The Ten Teachings

3LentB, Sullivan Park Care Center, March 8, 2015 by Annette Fricke

            My summer as a camp counselor came much later than for most.  I was already fifty years old.  I was the oldest on staff.  The year previous had been spent at the Catholic seminary learning about the origins of the liturgy.  I dreamed of the use of liturgy at camp, my own camping experience didn’t have it.  Well, it probably did, but it was so long ago, I don’t remember it.  Of all we sang and did at camp this time, this is the phrase that I recall the most.  “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”  We all tried to modernize the words or melody to no avail.  I think it still stands this way.

            “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” is found at Psalm 119:105.  It is the phrase sung just prior to the reading of the Gospel for every Sunday service at Camp Mowana in Ohio.  It is a reminder that God’s Word is like a light source that shows us the way through our journey in life.  More specifically, this was part of the service attended only by the counselors.  It was a reminder that the Word of God was to guide all of our decisions as counselors as we sought to teach and model the words of Jesus for the children in our charge.  Counselors need guidance and instruction in the course of their work to bring structure and order to the children in the absence of their parents. That is the way of the camp and that is why at least one branch of the Lutheran Church prefers that their future pastors prepare for their ministry by participating as summer camp counselors at one of their church camps.  Summer church camp is a solid basic foundation in Christian teaching.  And for those of us unfamiliar with such things as tornados and bad thunderstorms, it teaches us how to cope with and respond to such weather aberrations and how to comfort the children when they become frightened.

            Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.  You and I are in a covenantal relationship with God.  As Christians, we have inherited that covenant from Abraham and Sarah.  For many years, Sarah has wrongly been ignored in the church’s song and liturgy but she should not have been.  Sarah is equally important as a mother of the church just as Abraham is a father of the church.  Faith in God began with this couple.  Although this phrase probably originated after their death, it rings true as something they believed and practiced.  If we are to take the season of Lent seriously, it will also be descriptive of our own lives.

            Although these words are powerful, short, and to the point; you might ask about specifics.  Specifically speaking, the covenant we have with God is further elucidated when Moses brings the Ten Commandments down from God’s presence on Mt. Sinai.  There are a few different explanations in the Bible, one which is in the Old Testament text for today, but most Christian denominations agree on the content of the Ten Commandments, even though they may be numbered differently. 

A Jewish point of view, however, states that our stress towards seeing the Ten Commandments as law is not accurate and is actually a mis-translation.  Our concept that leans towards seeing the Ten Commandments as a hammer over our head is not the thrust or intention of them.  They are meant to be instruction, to become our way of life.  In Jewish parlance, this ought to be translated the “Ten Teachings” instead.  This designation takes on more of the intent of the purpose of God’s giving them to us.  We should also be aware that these teachings have been in existence for a very long time, originally as oral tradition before being written down.  These are what God expected of the people of Israel and what God continues to expect of us.  It is not something that God beats into us, but is to be our guide along the journey of life.

It is no longer God saying, “Do this, or I will destroy you.”  It is more like “I will always be in covenant with you.”  God is the giver of the covenant who will always be faithful, no matter how many times we stray this way or that.  No matter how many times we break this or that commandment, God remains God.  God remains the faithful one who responds with the grace of God in Christ Jesus. 

This rendering of the Ten Commandments gives us some context to explain the reasoning for these particular commandments.  In the first one we hear the frequently repeated word of the Old Testament, “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…”  First and foremost, God is reminding us of our slavery.  Even though originally this bondage was in reference to the Egyptians many years ago and subsequently by other nations, for us and for modern Jews, it is a slavery to sin.  It is God’s way of freeing us from that sin to follow God in a way of life that is befitting as the people of God.  It is also a connection with our ancestors because we share God in common with Abraham and Sarah.

Speaking of Abraham and Sarah, the fourth/fifth commandment states, “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”  Luther explains this as, “We should fear and love God, and so we should not despise our parents and superiors, nor provoke them to anger, but honor, serve, obey, love, and esteem them.”  However, this sounds as though it is addressed to children and it is because this is part of the catechism, the teachings agreed to for full membership in the church.  Originally, according to Jewish tradition, this was given to the adults.  It actually is meant as a protection to the community to pass on the traditions of the faith from generation to generation.  It keeps the status of men and women on the same plane, side by side and one of equality before God and neighbor.  Each generation still seems to struggle with this one.

Lastly, since I don’t have time to go through the intent of all the commandments or teachings, number two, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them.”  We live in a world where some have many possessions and the acquisition of these is a constant preoccupation.  We are constantly bombarded with the “need” to buy them.  We see them on TV read them in the newspaper and hear them on the radio.  They range from diet pills to fast food sales, and jewelry. A word to the wise: you don’t need those things; your life is complete when you live it in God’s grace that always welcomes you, always receives you back in loving embrace.  God’s love will never die.  Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Amen.   

The Mark of Discipleship

2LentB, Sullivan Park Care Center, March 1, 2015 by Annette Fricke

            It all began at creation, that’s for sure but since we don’t really have a physical description of creation, that’s all we know about that subject.  Creation seems to somehow have failed by way of the description that we are given as to what transpired in the Garden of Eden.  All was as it should be with God until people decided to follow what they wanted rather than what God wanted.  They tried to second guess God.  I suppose that is what really happens when people decide against God even to this day.  We pretty much know what happens in this life when people turn away from God: to put it simply, they become selfish.  They seek their own will while blinding themselves to the needs of those around them.  Instead of following God, they seek to follow their desires for fame and fortune to become well known and admired and amass all they can before leaving this world for the world beyond.  They seek to please the people around them or to be in competition for recognition, sometimes the recognition is accomplished by doing something clever, but evil.  We hear every day about a shooting here or there, a war being waged halfway around the world.  Violence is what makes the headlines.  People complain and argue about what it means to have a separation between church and state.  The words of the pledge of allegiance or where it should be recited are more and more debated.  The children seem to be undisciplined and uninterested in getting an education beyond high school.  Rules are no longer to be followed blindly, but challenged on several levels.  Morality in a work setting has many facets.  Some people no longer accept the authority of employers and certainly do not trust the big corporations or the people involved in trading on the stock market.  Other people frequently question with suspicion, whose needs are being met.  Just how do we serve God and our neighbor in such a world as this?

