see.

(9-29-13 5:30, “Veteran’s Dream Project” http://www.npr.org/2013/09/29/226844535/vijay-iyer-on-learning-from-war)

Jeremiah, the 8th century BCE prophet, hoped against all odds.  We’ve heard how he invested in land while he was in prison, knowing that the best and brightest young professionals and craftsmen were being exported to work in the empire of their subdoers.  The land would be worthless for generations, except as a sign of hope.   Jeremiah placed that there, in their future.  Then he taught them how to practice hope while they’re living in the foreigner’s land:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.  -Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

All around him, their world is crumbling.  It is a time of utter despair, absolute rock bottom for an entire nation. And Jeremiah leads them to the deepest wells of memory tells them to live.  This is what God wants for them, to live, to reclaim their identity. 

Land that seems worthless will once again be valuable.  People who seem fragmented into “no People,” will re-emerge as a community bearing salvation for the world. 

Go deep into your losses and rediscover who you are.  
Go deep into your soul and rediscover the God who waits to reveals new purpose in your life, and new depths of love.

Can you hear him leading them to embody hope, how to BE hope full?

In that incredibly difficult time the people sang their songs of Zion in a foreign land, not only in private, but where their captors could hear, and be amused…. Or inspired.

Psalm 66:1-12 

Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth;
sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise.
Say to God, "How awesome are your deeds! Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you.

 All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you,
sing praises to your name." Selah
Come and see what God has done:
he is awesome in his deeds among mortals.
He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. 
There we rejoiced in him,
who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations-- let the rebellious not exalt themselves. Selah

Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard,
who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.
For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.
You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs;
you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; 
yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.

Can you hear what earlier trial their hope rests on?
The Jewish people pass hope from generation to generation.

• Paul passes hope man to man when he writes to Timothy. Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David--that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. (Paul wrote from a Roman prison, literally chained to the wall).  But the word of God is not chained….[and] the saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; -2 Timothy 2:8-15
  

Hope comes from the ones who remember,

PRAYER by -Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace
O God, let something essential happen to me,                                    

something more than interesting
                                   
or entertaining,
                                                              
or thoughtful.

O God, let something essential happen to me,
                                    
something awesome,
                                                               
something real.                                                                        

Speak to my condition,                                                                         
Lord, and change me somewhere inside where it matters,
                                    
a change that will burn and tremble and heal
                                             
and explode me into tears or laughter
                                                      
or love that throbs or screams
                                                               
or keeps a terrible, cleansing silence
                                                      
and dares the dangerous deeds.
                                                      
Let something happen in me which is my real self, God….

O God, let something essential and joyful happen in me now,          
something like the blooming of hope and faith,
                                    
like a grateful heart, like a surge of awareness                                     
of how precious each moment is,                                                      

that now, not next time,                                                                         
now is the occasion to take off my shoes
                                             
to see every bush afire, to leap and whirl with neighbor…                                                      

10-06-13 Who Cares?

“See How They Love One Another” –Tertullian

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4, 2 Timothy 1:1-7, Luke 17:5-10, 
1 Corinthians 9: 1-7, 12, 19-23  In chapter 9 of his letter to the Corinthians, Paul articulate his struggle with who owes him what and vice versa, resolving the conflict with the purpose this freedom in Christ serves.  We read the beginning and struggle and the concluding “a-hah.”

     World Communion Sunday began in the 1930s when Hugh Thomson Kerr persuaded other Presbyterians to “designate one Sunday as a day that American Christians would join brothers and sisters around the world at the Lord’s Table. It was a way of demonstrating the mutual care of Christians everywhere, of tasting the kingdom, if only for an hour.

It was only as Christians practiced this annual ecumenical sacrament that we become aware of complicated “one table” turns out to be.

What guests are really welcome?
 Who serves?  Are we called to be masters or mustard seeds?
 What food must be served, or may be served?
 Can rice be the body of Christ?

That was one rousing debate when I was in seminary. One common response was "Who cares"  about such minutia?

Another response was "who cares" - for the people hungry to receive God’s grace where western bread is unknown?  Who cares, for a gluten intolerant youngste turned away from First Communion in Boston that year?

What do we require in our representations of the body of Christ?
 Does the loaf we share look, small, taste just like the one Jesus broke in the upper room?

Do the words we speak sound just like the ones coming from the mouth of Jesus, who spoke Aramaic?  If Jesus walked in today just as he walked out in the middle of the first century of the Common Era, would we insist he perfect his English accent before we tried to understand him?  (Remember that when Bishop Devadhar comes to visit in a few weeks!)

The early Christians were known for this, “See How They Love One Another!”

But its so complicated trying to actually sit at one table isn’t it? 
In the long years of practice before the final feast we discover how hard it is to remember who the host is. And whether the host is a gatekeeper or grace maker. 

