Sir Winston Churchill was born Oxfordshire, England November 30, 1874, to an English aristocratic father and an American mother.  He had a speech impediment and was considered too stupid to attend university.  So he was enrolled in the British Army.  He took part in a cavalry charge in India, served in the Boer War in South Africa, was taken prisoner, escaped and wrote up his adventures for the newspaper, which made him famous.  During World War I he was responsible as First Lord of the Admiralty for the disastrous Dardanelles campaign, was sacked and his career was considered to be over.  He spent two decades in the political wilderness until destiny finally came for him after the fall of France in 1940.  The situation called for a fighter and he had wanted to fight Hitler from the beginning.  The King named him Prime Minister, and the rest is history.

On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, 81 years ago, airplanes from the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor.  The attack was so unexpected that the airplanes were not identified on radar and were not even identified when they appeared before the naked eye at low levels in the sky.  When bombs started falling, soldiers and sailors reported later that they were amazed at how realistic this air raid drill was.  Despite clear orders from the White House to be on high alert, officers were not on duty, no one was on any kind of alert.

My mother was in Dayton, Ohio working at Wright-Patterson Field.  My dad was in Des Moines, Iowa, working for the Shell Oil Corporation.  One consequence of World War II was a nation, if not an entire planet, on the move.  People traveled, met, mixed and married who never would have met otherwise.  A Roman Catholic man from Des Moines met a Protestant woman from Indiana in Ohio in 1944, at Wright-Patterson field, where Miss Green worked and Captain Hyde was on temporary assignment.  They married in 1946; moved to Minneapolis and then Chicago, two cities where neither had ever lived and knew no one and that is where I grew up and assumed this situation was normal, that I was growing up in a place that was as new to my parents as it was to me, in a house built in 1953 on land that had never been anything else than prairie since time immemorial. 

Just a few days after the Pearl Harbor attack, the aforementioned Prime Minister Winston Churchill, under great secrecy, boarded a swift battleship, HMS Duke of York, and arrived in the United States on December 22 to be the guest of President Roosevelt during the Christmas season.  The original plan was for him to stay a week, but the two leaders hit it off so well that he stayed for three. 

They sang Christmas carols at the lighting of National Christmas Tree which in those days was on the south grounds of the White House and anyone could walk up to within a hundred feet of so of the back porch.  The Marine Band performed “Joy to the World” and the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s “The Messiah.” On Christmas Day, FDR took Churchill to Foundry Methodist Church on 16^th Street, about a mile north of the White House.  There for the first time in his life, Churchill heard “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” the lovely hymn that declares:

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light;

the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

Churchill later remembered of the service in his memoirs: “Certainly there was much to fortify the faith of all who believe in the moral governance of the universe.”  Churchill addressed a joint session of Congress the next day, on December 26^th.  Then President and Prime Minster got down to the business of planning and running a war.  I’ve gone on at some length with these stories, without mentioning the scriptures yet, because these people – Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt –  are part of our Christian heritage. 

The heart of our scripture readings today and for the next couple of weeks are the prophecies of Isaiah, whose utterances uncannily foretold the coming of the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ, the one whom we believe is the aforementioned moral governor of the universe.  The book of Isaiah is rather long and it is hard to understand.  Isaiah never wrote anything down.  He walked around much like Jesus did, delivered himself of prophecies, many of which rhymed and therefor sounded good, but were still difficult to understand.  His followers remembered them, wrote them down in no particular order and people have been puzzling over them ever since.  I think it best to read or listen to these prophecies as if they were uttered by a rapper, a modern day rhymster who does his best work with an audience clustered around as he impromptus his lines and addresses the issues of the day.  It is quite possible and I think even likely that Isaiah uttered poetry in at least somewhat of a trance, surrounded by an audience of disciples, friends, hangers-on who were all singing, dancing, clapping hands and pounding on drums to induce trance and ecstasy.

However he did it, he did foretell the birth of the Messiah, the moral governor of the universe, so it behooves us to study him.  The heart of today’s scriptures are his famous prophecy:

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding, 
the spirit of counsel and might, 
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

Thus Isaiah the rhymester, the poet, the rapper, gave voice to the centuries old yearning for a moral governor of the universe, descended from King David, who was descended from Jesse.  Isaiah also uttered the lines made even more famous in our own day by Handel’s Messiah:

For unto us a child is born,

unto us a son is given:

and the government shall be upon his shoulder:

and his name shall be called

Wonderful,

Counselor,

The mighty God,

The everlasting Father,

The Prince of Peace.