            But let’s back up for a moment.  What story comes after the story of creation and Adam and Eve?  Cain and Abel were born, but Cain killed Abel, so Adam and Eve had Seth.  In comes a whole lot of genealogy and then Noah is born.  Things just seem to be off track big time, so the flood comes and God saves only Noah and his family and some animals.  God sets a bow in the clouds and promises that he will never again flood the earth to destroy all flesh.  Then we see more genealogy.  We then go to the building of the tower of Babel whose purpose was thwarted by God because the reason it was built was for the builders to make a name for themselves.  Then we have more genealogy and Abram is born.  Abram and his wife Sarai settle in a spot called Haran.  In chapter 12 of Genesis, we get the nice, succinct description of God’s covenant with Abram: I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. In other words, God will take care of anyone who stands in the way of Abram and Sarai.  She is part of this deal as well by the time we make it five chapters down the road and into the land of Canaan.  He journeyed into Egypt, then back out.  He separated himself from his brother’s son Lot.  Lot went to Sodom and Abram to Hebron.  God’s promise was good.  Lot was rescued by Abram.  God blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”  And God once again comes to Abram, promising a great reward and to be Abram’s shield.  But Abram wants offspring, which God also promises.  God tells him to look to heaven and count the stars.  His descendants will be that many.  Abram believed that God would deliver.  After God delivers the bad news that Abram’s offspring will be enslaved for four hundred years, he is told specifically the land that God’s giving him.  Only after Abram has a son with his Egyptian slave-girl Hagar does he finally have a son with his wife Sarai. Today’s narrative begins with “When Abram was ninety-nine years old” God appeared to Abram saying “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.”  We aren’t given any details other than we know that at this time, circumcision was not part of the Jewish ritual as the covenant people.  God makes the covenant first by way of the changing of names to Abraham and Sarah.  This covenant now bears the distinction of an everlasting covenant, a covenant that extends to Abraham, Sarah, and their offspring.  To these people, God will give land, the land of Canaan perpetually and will be their God. It is at this point that all males will be circumcised as part of the covenant with God.  As at creation itself, God once again creates something out of nothing.  Abraham is very old and Sarah, prior to this is barren, unable to conceive.  Separate story lines in the book of Genesis tell us that Abraham laughed and Sarah laughed.  God has kept what was promised so far, but this seems utterly ridiculous.  How is it possible that a very old man and an old woman past child-bearing age can conceive and bear a child?  Apparently, by this time in history, humanity has figured out the relative ages at which women and men are able to make a child.  They are probably saying to themselves that God has suddenly gone mad---either that or God really is the ruler of heaven and earth and all that exists.

            Spring ahead to that baby born at Bethlehem to a very young female, perhaps just old enough to conceive.  It is an opposite situation in many ways and yet just as unlikely.  God is still seeking the welfare of the people of the everlasting covenant.  God still seeks to gift them with what they need to be the people of God, a blessing to all nations.  God tells Abraham and Sarah to walk before God and be blameless.  Here is where I think we can meaningfully connect the instruction given to Abraham and Sarah with us, as Christians.  In our gospel text for today, Jesus tells his disciples and the crowd that gathers, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

            It means this: anyone can be a follower of Jesus.  The everlasting covenant of God is no longer limited to the physically circumcised Jewish people.  God has opened the kingdom of heaven to everyone.  However, part of discipleship means the denying of oneself.  We are called to always be of service to one another, just as Abraham looked after the welfare of his nephew Lot and made sure that Lot was safe from harm.  But we are to go beyond taking care of blood relation, beyond those who believe as we do, beyond our own community or own neighborhood.  Our reach and concern for others is to be global.  That’s what it means to take up your cross and follow Jesus.  When we help the sick and the suffering, we are serving God and we are practicing our discipleship. But it is not us who act, it is God who acts through us.  To God be all the glory. Amen.

God Never Fails Us

3EpiphanyB, Sullivan Park Care Center, January 25, 2015 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

                The end of a poem titled, “I’ll be happy in the future” goes like this: What if I could be happy, right here, right now, even though my life isn’t perfect and never will be? What if I could be happy with my aches and irritations and concerns and duties? I am happy just to breathe. I am alive. I am happy just to have food, water, shelter, clothing and love. I am grateful. I am happy just to hug and play with my beautiful little girl. I am happy just to be her mama. I am happy just to trust and respect my partner. I am loved and loving. I am happy like the songbirds, even when it’s raining. I am happy like the lilies in bloom, even knowing I will wither and pass away sooner or later. I am happiest when I am like water, when I let go and go with the flow. When will you be happy?

What’s stopping you from being happy, just where you are, right now, today?[1]

The lives of the disciples of Jesus have at least one thing in common with us: They were not perfect.  Despite our wanting to call some people saints, designating their superiority to us, even the most ardent and faithful among us have their ups and downs.  There are times when we also fail miserably.  The pattern is unmistakable: we are all excited and gung-ho, then we realize just how difficult it is to remain that way.  It doesn’t mean that we have in any way fallen out of favor with God, it just means that without God, we are truly weak.  We can clearly walk away from God, yet God is always there to reel us in, like catching a big fish that swallowed us whole and getting it to spew us back out.  We think we should go one way, only to discover it was a bad decision. We are children of God.  We don’t belong imprisoned in a fish, thinking that we have somehow escaped and don’t need to deal with God.  But that’s not where we belong. We belong to God who made the heavens and the earth and gave us a commission to go out into the world and be the love of God to all people and our environment.  Some have explained it like this, when we are young, we are very accepting and trusting of others but when we get older, we start becoming distrustful and judgmental. We become alienated from each other.  We sense that others are not following the same rules as we are and we begin to second guess what we should be doing.  We become seekers of our own self-interest and become selfish.  We become trapped in our own pity system, unable to get out without outside help.  Our self-sufficiency is our downfall. It is our place of unhappiness because we are never truly happy until we rest in God’s gracious love. In Psalm 62, from our psalm for the day, also a passage that inspired St Augustine, “For God alone, my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.” St Augustine said it more like this, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  If we look closely to the words of Psalm 62, over and over, the psalmist affirms that trusting in God is our only hope.

That is clearly one of the major points of the story of Jonah.  God alone is our rock and our salvation, our fortress; we shall not be shaken. But, we can decide to walk away from God and God’s call to us, to be tossed about by the seas of chance and our own decisions.  We can choose to merely float along or be subject to the wind that pushes us further and further away from God and God’s desire for us.  To be close to God’s bosom is not restrictive or weakness as we might imagine at times, but is actually our security and strength.  It doesn’t mean that nothing bad will ever happen to us, but it does mean that God will give us the strength to endure.  We may become depressed, angry and bitter, but God will always be there to help us.  On God rests our deliverance and our honor; our mighty rock, our refuge is in God.  In the words of the popular hymn, “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.”  Though we may fail God many times over, God never fails us.

Because God never fails us, we should trust in him at all times.  We should pour out our hearts before him.  God seeks an intimate relationship with us through prayer.  God alone is worth our trust.  That does not mean that we cannot trust other people, just that God is to be most trusted and is to be trusted above everything and everyone else, even our best friends.  Even our best friends are capable of becoming disloyal and deceptive. When our experiences of the world are ever spinning in different directions, God is the one who always stands waiting for us.  God wants to give us peace and can give us peace like no one on earth.  God’s peace has more power and hope than all of our lifetime troubles and distresses combined. God’s persistence in bringing us that hope will never end, no matter how much or how often we chase after vain desires.  It doesn’t matter if we are wealthy or poor; we are always a child of God.  It is God’s nature to seek us out and to seek our welfare.  It is God’s nature to show mercy.  It is God’s nature to love all of us, even those of us we find to be difficult or unreasonable.  We may be just as unreasonable or difficult in their eyes.