Do you know where the gatekeeper image originated? 
At night, as Shepherds brought the sheep into the fold (often a cave in the hills), they made a gate with their legs for the sheep to pass through. A good shepherd would hold the sheep between his knees for as long as it took to make sure the sheep was well and unharmed. They intimately examined each sheep as it passed. The gatekeeper is the grace maker.

But what is the body of our Good shepherd and how do we receive it? 
 Is it communion if the celebrant is in one city and the people are in a dozen others, in the common space of the Internet or the cloud? 

Can virutal space be sacred space? 
What makes space sacred?  What makes the Body of Christ?

One summer while serving a tiny Scottish “kirk,” John Buchanan, now editor of the Christian Century, remembers hearing this story from a pastor in the next village.

         He was an infantryman in the British army in WWII and ended up in a prisoner of war camp in Poland.  The conditions were dreadful.  There was no heat and prisoners were given a single bowl of thin soup, and a small crust of bread daily.  Men were starving, sick, filthy, and desperate.  Suicide was a very real option. All one had to do was run toward the perimeter of the camp and leap against the barbed wire fence.  Guards would immediately shoot and kill anyone trying to escape.

         In the middle of the night he walked to the perimeter and sat down beside the fence to think about going through with it.  He heard a movement in the darkness fro the other side of the fence.  It was a Polish farmer.  The man thrust his hand through the barbed wire and handed my friend half of a potato.  In heavily accented English he said, “The Body of Christ.” (CC 10-2-13 page 3).   

Who cares for the broken in body, mind and Spirit?
How do we re-member, put back together the body of Christ that is broken?

In the summer of 2010 I was in New Mexico on renewal leave. One of many highlights was a weeklong theology seminar on Water and Baptismal Theology hosted by Larry Rasmussen of Union Theological Seminary.

That Tuesday we received an invitation to the Okhay Owingeh Pueblo’s Feast Day.  About 30 of us loaded into ramshackle vans to time arrive before dawn.  We joined members of the pueblo in an immaculate old Roman Catholic Church, the thrid built since that village had briefly been the first cpaital of New Mexico. When one more woman was needed to halp carry statues of saints to the river for blessing, one of us was hospitably recruited.  There were more of "us" than "them."

Men with drums and guitars led the small procession through cottonwoods, about a mile from the village to a river as the sun peeked up. 

The Pueblos's Governor was waiting on the bridge to exchange appreciations with the young new priest.  It was quite clear that the priest was the welcomed guest. The Governor was the voice of the pueblo permiting the church to live in it. The ceremony was simple and lovely, lowering the statues down to be blessed by the river water that fed the people and the corps of the pueblo.

         We walked back to the church to wait for mass, surrounded by symbols of faith painted, carved, stitched and woven over centuries. The choir director, a retired nun with a huge smile, made sure that we visitors were oriented and welcomed before the service. 

The Gospel was read for this feast day in Tewa, Spanish, & English.  A small choir of very elderly women led singing in the same languages. 

The preacher, Deacon John Bird, invited all present (now 250-300 people) to his house for lunch, and meant it, confident that his wife could handle the crowd!  (Who cares for the travelor?)

There’d been some murmur among visitors before the mass.  The former priest was known for giving annual abrupt and emphatic instructions about who might receive the host. “Do we or don’t we” wondered we protestants.  But the new priest, gently gave the historical welcome to members of the Roman Catholic Faith, in a way that suggested the sheep would not be divided at the altar (though afterward he thanked the few of us who did not go forward for honoring their tradition).  Whether we did or we didn't, grace was offered.

What I remember most from that day happened after the mass just as we were all poised to follow our nose to John Bird’s house for lunch and our ears to the drums preparing for buffalo dances.

The priest stepped forward and, with a face animated by solemn joy, told us what we’d just been part of. 

This background I learned later gives his words even more meaning:
When the first Europeans came in 1541, they made this pueblo the capital of New Mexico for a time.

In the decades that followed, the people of Ohkay Owingeh, like other Pueblo Indians in New Mexico, suffered under an oppressive Spanish rule in which they were conscripted into forced labor, required to pay demanding taxes in goods, and their religious activities were suppressed. By the 1670s there was a great deal of discontent amongst the Pueblo peoples which came to a head in 1675 when 47 Pueblo religious leaders were jailed in Santa Fe and were subjected to whipping for practicing their religion, viewed by the Spaniards as idolatry. Four of the men were hanged [leading to the first rebellion of Native Peoples in the region.]