Whatever this means, whether it points to Jesus or not, it is beautiful, inspirational poetry.  What does it mean exactly?  Well . . .

We Christians believe that there is a moral governor of the universe.  We believe that this moral governor, the savior, the anointed one, was born in a stable in Bethlehem, not far from Jerusalem.  We believe that this moral governor of the universe was real and is real, has died, has risen and will come again; that “our Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.”

We believe that there’s more here – on earth, in life – than meets the eye.  We believe that God himself is somehow involved in history, that God loves us and we therefore must love God and our neighbors.

Can we prove this?  Prove it like 2 + 2 = 4 or the earth revolves around the sun?   No.  But we can say that it is a beautiful proposition, a beautiful idea.

To live by this proposition is beautiful thing.  That’s what this season is about. 

In the words of the Christmas carol:

The tree of life my soul hath seen


Laden with fruit and always green


The trees of nature fruitless be


Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel


By faith I know, but ne’er can tell

 
The glory which I now can see

In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

Our readings today focus on faith, as have our readings and meditations for the past several weeks; the faith of Abraham, of Jesus, of Paul and the long chain of witnesses from then until now that brings us together on a Sunday morning instead of doing any number of other things.  These meditations on faith will continue for about another month until the end of Pentecost on November 20, the Feast of Christ the King.  November 27^th marks the beginning of Advent, so our thoughts will turn then to the impending celebration of the birth of the Messiah and our readings will come from the most wonderful and mysterious prophecies of Isaiah.

Our focus today is on the faith of Abraham, the belief of Abraham, the hope of Abraham; however you want to put it, and on our common faith, or set of beliefs, today.  Any number of English words may translate the Hebrew of the Book of Genesis.  These words can cover much the same territory, that aspect of the human psyche that keeps us going, that lifts our spirits, that gives us something in common, a past, a future, a present.

[4] And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, [5] And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 
[6] And Abraham believed the LORD; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. 

Abraham believed the Lord, Abraham had faith in the Lord’s promise; Abraham hoped that the Lord’s promise would come true.  However you want to put it, this act set our whole civilization into motion. 

Abraham believed God’s promise, took God at his word, you might say, and the rest is history:  the amazing history of Judaism and Christianity and of course Islam;

The history of three religions;

The history of many peoples;

And the history in particular of the American people, namely us.

As we prepare for a general election, what do we believe, what holds us together as a people?  That is my question for today.  What is our common faith, what are our common beliefs?  What beliefs, what faith, what hope holds 350 million Americans together?

To answer this question – only in part of course, let us think back to a bitter cold morning in Washington, DC, January 20, 1961.  It was a great day for New England, for two New Englanders got the most important speaking parts, the new president, John F. Kennedy of course, the youngest President-elect in history; and also the aging poet Robert Frost, who was called upon to compose a new poem for the occasion and read it aloud.  More on Robert Frost next week.

Let us turn to just the first two paragraphs of that great inaugural address and see if we can find there a clue about our common faith, our common faith as Americans and our commons faith as sons and daughters of Abraham:

“We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom,” — President Kennedy began – “symbolizing an end as well as a beginning — signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.”

“We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom.”  Freedom is what we fight for, fight over and fight about and what we celebrate in free elections and the peaceful transfer of power.  Thus the inauguration of a president after a free and fair election is a celebration of freedom.  

An inauguration of a president is also a celebration of human rights, for, as President Kennedy went on to say: “the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe–the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God. We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution.”

What are the revolutionary beliefs for which our forbears fought?

The President answered his own question:

Our ancestors fought for “the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.”

That is our revolutionary belief: that rights and all good things, for that matter, come from the hand of God.  The promise to Abraham came from the hand of God.  Our revolutionary ancestors in the American revolution and the Reformation all believed that all things worthwhile come from God.  This God-dependence is very important.  The purpose of our government is to protect God-given rights, which come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

We rebelled against a King, George III, because we considered him tyrannical.  Upon setting up our own government, the founders well understood that tyranny could come as well from a mob as it could come from a King.  Just a few short years later the French Revolution showed how horribly a mob in charge of a government and an army could act.

Thus a revolution in France for the rights of man ended up trampling on them in worse fashion than their King ever did.

After the series of meetings that produced our constitution, so the story goes, someone asked Benjamin Franklin what the great legislators had come up with.

“A republic,” he replied, “if we can keep it.”