Our greatest sin can be summarized in this: we choose to follow our own thoughts and feelings rather than putting our trust in God.  That is it in a nutshell and we find so many different ways throughout our lives to go away from God and God’s way.  From a lecture on the book of Isaiah, “The uterus and womb of God is the divine Word, by which we are fashioned and borne, as Paul says to the Galatians, ‘My little children, with whom I am again in childbirth until Christ be formed in you!’…It is an outstanding and very firm comfort for the godly that God cares for us.  Therefore we must strive with a single heart that we abide in the Word.  The Lord will reject no one, however weak, if only we cling to the Word, the womb of God.  Thus then, who will care for us with supreme devotion and will never reject us… [?]  These are supreme consolations.  They should be written in golden letters.  Let us just cling to the Word alone, and we shall have God as a mother who feeds us and carries us and frees us from all evils.[2]

And may we, like the people of Ninevah, repent. From John Wesley, “Forgive them all, O Lord: our sins of omission and our sins of commission; the sins of our youth and the sins of our riper years; the sins of our souls and the sins of our bodies; our secret and our more open sins; our sins of ignorance and surprise, and our more deliberate and presumptuous sins; the sins we have done to please ourselves and the sins we have done to please others; the sins we know and remember, and the sins we have forgotten; the sins we have striven to hide from others and the sins by which we have made others offend; forgive them, O Lord, forgive them all for his sake, who died for our sins and rose for our justification, and now stands at thy right hand to make intercession for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

---

[1] Michelle Margaret Fajkus

[2] Martin Luther, Lectures on Isaiah

Child of God

SecondSundayAftertheEpiphanyB, Sullivan Park Care Center, January 18, 2015 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            You are a child of God created in God’s image.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your entire mind, all your soul, and all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.  This is the basic formula.  Follow this, and you will have life.  The reason is simple: God created you and all that exists.  God gave you a brain, legs, arms, hands and muscles.  God gave you resources in your physical environment as well as in other people.  God gave you what you need to learn to love as God has loved you.  You can be more and do more, even to the end of your lives when you realize how profoundly God loves you.  Some of the sweetest words of encouragement have come from those no longer able to move on their own.  I remember so clearly the poetry recited from memory of a 103 year old.

Consider God to be likened to a baker. Your average baker will likely use the same recipe multiple times because it almost guarantees good results each time it is made.  The baker will measure out each item in the recipe accurately, being careful to follow the instructions printed below the ingredients.  The baker will not follow advice that is out of context from another recipe such as, “to make really good, moist banana bread, add an extra banana from what the recipe calls for…”  Likewise, think of God as one who wishes to crochet an afghan: it is wise to follow carefully, even the minutest instructions to assure that the afghan will turn out as planned and that it will indeed resemble that which was intended.  This method is basic and is predictive of success for both baking and making specific items.  If you have ever watched the Chef Ramsay shows for cooking, you know that if you don’t follow a recipe, there are still standards for a proper product. A rejected product would be bland or undercooked, for example. God has made each of us with specificity in mind and yet also with variations.  All of it is good and we all have the potential to discover and use the gifts God has given each one of us.

            The Jewish laws according to the book of Leviticus are similar to this.  They are an attempt to answer the age-old question of how to live out what it means to be a child of God. They were focused on what actions are to be performed in order to be made right with God.  This had to be followed precisely.  For example, Leviticus, chapter 23 states, “The Lord spoke to Moses: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.  He shall raise the sheaf before the Lord, that you may find acceptance; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall raise it.”  The Israelites of old were a worshipping community who lived in covenant with God.  Part of that covenant-keeping was to observe all that God or God’s agents commanded.  In this case, Moses was acting on behalf of God. And as close as Moses was to God, even Moses was not to see God’s face.  Attempts to get close to God involved building altars, sacrificing, and going to the mountaintops. 

Today, we try to reach God by meditation or prayer.  People talk of going on a retreat in which great focus is placed on listening for God’s presence, God’s voice. People continue to seek those mountaintop experiences.  The one thing that distinguishes the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who is the God of the Jews as well as Christians is this: God is both transcendent as well as intimate.  You can’t get any more intimate than becoming human and living with us, dying our death.

God has shown us the way to be intimate with others in Jesus.  The story about Nathaniel is a great example of God’s knowledge of us and for some confirms that Jesus must be God.  Our psalm for today is another description of how well God knows us inside and out, yet many of us hesitate to share our lives with others.  My co-worker gives the excuse that her generation does not talk to other generations like its some rule set in stone.  Another co-worker of mine, when asked a personal question would make something up. Sometimes it is because we have something to hide or what we say might be misconstrued or misinterpreted.  Sometimes we simply do not want to feel vulnerable with others or we fear their judgment. I recently had a job interview in which I was asked to share some personal information about my hobbies and what I do to reduce stress in my life.  This is typical of a mental health job interview, but I fail to see the relevance, so I shared little.  These are people I will probably never see again.  I know there is no weight to these answers, but it doesn’t make it any easier to just tell the whole of my life before other people.  It is a normal human defense to want to protect ourselves emotionally.

At the same time, we long to connect with others, to share our lives.  We long to have others know us and to be known by them.  We seek to understand and to be understood.  We also become confused as to where God begins and ends because everything we describe about us is inextricably tied up in our identity as God’s children, made in God’s image.  However, that is the very point of this portion of Psalm 139.  God is without beginning or ending and God is so intimately involved with us that making distinctions is not something we should engage ourselves in.  Does it really matter deciding what is human and what is divine?  Maybe it really is as Thomas Aquinas suggests: God is like a stained glass window and we are the shattered pieces of God.  God may be more like us than we can conceive or imagine, even though God is in the expansiveness of the entire universe and beyond.

Remember this, you are a child of God and so is your neighbor.  In the words of Frederick Buechner, “WHEN YOU REMEMBER me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.

For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it's your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.

If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who I am will be gone.”

As the thief beside Jesus hanging on the cross uttered those poignant words, we also should be pleading, “Jesus, remember me.”  Remember me now and when I come into your kingdom.

The Dove of Peace

BaptismoftheLordB, January 11, 2015, Sullivan Park Care Center, by Sr. Annette Fricke, OP

            Prepare, all of you, the way of the Lord.  That is what baptism is all about.  It is about preparing each day and each time we gather for worship.  What is the way of the Lord and how am I to follow Jesus?  Luther’s defense, whenever he felt the wiles of the devil nipping at his heels, was simply this, “I am baptized.”  What does your baptism mean to you?  Do you know on what day you were baptized?  If so, do you celebrate it?  How do you celebrate it or does the meaning of your baptism escape you?

            I must say that I find it very odd that the gospel text assigned for today has a lot more to say about John the Baptist than Jesus.  The Gospel of Mark goes on and on about the attire and diet of John and what he says about Jesus, but little about Jesus.  Jesus is from Nazareth of Galilee.  It’s as though those sorts of details about Jesus are not important.  The focus is on John, although John appears to be keenly aware of Jesus being greater than he is.  He proclaims that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit.  Wow!  The New Testament goes on to further explain that some were baptized with John’s baptism, but had not yet received the Holy Spirit. Acts indicates that the Holy Spirit was received by those baptized in the name of Jesus when Paul laid his hands on them.  This is one of the earliest practices of laying on of hands associated with such rites as Confirmation or Baptism or even just a blessing not associated with rites or sacraments.  Baptism with the Holy Spirit was very important for the early Christians because without it, one could not participate fully as a member of the Christian community.  It was considered to be central to Christian discipleship.  Thought to be passed on from the original disciples of Jesus himself, baptism was of supreme importance.

