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Rev Doug Horner
March 9, 2008
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Away the Stone
We
live with a certain amount of skepticism. We are doubting Thomases:
unless we actually see something, we don’t want to trust;
and even then, we struggle to believe what our eyes tell us
is true. We’re having trouble believing that there are
solutions to some of the problems with our young people, violence,
disrespect, sexual abuse and immorality. Bill Cosby was in town
recently telling the truth. Ironically, he spoke at the same
Mt. Zion Church that buried Officer Derek Owens. Truth and reality
seem to mingle together. Except for national politicians. They
don’t know the reality of Cleveland and they seem to shy
away from the truth. What really is going to change if either
McCain, Hillary or Obama is elected, I don’t know. I am
skeptical because some folks don’t really want change;
they benefit from this system.
The people who showed up at the tomb with Jesus were skeptical.
They knew the stone had been in place for four days and that
flesh begins to decay in that time, and well, they wanted to
see what was going to happen. So they all show up, there is
hope, there is anticipation of something great, but really not
everyone is ready for the miracle that Jesus is talking about.
Change comes hard, especially if it means accepting a woman
in power. After 20 years of a beloved older male pastor, a new
pastor came to minister at the church, a female who was young,
smart and compassionate, which raised the eyebrows of the elders,
to say the least. So the men of the board of deacons wanted
to, you know, show her the ropes, so to speak, and invited her
to join in their male activities. They devised a plan to put
her in her place by taking her on a fishing trip. They went
out early one morning and she seemed very hesitant about the
whole affair. The men chuckled as each one took turns teaching
her all about baiting, casting, reeling in a fish, etc., but
she couldn’t really get the hang of it. She was good natured
about it all, and laughed at her own incompetence, but still
turned up her nose when trying to put the minnow on the hook
for the fifteenth time. About mid morning, the pastor was still
not doing it right and the boys were they were still trying
to help her catch a fish, but were getting a little frustrated.
She had tried her hardest, but it wasn’t working, and
now she was getting cold. She needed her coat, which was in
her car. They were just starting to pack up and turn the boat
around to take her in, when she climbed over the side and started
walking towards the shore. One old man commented: “See
that,” he said. “She doesn’t even know how
to swim.” New leadership from a woman.
It’s going to take some getting used to.
I read an article in Sojourners Magazine called “On Jesus
and Women: A study of the life-giving encounters in the Gospel
narratives, by Melanie Morrison.” She is the director
of The Leaven Center, and a United Church of Christ minister.
Morrison illuminates the overwhelming data that the gospels
are filled with stories of Jesus’ encounters with women;
frequently the writers parallel material about men with material
about women. The first recorded healing of a man (Luke 4:31-37)
is followed by the healing of a woman (4:38-39). The parables
in Luke reflect this same parallelism: Jesus describes the nature
of the kingdom by drawing upon the work of a man who plants
mustard seeds and a woman who makes bread; persistence in prayer
is illustrated by the friend who wakes his neighbor at night
and the woman who succeeds in obtaining a hearing with the judge;
the nature of God who seeks the lost is described metaphorically
in the parable of a shepherd who searches for the one lost sheep
and of the woman who searches for the one lost coin.
Jesus scandalized his contemporaries by wholeheartedly affirming
the gifts and persons of women, even women thought to be “unclean.”
Jesus shows little regard for the Levitical codes that forbid
a person to touch or be touched by “unclean” women
(Leviticus 15:25-31). Jesus drinks from the vessel of a Samaritan
woman (John 4:1ff); he commends the faith of a hemorrhaging
woman who reaches out to touch him (Luke 8:40-47); he refuses
to rebuke the woman who bursts into Simon the Pharisee’s
house and lavishes kisses on Jesus, much to Simon’s chagrin
(Luke 7:36-50); and he declares that prostitutes understand
more about the nature of the kingdom than men learned in the
Law (Matthew 21:31-32).
It may be difficult for us today to grasp how radical it was
that Jesus called women to follow him as disciples. Women of
his day were not considered candidates for discipleship by rabbis.
Nevertheless, we have clear evidence that women were among those
who followed Jesus through cities and villages bringing the
good news of the kingdom of God (Luke 8:1-3). And I am sure
that Jesus was saying something to the disciples like: “the
women are with us, get used to it.” Either way it is going
to take some getting used to.
But this is not a sermon about women. We are talking about Jesus
and the changes he brought to his world; and the changes he
is able to bring to us if we are paying attention. Allowing
a woman to be in leadership position; voting for a woman president;
female CEO of a fortune 500 company; these things take some
getting used to by the people of our society. Even in this century.
Even by people who think they are forward thinking. It is going
to take a lot of getting used to.
Another idea that is going to take some getting used to is living
nonviolently. A great change that will happen when more and
more people see that violence is getting us further and further
of the path of our forefathers and into bad relations with our
neighbors, both in Cleveland and around the world. Nonviolence
goes against the norm of society that says it is okay to seek
revenge, kill, maim, and torture people who are considered terrorists,
and otherwise use violence to serve our purposes.