Keeping a republic requires an Abrahamic act of faith, of hope, of belief, of charity; in God and in one another

Keeping a republic requires compromise

A willingness to live and let live

And a willingness to recognize the limits our wisdom.

Keeping a republic, or indeed any self-governing organization, requires belief in nothing less than the Spirit of Liberty.

74 years ago, during that World War II, Judge Learned Hand, one of the greatest American jurists ever, even though he never sat on the Supreme Court, gave a speech that is often referred to as his Spirit of Liberty Speech, in which he said:

“What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women;

the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias;

the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded;

the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.”

This spirit, of course, as the Bible tells us, was with God in the beginning, was with Abraham when God took him out under the desert stars and promised him that his descendants would be as numberless as the stars above;

this spirit was with Moses when God gave him the law;

this spirit was with the prophets who foretold the coming of the wonderful counselor, the prince of peace;

this spirit, of liberty, of belief in human rights, was with the people who founded our country.

May this spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit which seeks accommodation and compromise

 be with us in these last two weeks before the election and continue to be with us in all the months ahead.

White Sunday, (in the Samoan language Lotu Tamaiti, literally “Children’s Service”), is a national holiday in Samoa falling on the second Sunday of October. We are celebrating a week later this year in San Carlos. Please some to church for a spirited celebration this Sunday at the usual time, 10:30.

The day is for parents and communities to acknowledge and celebrate childhood by hosting special programs during church services which include scriptural recitations, biblical story reenactments, and creative dance performances. Wear white!

Sermon

Bow thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy.

Thus begins the Psalm for the day.

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness . . .

Thus begins today’s prayer of invocation

So we pray this summer:  Bow thine ear O Lord; hear us for we are poor and needy; help us and govern us. Afflicted by disease, afflicted by the divisions in our society, afflicted bitter arguments over what to do about it.  Help us and govern us because we cannot help or govern ourselves.

We turn, every week to the scriptures and to the Lord, for comfort.  Our two readings today deal with faith, with heeding the call of God, having confidence that God will take care of us and all will turn out OK in the end.

In the Old Testament we hear the story of the beginning of another tribe, a tribe descended, as we are, from Abraham, but not through his wife Sarah, whom we know and love, but through Hagar, Abraham’s second wife, whom we often overlook.

It is a heartbreaking story, yet a story that is redeemed at the end by divine intercession.  You might say that we all live a heartbreaking story that is redeemed at the end by divine intercession.

Abraham’s wife Sarah, having given birth to Isaac, her wonder child and our spiritual ancestor, demands that Abraham get rid of this other woman and her child born previously.  Abraham pauses, considers and finally goes along with the demand at God’s behest.

“As for the son of the slave woman,” says God to Abraham, by way of consolation, “I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.”  This is the story of the Jews and the Arabs, both families descended from Abraham.

“So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, the slave woman, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, called Ishmael, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-Sheba.

Soon they ran out of bread and water.  Hagar withdrew a ways from her child because she could not bear the thought of seeing him die, then lifted up her voice and wept.”

She wept.  Then God hears the prayer of Ismael – most interesting: God hears the prayer of Ismael, but we do not.  Ishmael’s prayer is not in the text.  Anyway, God hears him – and lo, an angel speaks to Hagar, not Ishmael, from heaven:

“What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy, and he grew up.  Like Isaac, the other son of Abraham, Ishmael survived after nearly dying and became the father of a great nation.  So the Bible accounts for the Jews and the Arabs, the children of Isaac and Ishmael. 

The Bible, the Old Testament especially, is full of the stories of survivors. Abraham is the father of three great religious communities, but his line could have been snuffed out at any number of points along the way. His son Isaac survived only by divine intervention. His grandson Jacob survived a wrestling match with an angel.  As for the wives of the patriarchs, Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, we must wonder how they somehow survived being the spouses of such difficult characters.  Surely Providence must have had a hand in it. 

Many, many years later, a people unknown to the Bible came to a land likewise unknown, yet considered themselves the spiritual descendants of Abraham and attributed their arrival to Providence. All of us Americans are their descendants, Catholic or Protestant, Christian or something else, of whatever creed or race.

The greatest American novel begins with perhaps the shortest sentence ever to begin a novel:  Call me Ishmael.  Thus Herman Melville began the immense story of a whole diverse crew of people, respresenting all of America, questing for the great white whale, the great unattainable; begins this tale by grafting us, quite self-consciously, into the Biblical heritage of survivers and questers.  The lone survivor of the shipwreck tells the tale.