            Baptism is not a onetime thing.  It is not something that happened one day a long time ago.  It is God’s way of reclaiming us as God’s own.  It is our anchor in life.  Baptism is of God and comes from God for our benefit. Luther saw it as a ship, that if we fall off, we must swim back to it, clinging onto it until we are strong enough to get back on deck.  With it, we are enabled to sail forward, where we should be: close to God.  Luther goes on to say that baptism “defeats and puts away sin, daily strengthens the new person in us, keeps functioning, remains with us until we leave our present troubles to enter glory everlasting.”[1]

            Jesus is our model throughout our lives.  He is the one toward which John points.  Even when we look back at the Old Testament’s strong figures in the faith, we see through the eyes of our baptismal understanding who God is and what God expects of us.  Tevye, in “Fiddler on the Roof” said it quite well.  Our identity is with God. The material representations and physical ceremonies of the Jewish faith are also to remind them of their commitment to God.  Circumcision, like baptism takes place only once, but both remain a reminder of our relationship to and covenant with God. God invites us into fellowship with God and others.

            But there is a surprise to Jesus’ baptism; something I bet didn't happen at yours.  “…he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.”  This is something more than just different.  When I think of that image, I see a purposeful action of God.  It is like the description of creation when there is only darkness and a formless void.  Then, suddenly God chooses to create light, making possible a cycle of days defined by light and dark. The contrast is unmistakable and immediate. I have childhood memories of going to the fabric store with my mom and older sister.  I remember watching as the clerk snipped, and then suddenly ripping the fabric at or near the exact measurement of our order.  It’s quite frightening when you are not expecting it and you see and hear it for the first time.

            Baptism, for us, is like adding light to a dark world.  It is common in baptismal liturgies to give either the baptized or the baptized sponsors a lit candle.  The lit candle is given with the admonition to, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”  It is a celebration of your connection with God and God’s connection with you, but it’s also a commitment to live into God’s grace as you go about living your life.  It means being a humble servant before God and others.  It means taking care of the earth, a living resource that sustains us in our physical needs.

            Jesus is the one who made all of this possible.  Jesus opened the door of salvation for all.  There are no more barriers between God and us because of God’s saving grace in Jesus.  God broke through the heavens and came to us in Jesus, a form difficult for us to comprehend.  How can Jesus be both human and divine?  How is that possible?  To this day, it stands as an article of faith and a mystery.

            And Jesus saw the Spirit descending like a dove.  It is important to know that this is an accurate translation of the Greek text.  It is like a dove, not a dove.  If you look at the symbolism of the dove in the Old Testament, the dove is a bird of salvation (as in sacrifice); a bird of hope (as in the story of Noah) and a bird of mourning (due to its mournful call - in psalms and prophets. If you recall, the dove was used as a proper sacrifice to God for poor people.  The dove was sent out to tell Noah whether or not there was dry land, an indication that the water was receding.  A mourning dove is symbolic of what we naturally do when someone we know and love dies.  Lament serves an important function in that respect.  The whole book of Lamentations is about the Lord remaining absent and silent throughout, with no suggestion of the restoration of Jerusalem or its Temple.  God is with us in times of sacrifice, when times are tough for us financially or emotionally.  God is also the bringer of hope despite our ups and downs in life.  God, in many times can seem quite distant from us.  Sometimes we can see that God has been with us only in retrospect.  We are not told what this “like a dove” is representing, but my notion is that it is a dove of peace.  It seems to represent the peace between God and humanity.  God restores the peace that was meant to be from the beginning, the same peace of the Spirit of God passing over the waters just before creating the light of day.  We can see it as the person of Jesus who came to us, disobedient children that we are, in order to make things right once again for us each and every day.  Though we stumble and fall many times, may we always allow God to pick us back up, embracing us with loving arms and say, “Welcome home, good and faithful servant.”

---

[1] For All the Saints, Vol. 1, pp. 217-218.

What is the Point?

2ChristmasB, January 4, 2015, Sullivan Park Care Center, by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

                The view from the dining room where I currently work is quite different from that here.  Your view from this dining room is that of a patio where flowers and plants are tended and grow.  My view is that of another building—or I should say a building in progress.  There is a man on our floor who holds onto the hope that when that building is finished, he will take his place a couple of floors up in it, the fifth floor.  Despite the fact that he knows his life is hanging on a thin thread due to his earlier brush with asbestos to his lungs, this is the dream that keeps him alive.  There are other indicators that the correct placement for him is our floor in assisted living, but his hopes help keep him optimistic.  After all, he could have died like many others, of Mesothelioma, that disease that is advertised frequently in the wee hours of the night to offer settlement.  What is it that keeps hope alive?  That sense that there has to be more and that hope alone is a superior motivator. We may not know the details of what it is we hope for, but we will be confident and steadfast that what we are hoping for is more than just an illusion. I still hold out hope that I will someday return to a better job, something that I actually studied for, hoping to help people with the knowledge and skill from actually practicing in the field. Here, you may hope that the next meal is better than the last one or that your loved ones will bring in a treat that tastes better because it is from someone with whom you have a loving connection.  You may also hope, along with other Christians, that Christmas is real, that Jesus really was born into this world and really does make it possible to leave this world in the hope of resurrection for all.

            But far from being a source of hope, many other residents see the new building as an eye sore.  When the man across the hall died, the man on the other side of the hall immediately asked to move into his room.  Who wants to watch all that construction going on for at least two years?  The view is gone and residents, like him, remember what it looked like before with its resident parking garages, the employee parking lot, and the so-called cottages as they line the area making a small, but significant village of people.  Construction and destruction amongst both buildings and people are a constant.  Buildings have their life span, acted upon both from within and without and so do people.  Both people and buildings go through expansion and contraction, soaring to success and coming down in defeat and all the regular ups and downs of life.  Every so often, we are reminded of the tendency of the elevators to quit working.  Most of us know someone who has gotten stuck in an elevator.  It’s something we can laugh about, but at the time, it’s anything but funny.  Just the irregular sounds the elevator makes creates a not too small bit of terror in those who have firsthand experience in an elevator that won’t move.

            Our culture tells us that despite the continued sales on everything imaginable, Christmas is over--- at least until about October.  But Christmas is not over.  The twelve days of Christmas just aren't celebrated as they once were.  If you asked people on the street, “When is the Feast of Stephen?” and sing the song about a king helping a poor man directly with his page, few would actually know what you are talking about.  I listen to the song sung during an advertisement for abandoned and abused animals and note that only the first, rather sad verse is sung.  They don’t sing the hopeful verse.  They don’t sing the verse that goes like this, “Our God, heaven cannot hold him,  nor earth sustain; heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign: in the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed the Lord God incarnate, Jesus Christ.”  They only sing about the cold and the snow on snow in the deep mid-winter.  Of course they are banking on your not knowing the rest of the song because they are only interested in placement for these animals.  In the Sound of Music, they also do not finish with the rest of the verse.  The nun says to the von Trapp family, “I lift my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help.”  The impression is that the help comes from the hills and that the von Trapp family should head for the hills to escape.  Bravo!  But that is not what the actual scripture says or means. “I lift my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help?  My help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth.”  The hills are the immediate hope for escape from the Nazis, but our true help comes from God.