In the eighteenth century the Spanish authorities, realized that the 1680 rebellion had been caused in great part by their harsh treatment of the Indians, and after the Re-conquest they adopted a much more lenient attitude. By 1820 the pueblo people were given citizenship and the right of local governance. (www.newmexicohistory.org)

Now, in June 2010, for the first time in 400 years of Roman Catholic worship, the gospel had been read in their native language, Tewa. And for the first time the word had been preached by a member of the Pueblo, John Bird, celebrating his first anniversary as a deacon, with his grandson, John Bird, serving at the altar.  
What a holy moment!  

And we really were welcome, all of us, at his and every neighbor’s house for lunch, a ritual of deep hospitality that was as much a part of the festival as the mass, the dancing, and the market.

It’s taken a while for we human beings to confess that we are all one species, This is a fairly recent development in human history.  When the Israelites spoke of “Goy,” (in hebrew) or “Ethnos,” (in greek), Words we usually read or hear “Gentiles,” it meant literally, “those who are not us.”   

Not that long ago in our own history, Teddy Roosevelt’s Asian policies were based on a color code offered as scientific knowledge at the time, the whiter the skin, the more human the race.  In fact the very notion of race developed as a rationalization for nineteenth century slavery. 

It’s taken a while for we human beings to confess that we are all one species,
It may take a while longer to recognize that we are one flock. 
Our sight and hearing get caught on the perimeter of our own life, our own tribe, and we draw a line around the ones we think we can take care of, around those we count on to take care of us.  That's enough.  

The apostles demanded that Jesus increase their faith in their little circle. Do it, Lord, do it! And Jesus jabs back, claim just the little faith you have and you will know that it’s not about you having more, its about you sharing more, serving more.  Think mustard seed instead of master!

We are born to serve God no matter how hard we try to flip that boat over in the water. God doesn’t care about you because you are great.  God cares about you because God is God and you are God’s creature.

Paul struggled with this in his relationship with the Corinthians. Something’s poking at him like a sharp stick.  Who owes me what and what debts do I owe?  Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?  If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.  Your faith, he reminds the Corinthians is the fruit of my labor. I own you!  You owe me!  Who will care for me?

It’s more than an ego trip; it’s a matter of how he’ll sustain a living (one reason he remained unmarried). By his work Paul has earned the right to physical support. 

 Paul finally resolves the conflict by declaring that freedom in Christ is freedom, not obligation, to serve the others God places in our lives. And just as he is free in Christ, those he has led to Christ are free.  So he remains a tentmaker to put food in his mouth and clothes on his back rather than risk owing anything to the church.  The collection he takes goes to Jerusalem to feed the poor. He is born to serve God, not to be served.

Freedom:  The gospel is not that there is still more to come in the future. It’s not about going to heaven when we die, or about being forgiven now and awaiting freedom later. It’s not about experiencing the sacred in the midst of the secular. Neither is it a new teaching or a new moral code. It is the promised ‘power of God for salvation’ (Romans 1:16)–a power that frees us from all that opposed God and God’s will and all that alienates us from ourselves and each other. This power frees us to live according to God’s original plan, where selfless sharing, justice, mutuality, respect, trust, forgiveness and joyful community become realized.   Charles Moore

The Okhay Owingeh Pueblo’s hospitality extended to letting us watch the buffalo dances throughout the hot day.  Not meant for entertainment, but a moving, physical expression of prayer, the buffalo dance involves every member of the community, from tiny toddlers stamping feet to practiced leaders. All were viscerally involved in a communal prayer of movement, with meaning known only to the members, but blessing shared with guests.  This is worship at its best, catching participants up completely in an offering of praise, a rehearsal of identity, a community re-creation, a respectful interaction with guests of other traditions without losing an iota of the integrity of their own.

If this faith community let the Holy Spirit carry us, where would the dream beat lead?
Who cares?  God cares. 

Pastoral Prayer:

O LORD, we watch those who suffer cry for help, and are hard pressed to see your answer some days. Are you listening?

We do not understand why you do not step in and stop the violence.

 

We see a young mother confused to the point of danger gunned down in our capital and mourn for her life, her infant, and for police officers who had no wish to harm her.

We hear of hundreds found bobbing the waters off Italy in a desperate journey gone wrong.

We check the local police log in case heated arguments or drug busts have come closer to our own homes.

 

It is hard to see what you want us to see, Lord.  It is hard to keep our eyes open. We would rather dreams the dreams of sweet, false, innocence.

But you promise to come to those who watch and wait.

And so we will keep watch to see what you will say to us. 

When the headlines scream we will hear the needs of men and women and children.

We will look and listen for the vision your heart desires in this time, in this place.

We will look and listen until it becomes as clear to us as our neighbor’s face, no matter where they come from or what language they speak.

Make us mustard seeds, soften our shells as

we become so rooted in prayer that, as our Bishop urges us,

we draw the strength and power to do greater things in ministry and mission

for the Glory of God as disciples of Jesus Christ

filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.  

 Even if it means letting go of things that are sacred to us…

Including our fears.