Nonviolence cannot then be understood as passivity or indifference
to the dynamic of life (i.e., communication between men). It
is not the posture of removing oneself from conflict that marks
the truly nonviolent man, but, quite on the contrary, it is
placing oneself at the heart of that dynamic. Nonviolence means
taking the responsibility for aiding the direction of human
communication and brotherhood. Nonviolence means an active opposition
to those acts and attitudes that demean and brutalize another
and it means an active support of those values and expressions
that foster human solidarity. Nonviolence, in essence, means
taking a stand in favor of life and refusing to delegate individual
moral responsibility to another person or group; it means taking
control of one's life and aiding others in doing likewise. Nonviolence
is an attempt to find truth and love even in the midst of hatred,
destruction and pride.
As the means cannot be separated from the desired ends, nonviolence
cannot be separated from peace, for it is the value system and
dynamic that makes peace possible. And those who are in favor
of war, capital punishment and corporal punishment are not reading
the Scriptures correctly if they think that Jesus was in favor
of these violent tendencies. There is no connection; peace cannot
be won through violent means. The fact that Jesus wants us to
love our neighbors as ourselves, and even love our enemies,
disconnects Christians from the systems of war.
John 11:35 – it’s the shortest verse in the Bible:
Jesus wept. That verse served me well when I was a little boy
in Sunday School. Back then if you could quote a verse of scripture,
you would get a gold star by your name on the big chart on the
wall. This was my star-producing verse! “Anybody know
a verse of scripture this morning?” the teacher would
say, and my hand would go up immediately. “John 11:35…
Jesus wept.”
The
next Sunday the same thing would happen. “Anybody ready
to quote a verse of scripture?” Up with the hand. “John
11:35… Jesus wept.” Another gold star. After several
Sundays of this, the teacher finally looked at me and said,
“Jim, do you know any verse other than John 11:35, Jesus
wept?”
A
few years ago, a young ministerial student was working here
at our church as a summer intern. He went over to the chapel
one Sunday morning to serve Holy Communion. He had never served
communion alone before and he was scared. Back then we had a
communion ritual printed on a laminated card. It started with
the Invitation to Communion, followed by the Prayer of Confession
and the Prayer of Consecration; and then just before the people
would come forward to receive communion, the minister would
stand, face the congregation and say, “Hear these words
of comfort from the scriptures.” We left a blank there
on the communion card so the minister in charge could at that
point quote a favorite verse. When they got to this point in
the service, the young ministerial student stood and said, “Hear
these words of comfort from the scriptures...” And then
he went absolutely blank. There was a long pause, and then he
blurted out the only verse he could think of at the moment:
“Jesus wept.”
Later
he told me what happened and how awful he felt about that at
first, but then how one of our members came down after the service
and said to him, “When you quoted that verse, ‘Jesus
wept,' that was so meaningful to me because it made me suddenly
realize that… the Healer of our pain is the feeler of
our pain!”
There
is a minister serving now in Virginia named Al Hanner. Al Hanner
tells a powerful story about his early days in the ministry.
Al says he came out of seminary ready to be “super preacher.”
Single-handedly he would solve all the problems of the world.
He had been trained, he was well prepared, and now as a pastor
in a little community in Virginia, he was ready to be “super
preacher.” He had all the answers, and he was ready to
spout them to the world with pious religious authority, and
that he did, as the months passed quickly into years.
Then
one morning the phone rang. The father of his board chairman
had suddenly died. As Al started to their home, it hit him:
“I don’t know what to do. I’m their pastor
and I’m scared. I don’t know what to say to them.”
He tried to remember his classes in pastoral care. He tried
to recall appropriate scripture passages to quote. He tried
to think of some profound theological message to give these
people in their shocked hour of need. He plotted his strategy:
“I know what I’ll do… I’ll go in boldly
and take charge. I’ll gather all the family in the living
room and quote the 23rd Psalm. That’s what I’ll
do,” said Al Hanner. “That’s the answer.
But
there was one thing Al Hanner hadn’t counted on. When
he got to the home and gathered the family in the living room,
he looked at their faces and their pain became his pain. He
suddenly realized how much he loved these wonderful people,
and his heart broke with them. He was overcome with emotion.
As he tried to quote the 23rd Psalm, he said, “The Lord
is my Shepherd”… and then Al Hanner exploded into
tears. He cried so hard that the family had to rush over and
minister to him. They helped him over to the couch, mopped his
brow with a cold cloth, and brought him a glass of water. Al
Hanner was so embarrassed, so ashamed. He felt that he had failed
miserably. He was humiliated. He got through the funeral and
went immediately to the bishop and asked to be moved to another
church. And shortly after, Al was indeed transferred.
Several
years passed and each year at annual conference, Al would hide
from that family. He could not face them. But then one evening
he came around a corner and there they were. He couldn’t
avoid them. He couldn’t hide. Their faces lit up when
they saw Al. They ran to him and hugged him warmly. “Oh,
Al,” they said, “We are so glad to see you. Our
family loves you. We appreciate you so much. We miss you. We
talk about you all the time. We have loved all of our pastors,
but you are the one who helped us the most.” “Oh,
really?” Al said with genuine surprise. “Oh, yes,”
they said, “We’ll never forget how you came and
cried with us when Daddy died.”
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