            Lest we forget or somehow misconstrue, in the beginning was God.  God did not begin with the birth of Jesus Christ, but Jesus was there with God from the beginning.  This is an important distinction from the other gospel writers.  John’s gospel begins not with Jesus’ birth, but with Jesus’ identity as God.  Jesus was there before being born on earth, being born of a woman.  There is no more appropriate scripture to study during the season of Christmas than this gospel which makes a valiant effort at trying to explain how God can be both divine and human at the same time.

            During this week in my reading and my watching of PBS, people have done more research into the historicity of what the Bible says about Jesus.  A friend of mine sent a model of the nativity scene, pointing out that a lot of it probably never happened or happened at a different timing that what the nativity scene implies.  For example, the kings are probably not kings and probably did not come to see Jesus until a couple years after his birth.  Not to mention that the “visiting Magi” are not even found in the Bible.  Another discovery is that Jesus was probably an urban dweller and well-educated, knowing Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, not a country bumpkin and son of a carpenter.  To this entire sort of thing, one of my friends writes, “Sigh. I always find things like this disheartening. The nativity scene is an image that offers one opportunity to ponder the Incarnation. It's not any different than other religious images that give one a like opportunity to reflect on faith in God. Our postmodern fascination with debunking -- deflate, quash, discredit, disprove, contradict, controvert, invalidate, negate; challenge, call into question, poke holes in, etc. -- all things religious rips from each of us the great mystery of our faith. I'll gladly put out my nativity scene each and every year accepting that it isn't a factual representation of Holy Scripture. It is for me, however, an image that offers opportunity to joyfully celebrate the Incarnation and the astounding love of God for me, a sinner.” 

            It doesn't matter—any of those things that point to Jesus as God made man.  None of it matters.  What really matters is God’s love for us in Jesus.  That is the point, the whole point, and nothing but the point.  God loves us.

The Coming

1AdventB/StAndrew’s, Sullivan Park Care Center, November 30, 2014, by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

                Today is the first Sunday of the new church year, the season of Advent.  When the first Sunday of Advent occurs is determined by the feast of St Andrew.  The first Sunday of Advent is the one closest to St Andrew’s Feast.  St Andrew was a very ordinary disciple, much like you and me.  He was overshadowed by the much more prominent brother, Simon Peter.  Advent is from the Latin meaning “coming” but has come to mean both a joyful and penitential waiting for the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day.  Watchfulness is an important aspect of that waiting.

Beware and keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come, St Mark’s gospel tells us.  Advent is a time of active anticipation.  We wait, especially when we are spiritually dry and do not sense God’s presence.

It has been a rather harried and tiring week for many.  The full impact of darker and darker days as well as the shorter and shorter days is being felt by many.  There is much rushing around.  Thanksgiving Day with all the trimmings and tone of giving thanks for what we have is completely overthrown by the mad rush to get to the stores to find and purchase that perfect gift for that special someone---something they just have to have.  The retailers have done it again rather successfully.  They have tugged at the heartstrings of unsuspecting, usually calm rational people and turned them into aggressive shopping robotic machines.  You might pinpoint the beginning of all this retail madness to that story and sweet innocent sounding song about Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer, written to increase profit. 

Robert L. May created Rudolph in 1939 as an assignment for Chicago based Montgomery Ward. The retailer had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year and it was decided that creating their own book would save money. May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, adapted the story of Rudolph into a song.[1]

For those of you who have noted that the retailers are targeting young children in their advertisements these days, you have likely forgotten that this began several years ago.  Pulling on the emotions and longings of the kids of this country has been going on since before the economy picked up after the Great Depression.

The Gospel text in Mark actually uses imagery borrowed from the book of Daniel, yet interprets it in light of the then current happenings of Mark’s time and culture.  Also for us, what Mark has to say to his generation equally applies to us.  When we read the thirteenth chapter of Mark, we will soon notice that it appears to be confusing and disjointed.  It is difficult to follow with our linear-thinking minds.  What the world teaches us in our culture is much different that perceived reality for other cultures.  The Jewish people noted long ago the almost repetitious cycle of things being the same, yet not the same.  With every cycle of events, what we actually see is a bit different.  Everyone handles that information differently.  One person complains about having to turn the lights on more because even during the day, there is sunlight filtered by fog and clouds or simply just not as bright as in the other months.  Another person doesn’t see the point of talking about it at all because it is nothing new; this happens every winter.  Still others mention it on the ride up the elevator that snow is in the forecast.  And then there are those who point out the extremes in weather and wars and rumors of wars trying to find answers to their cosmic questions.  Despite all our preoccupations with the world about us, our best answers still lie not outside of us, but with what the common threads of the Bible tell us.  We should be looking beyond the retail madness that has us by the tail and swings us to and fro.  We should be going beyond the signs above and below.  Whatever it is that threatens to overwhelm us and seeks to tear us away from focusing on God, we need to listen and listen carefully to what God has to teach us.  According to Mark, God has just two words for us and they are, “Keep Awake.”

Once again, Mark tells us a parable.  This time, the master of the house goes on a long journey, leaving his slaves and a doorkeeper in charge.  Jesus has returned to the heavenly abode and left us the responsibility of caretakers.  We are to take care of what God has given us on a day to day basis, ever faithful, never wavering in that duty.  God has given us all things, so therefore we are to give God our thanks and praise.  Therefore we are to keep alert to the deceptions and evil that corrupts our thinking and behavior, sometimes unknowingly.  We are urged by God to watch out for others and to contribute to their welfare and their well-being.  We are invited to become Christ’s body in the world, doing as he did to bring justice and healing to a broken world.  We are to be alert as we watch for Christ to be born anew in each of us as we once again contemplate his birth and what he accomplished here on earth.

Mark reminds us that there is hope.  There is more to come.  Jesus will gather us all to himself and our joy will truly be complete as we live into eternity, an eternity of everlasting peace.  What is it that you wait for in this advent season?  Is it your desire to be united with Jesus in everlasting life?  Do you long for a closer relationship with Jesus?  Do you ever wonder what eternity will be like?  I imagine it is similar to an inmate who is in prison who thinks about what it will be like when he is finally released from prison.  The world outside changes a lot as the years go by.  Many people are shocked when they see how much it has changed since they were free prior to imprisonment.  Although I am in agreement with Mark, that we ought to focus more on the present than the future, with Mark, I believe that we also should think about what is to come.  What lies in the future can be a motivation to take responsibility in the present.  It can help us in the transformation process to take our covenant with God seriously.  Advent can be a time to renew our commitment as disciples.  We don’t know much about Andrew, the average disciple, but we do know that he invited others to follow Jesus.  Even if that small thing is all that we do, that one small invitation can do much.  Andrew recruited one of the most effective apostles of early Christianity.  By doing a small thing, he did a great thing.  Not only is it a gift to be a good and effective disciple, it is also a gift to recognize those qualities in others.  Therefore, keep awake---for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.  What I say to you, I say to all: Keep awake.  Do not be deceived and do not let your guard down.  Live your lives knowing that Jesus will return and live them knowing that return can be at any time.  Amen.

---

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_the_Red-Nosed_Reindeer

Gone our Own Way

ChristtheKingSundayA, Sullivan Park Care Center, November23, 2014 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            The texts for today are a reminder that despite the injustices of the world, God seeks complete and abiding peace for all.  God always seeks to correct that which is out of sync with God’s will.  That correctness is what we find in the work that God has done in Jesus Christ which makes us right with God, righteous in God’s sight.  Like sheep, we are dependent on God, our shepherd, to steer us in the way we should go: to help us find green pasture, to seek us out when we have gone astray away from God, when we are simply lost, when we have been injured in any way, when we have become weak.  Most of all, God promises to feed us with justice.

            When I was a young student in seminary and it was our team’s turn to lead for the weekly Wednesday chapel, I volunteered to read the gospel lesson.  The gospel lesson was this, “…yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”  I looked at the notation at the bottom of the page in my Bible and saw that the parallel was in I Kings.  I Kings Chapter 10 explains what exactly Solomon and his glory were all about.  One of my professors piped up with the technical term for that type of pairing of the texts which instantly went over my head.  It seemed to me a more logical text to be matched with the gospel than the one appointed by a committee of the Church’s clergy on the textual committee, only a couple of whom I’d even met.  And here I come to that juncture again.  Why not pair this particular text with Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep and how the shepherd leaves the 99 to search for the 1 lost sheep?  It seems to me that it would more clearly make the point as to how the sheep story in Ezekiel, a book in the Old Testament is sharply contrasted with the New Testament version.  The Ezekiel passage is one of exclusivity, the New Testament is one of inclusivity.  In Ezekiel, God will do away with the fat and the strong.  Who are the fat and the strong?  If we look at this from the perspective of attitudes and behaviors as in last Sunday’s gospel, the fat and the strong could be the bullies of our society.  Recent history has identified even children who display this type of behavior and attitude.  There are children who identify and pick on people who are weaker than themselves.  They make it their mission to seek them out, to intimidate them and overpower them with their remarks and threats of violence.  Other times it does become an actual fist fight.  It can escalate even further, getting teachers, school counselors, and parents involved.  Later in life, these bullies, without proper and strong intervention, can become those who bend and break the rules of society simply to be on top of companies and organizations or scheming professional crooks.  They think about themselves first, at the expense of others.  The Ezekiel text paints us a picture that is the exact opposite.  In this text, God the shepherd rescues the weak, the injured, the strayed, and the lost.  This is God’s way of doing justice in the world.  One more thing: if you read the uncut version, reinserting the verses of chapter 34 that are missing from our reading, you will see a very violent image of what God will do to the bullies of the world.  It seems that the reason those verses were taken out of today’s reading is because with Jesus’ interpretation of what God wants, this is not what God actually does because it is not inclusive of God’s love for God’s people, it is exclusive.  God’s nature is not to destroy, but to show mercy.  And that is why I’d rather see a pairing with the gospel about the search of the shepherd for the 1 sheep that is lost.  The function of the priests and prophets of Israel was not solely to predict and deliver judgment as we may sometimes imagine.  It was to guide and nourish the people in the way of God.  God’s way is mercy; therefore God’s people also are to show mercy.  The problem comes when the definition of God’s people becomes more and more narrowed to become exclusive and God’s chosen people are the ones who follow this particular set of rules that seek to help you follow God’s law.  Whenever someone tells you that you must do this or you must believe that, consider carefully what that person is saying to you. It could be that that person has a personal agenda because God clearly loves all people, even those we perceive to be our enemies.

            The end will come for all of us, so we need to pay attention to ensure that we are not led astray or become lost.  We can be tested every day to go another direction.  We can choose to give up.  There are many references in the gospel according to Matthew about the lost sheep of Israel.  We are all capable of becoming lost and going astray and we pray that God will always be able to find us and rescue us from going so far down the road that we ignore God’s presence and readiness to help us along our life’s journey. 

            A shepherd is a common image used in the Bible to describe the function of a community leader.  A community leader is to seek out even the lowliest person.  There is a difference between God and humans although we are called to imitate God.  In the parable about the lost sheep, one of ninety-nine would be rare though because most of the other sheep tend to follow the one who goes through the fence first.  Because the parable speaks about one sheep, it should be interpreted to mean that God actually loves us so much that God will seek after every single person who wanders away from the flock.  We need reminders time and time again that God is not like us.  God does not hold grudges, have favorites, or prejudices because we are all part of God’s family.  We are God’s sheep and God is our shepherd.  Psalm 100 points out that God made us, we are his, we are his people and the sheep of his pasture therefore we should enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.  We should do these things because the Lord is good his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

            This is our heritage as Christians who adopted aspects of the Jewish faith and chose to follow the teachings of one of their prophets, Jesus. God always seeks to correct that which is out of sync with God’s will.  That correctness is what we find in the work that God has done in Jesus Christ which makes us right with God, righteous in God’s sight.  As Isaiah 53:6 states, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way.”  Because of this, it was necessary to find a way for God to bring us all back into the flock, Jews and Gentiles together in one big family as well as all the peoples of the earth. Like sheep, we are dependent on God, our shepherd, to steer us in the way we should go: to help us find green pasture, to seek us out when we have gone astray away from God, when we are simply lost, when we have been injured in any way, when we have become weak.  God promises justice for all people, but especially the weak and vulnerable of our society.  God created us and will make all things right.  God will restore all people and all of the created order to the way it was always intended from the beginning.  To God be the glory as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.

Real Responsibility

Proper28A, Sullivan Park Care Center, November 16, 2014 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            Last Sunday was the parable about the ten virgins who were awaiting the coming of the bridegroom, five of whom brought extra oil with them and five who did not.  They are waiting for Jesus.  Half are prepared and half are not.  The women taking responsibility are those who were prepared with reserve oil. Those of us who see the second coming of Jesus as being that of our death realize that this could be interpreted that many are not prepared for death and yet death can come at any moment.  I think it is safe to say that most of us don’t receive a premonition as to our own time of death and if we do, it is more likely within a day or so, not ten years in advance.           

            This parable is along the same vein.  How do we respond to God, the master of all beings and things, before God comes to take us away from our home here on earth?  In this story, Jesus gives to each of his slaves or servants a specified number of talents.  Unlike our modern usage of this word, a talent is not a gift as in stating a person is a gifted singer, therefore sings like a songbird.  A talent is also not having a talent for being able to sell something.  Also, to put this in modern perspective, we would do much better to use employee as opposed to slave or servant---we are beholden to God, but we are not in any way abused or oppressed by God.  The term of slave or indentured servant may come to our thinking, but this term is relative to the specific culture of Jesus’ time.  I would contend that our relationship to God is more like an employee or volunteer.  We are certainly sons and daughters, but we are expected to take on responsibility given to us by God.  We are by nature, sons and daughters of God but at the same time called into relationship with God that causes us to continually consider the call to discipleship as well as the cost of discipleship.  As we more and more align ourselves with God’s will and seeking to do God’s will, we realize the risks involved in following that path.  There is a whole book with the title, “The Cost of Discipleship” by the late Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He knew well the cost and the immanence of his death.  He was imprisoned in a death camp during the Holocaust in Europe during the Second World War.  Not only was he a prisoner there, he was also part of an intricate plot to kill Adolph Hitler.  It was only a matter of time before he would be found out and the Hitler regime would snuff him out.  Just as the question was asked of him, so also the question is posed to each of us, “What will we do with what God gives us?”  But more specifically as it pertains to this gospel text, “What will we do with the money that God gives us?”  This text is about money because a talent is one of several ancient units of mass, a commercial weight, as well as corresponding units of value equivalent to these masses of a precious metal.  It was used to pay what was owed to someone.  A talent was the largest or heaviest measure weighing about 75 pounds.  For perspective, as related to this gospel, five talents were worth 30,000 denarii.  A Denarius was a day’s wage for a laborer. The greater the weight, the more it was worth.  The meaning implied in this is that the servants have the financial ability to manage the master’s wealth.  If you go with the thinking that perception is reality, perhaps what this is saying is that the servant who receives just the one talent is someone who feels they have little to give to the world.  This person feels small in the world, perhaps like the widow who has little, just a small, almost worthless coin called a mite.  The poor on earth remain the little ones, the forgotten, and the people who don’t seem to count for much in the big world of money. But the widow who gives all she has, little as it is, by this giving is doing as Jesus expects.  She takes responsibility in managing what she has been given by God.

            This parable, as well as the surrounding parables in the book of Matthew, is all about attitudes and behavior.  Of the first two servants, both are commended for what they did with their talents.  They invested their talents and the talents doubled in size.  The picture that comes to my mind when I look at this story is that of the stock market.  People invest their money in the stock market in hopes of a good return.  Unlike this story, the stock market can and has crashed more than once.  It is unpredictable for those of us who are dependent on it to supplement our retirement Social Security income.  Without investing, there is no return.  It is even, like putting your money under the mattress.  It doesn't grow or get bigger, it simply remains the same.  It is static. There is no growth, because no risk was taken.

            Now, to take this out of a very literal interpretation, let me re-tell the parable.  There was a very generous master, the Lord of all who spoiled his children with an abundance of resources, including the trees, flowers, the power of the intellect to problem-solve each potential problem as it appears.  The Lord did not hold anything back, but gave all freely, out of his own free will.  Then the Lord went away for a while, just to see what his children would do with what he’d given.  They were given free will to do as they saw fit.  To some, he gave the ocean which produced fish of many kinds, but also the danger of tsunamis and hurricanes.  To others, he gave the inland which produced great quantities of wheat, barley, and oats but also tornadoes.  To still others, he gave the desert, a place where the people rode on camels and traded with travelers from other countries, but had to fight off dangerous animals that might attack at any moment.  They were challenged by the extremes of heat and cold.  As these civilizations grew, they fought in battles in order to conquer.  There was always a winner and always a loser.  Those who won thrived.  Those who lost had possessions taken, lives threatened, lives taken.  The strife continued year after year and killing one another became a way of life.  The children questioned the elders, “Why do we go to war with our neighboring countries?”  “What makes us superior to other countries?”  For others, it is also a religious question, “What makes our religion superior to that of others?”  Instead of extending a welcome to the neighboring country, the people distrusted and were filled with fear.  Fear became a way of relating to others when others were perceived as being different.  Despite the generous divine love modeled by and extended by God, fear lived in the hearts of people and love was replaced by fear. Some of that fear became hatred.  Those that hated multiplied because the hating parents taught their children to hate instead of love.

            Think again about this parable non-literally.  It is about money, but it is also about everything in our lives.  It is about how we operate in our world.  It is about our attitudes and behavior.  Do we choose to walk in faith and love, reaching out to others or do we choose to turn our backs and do nothing at all.  We are the stewards of God’s creation.  We were created for the purpose of spreading that kingdom to all, with or without words, but most certainly by what we do.  Let us do good to all creatures and tend God’s earth.  Amen.

Between Heaven and Hell

Proper27A, November 9, 2014, Sullivan Park Care Center by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            If you were to read both the Amos text and that of the gospel without taking into consideration that they were written in a very different cultural context with a way different literary device, these passages should shock you.  Not only should they shock you, but they also should cause you to continually ask, just what do these bits of literature actually mean and what do they mean for me?  It is no secret that the church has been guilty in times past of shocking their parishioners into believing in God or else--- and you can fill in the blank.  I just know that in the Middle Ages and in some churches still today the threat is that if you do not believe in God, plainly and simply, you will go to hell.  I remember a couple of years ago a congregant came up to our Visitation Pastor and asked him quite bluntly, “Why does no one ever preach about hell anymore?”  The pastor avoided any such theological discussion at the time---time for coffee hour, and said nothing.  The problem with the concept of hell is that 1) it seems to have developed sometime after Jesus’ walk on earth, 2) its definition changed over the years, 3) preachers finally figured out that scaring people into believing in God was not a good thing, and 4) seminaries for over a hundred years now have decided that it isn’t a real place to which we go after death, period.  If you grew up thinking that to any extent as I also did, this question might still be in the back of your mind.  What is hell?  Dante said it was cold---I always thought it was hot.  Most people I know today would say that hell is at least partially what we create for ourselves on this earth when we choose to pay no attention to caring for the earth and its creatures.  Hell is the struggles we go through day to day and moment to moment.  It is what we go through when someone we love very much is suffering, because when we love someone, we also suffer with that person. Isn’t that what we feel when we contemplate Jesus’ dying on the cross?  Isn’t that a form of hell when he suffers there, yet it is a complete unconditional sacrifice, the living out of the forgiveness of sins?

            On the other hand, Christians, not just preachers are called to preach the gospel.  The gospel is what our lives should be about each and every moment.  We are charged with learning to live with the knowledge of that gospel no matter what problems we may go through in this world.  The focus needs to rightly be on today, right now, in the present moment.  We should be asking ourselves frequently, “How can I live the gospel in this moment?”  And what is the gospel you may ask?  According to Martin Luther, the pure gospel is this: the forgiveness of sins.  This is how we are to live into the kingdom of God.  We are the recipients of the forgiveness of sins.  We are recipients from God and from other people, however imperfect it may come from other people.  But that also implies that we are also the givers of forgiveness because that is how we live best with each other in God’s love.  We can choose to get mad or choose to forgive.  If we constantly choose to focus on the imperfections of others, we will be angry most of the time, because we are all humans who make mistakes.  Case in point, we have made our own hell; we have made ourselves miserable.  Keep in mind that the principle always remains that we may not be able to change others, but we can change ourselves.  Sometimes, things happen in others when we change ourselves by what we say and what we do.

            The gospel text is about saying and doing, but if we look at it from a literal point of view, it will seem quite confusing.  Even Lutherans no longer agree with Luther who said he thought the oil of the virgins was faith.  The oil, it is believed, now represents good deeds, those small things and big things that we do for each other.  We may offend others, rightly or wrongly with our actions and our words, but this is still our calling.  If we take the gospel text literally, we will accuse the wise virgins of being stingy with their oil.  They have extra, but are unwilling to share it with the foolish virgins.  That is why we need to see this from a different perspective.  None of us really fits the character of either foolish or wise virgins.  All of us carry with us a little of both. And some of those small things we do for others, in their minds are big things and mean a lot more than we imagine.

            The bridegroom is Jesus.  He will come and gather his children home to him, the pure virgins in this case.  But lest we get caught up in literalness again, the purity of the virgins is a symbol that really should extend to all of God’s people and we need reminders that God is the one who makes it possible for all of us to share in God’s wedding banquet. This text is not just about virgins nor is it just about women. We should not be interpreting from this text that only the wise virgins will be with God in eternal bliss and the foolish virgins will go to the fiery depths of hell.  It is never our prerogative to make judgments for God.  God is not about punishment, but mercy.  God’s justice is not our justice. The gospel of God is the forgiveness of sins.  When Jesus arrives, it will be a joyous occasion, not a cause for sorrow or weeping.  It will also not be a surprise, because we know that Jesus is coming to us and for us.  We are wise because we know that Jesus is coming to take us home to be with him forever, but we are foolish in that we remain students of our Lord in need of help to be more like God and less like our selfish selves, concerned with self-preservation.

            Just as our lives and our behaviors are on a continuum of joy to sorrow, happiness to struggle, perhaps we should also think of life with God as a continuum from hell to heaven.  We see a little of both in this life.  In this life, we await God’s transformation of us into God’s image, where we began.  We wait for a return to Eden because we believe that heaven in our future is much like the Eden of our past.  Amos points in that direction as well, but from a different angle.  Amos points out, that despite all the worship of God and the keeping of all the proper sacrifices in their seasons, only one thing is of real importance.  That one thing is justice and righteousness.  God expects more than keeping all the church feasts and commemorations.  God expects more than praying the hours.  God wants more than ritual; God wants action.

            During this past week, my phone rang at 8:00 in the morning, about a half hour before I usually get out of bed.  It was the dean of the cathedral.  He asked me to contact a particular person who requested that someone bring her Eucharist.  As I spoke with her over the phone, I realized that what she really wanted was someone she knew already to come to be with her.  However, I could not fill those shoes because she only knew me from a distance.  She knew I was in the choir, but said she couldn't put a name to a face.  She said that Communion meant more to her if it was given by someone she knew.  I felt sorry for her in her emotional pain, yet also knew that her request was not possible.  The people she most wanted by her side, you see, were unavailable momentarily because they were all involved in preparation for the annual holiday bazaar.  Her choice was either me or needing to wait till the bazaar was over.  Only one person on the committee I oversee fit the bill.  She would have to wait, but by waiting, just as in the gospel text, she would see Jesus in the Eucharist and she would have communion with someone who means the most to her.  Blessed be God who also waits patiently for us.

Humility vs. Hypocrisy

AllSaintsSundayA, November 2, 2014, Sullivan Park Care Center, by Sr Annette Fricke, OP

            A friend of mine from high school writes, “What kind of world do we live in? Kids killing each other at school, terrorists shooting little girls for wanting to get an education, parents torturing their children, men and women threatening to kill each other via texting, random shootings everywhere, child abductions, killing military folks while they are in uniform, police using extreme and abusive force on suspects, people sitting at tables while dining who are all on their phones not talking to each other, people of all ages bashing and bullying each other on social media, and just in general, people being rude and inconsiderate to each other......etc, etc, etc........sigh. My prayer today: Dear Creator of everything, Fill us with kindness towards each other and the world we live in. Help us to be gentle with each other, speak quietly, with peaceful intention. Help us to see others through your eyes of no judgment, with longing to put others before our own needs. Help us to live with humility. Help us to be strong enough to not always be right. We pray through your glorious name, Amen.”  Though extremely disappointing and humiliating, it is all too accurate a picture of the worst behavior that humans have and continue to display. This is not anything new, but the media has brought it forward for our every moment viewing by continuing to run the same incidents throughout the entire day.

            The world the earthly Jesus lived in and ours are thousands of years apart.  We are strongly influenced by a global media in which we are made aware of what’s taking place in every corner of the world. Jesus’ world was a tiny corner of walking distances, yet what he had to say about human nature stands to this day.  We have still to learn what it means to practice humility, rather than hypocrisy before others. There is no morally superior country, as many would say about the US, for all countries are guilty of mistreating and murdering its people.  We can have the best teachers and yet the flaws will eventually be seen; once again we lose our faith in humanity.  Many folks cite the reason that they no longer attend church is because of all the hypocrites there.  Truth be told, we are all hypocrites, every last one of us.  I suspect in some ways it’s like this: God puts out in creation all the resources and readily available food and says to us, “Help your selves.”  Some take that sentence literally and help only themselves, not others.  Others will help others by teaching them, but not observing that which they teach.  Still others live by jealousy—jealous that someone else has what they want, so they seek to obtain it either by stealing, working for it, or asking where they can get it. And then there are those who simply want attention, attention of any sort.  It doesn’t matter if it is positive or negative attention.  They just want to know that they are not forgotten, because they feel weak or somehow less than others.  They become withdrawn from God and others. The Psalmist writes of the poor, “Keep them alive and deliver them not unto their foes.” Their foes are those who have the perceived power around them. Likewise, according to Augustine, the most powerful of our society are usually guilty of the sin of pride.  He has this to say about pride: Pride is a perverted imitation of God because it hates a fellowship of equality under God, and seeks to impose its own domination on others, in the place of God’s rule.  This is a prominent idea expressed in the gospel text read today.  Jesus’ direction is direct and simple.  He says we are to follow the teaching of the Pharisees, but not what they do.  Follow what they teach, but not their behavior. Many of us as children have heard the paradoxical phrase, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  As a child, many behaviors of our older teachers and parents remain hidden until we are older.  Some of us were also taught about the lives of the saints in much the same way---that they could do no wrong.  But the reality is that saints are sinners and sinners are saints.  We are all a mixture of good and bad, misbehaved and properly behaved, full of ourselves and completely selfless.  We are all of this and every gradient in between.  We all have our own brand of sinning, our own way of living our lives in this world where sin and brokenness is ever before us.

            Today is All Saints Sunday, technically the day after All Saints Day and in the Catholic Church, today is All Souls Day.  They are essentially the same feast although the Catholics made a separate feast for the recognized, canonized saints and us ordinary folks.  How we honor this day can vary.  Some people will attend worship today and will hear the names of all in the parish that have died over the past year and a bell will be rung for each of them.  Some will remember those who died by partaking in the Eucharist or Holy Communion because they believe that they are closest to those in heaven when they do that.  They believe that they have fellowship with those who now see Jesus face to face.  Some recall their friends and relatives when they look into the faces of those still living who are directly related to those who have died.  Others will have these moments when they drive by a house where they lived or re-visit where they worshipped with that person.  Still other people will think about the relatives who died when they see their young relatives embarking on an entry to a prestigious college, something never even dreamed of a couple generations ago.  And some will donate altar flowers in memory of those who brought them into this world year after year.  In whatever way you remember the past generations, think especially on those who guided you and planted the seed of faith in your heart.  Thank God for those who steered you in the right direction, not my coercion, but gentle guiding, allowing you to form your own beliefs and your own set of values.  Thank God for those in your life, who taught you humility; especially be thankful for those who demonstrated it enough that you were able to see the light of Christ in their spiritual journey.

            For all of our faults, our misdeeds, our indiscretions, our fumbles in life, in spite of all our ugliness whether physical or emotional, forgive us Lord.  Forgive us, renew us, and heal us by your grace, dear Lord.  Dear Lord and Father of us all, remind us of your continued love for us day by day and moment by moment.  Fill us with your Holy Spirit so that we may remain faithful to you just as you are faithful to us.  And finally, may we rest in the knowledge that you have given to each of us the gifts and talents to support one another, not tear each other down.  Refresh our memories that you are always there to embrace us in your loving arms.  Do not abandon us to our own devices, for we are nothing without you.  Deliver us from our foes.  Help us choose humility over hypocrisy.  Amen.