“The Americans – all of us Americans, said Walt Whitman at about the same time Melville wrote Moby Dick – The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth have probably the fullest poetical nature.  The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.  In the history of the earth hitherto the largest and most stirring appear tame and orderly to their ampler largeness and stir.  Here at last is something in the doings of man that corresponds with the broadcast doings of the day and night.  Here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations.  Here is the hospitality which forever indicates heroes . . . .

How do we in this teeming nation of nations show hospitality to one another? How can we be heroes this summer, still afflicted as we are by a mysterious disease, still afflicted as we are by our own violent history?  How can we show hospitality this summer and beyond to one another and to our community?  That is our question.

Let us pray.

Bow thine ear, O LORD, hear us: for we are poor and needy.  Save us your servants who trust in you, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness.  Give us the grace O Lord to look upon one another with compassion as together we write another poetic chapter in our nation’s history.

Texts

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17  Inclina, Domine

1 Bow down your ear, O Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and in misery.

2 Keep watch over my life, for I am faithful;
save your servant who puts his trust in you.

3 Be merciful to me, O Lord, for you are my God;
I call upon you all the day long.

4 Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
and great is your love toward all who call upon you.

6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer,
and attend to the voice of my supplications.

7 In the time of my trouble I will call upon you,
for you will answer me.

8 Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord,
nor anything like your works.

9 All nations you have made will come and worship you, O Lord,
and glorify your Name.

10 For you are great;
you do wondrous things;
and you alone are God.

16 Turn to me and have mercy upon me;
give your strength to your servant;
and save the child of your handmaid.

17 Show me a sign of your favor,
so that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed;
because you, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

Collect

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness;

through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you

and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Genesis 21:8-21

The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Sermon

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Today we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus into heaven.  The official day of celebration was last Thursday.  Next Sunday we will celebrate Pentecost.

We are in the time between the Ascension and Pentecost, between the departure of Jesus in the flesh and the arrival of Jesus in the spirit.

On that first Ascension Day, Jesus said:

“ . . . you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

Then, as we know, the disciples huddled together in fear until Jesus returned as a blast of wind and tongues of flame just a few days later.  We will celebrate that event next Sunday, Pentecost Sunday.  In anticipation of Pentecost therefore, Saint Pater tells us today:

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.”

The Holy Scriptures embrace the whole multitude of human experience, from the thrill of victory to the agony of defeat.  Some days we get to vacation at the lake; other days it’s a fiery ordeal.  Some days are easy; some days – we’re stuck in traffic, or worse.

Some days the appointed Bible reading strikes us as so contemporary that we wonder how a 2,000 year-old text could possibly be speaking right to our immediate condition.  Saint Peter in his letter to various churches about a fiery ordeal was not talking about a pandemic; he was not talking about the state of American politics and the politics of so many other countries these days; he was not talking about the first outbreak of major war in Europe since World War II; he was not talking about people killing schoolchildren with machine guns; he was not talking about anything going on today.  Historians tell us that Saint Peter in today’s epistle was talking about Roman authorities breaking up Christian worship and throwing Christians into jail and worse.  Saint Peter wrote this letter some time a few decades after the death of Christ. 

We thought, many of us, that persecution would end; that pandemics, mass murders, civil wars, invasions, were a thing of the past; that modern medicine could cure things like this; that a better education system would help us to love and tolerate or accommodate one another; that surely since World War II ended with a couple of puffs of atomic smoke, we would learn how to get along better.

We Americans wonder today, after another mass murder, in the midst of such an angry time in American history, if things have gotten better since World War II, or worse.

Well, we are and always have been, all of our lives, everywhere on earth, in the midst of a fiery ordeal.  That’s the way it is. 

As always, we can respond with greed, hatred, fear and ignorance.  Or we can respond with generosity, clarity, steadiness and love.

We have a choice in this time, as all times, of living in fear and feeling alone and in surrender to negativity; or we can choose to live in love, find love in our hearts and discover the love of God all around us.  We can choose to feel ourselves part of something greater, of the communion of saints, of those who have taken the Gospel to heart and responded with love.

We can open our eyes and see the saints caring for the elderly in nursing homes, see the saints working in hospitals, stocking the shelves of our grocery stores, checking out our groceries, making our coffee, responding to emergencies . . .  

When we do this, we share in the communion of saints.

So take a breath.  Think not so much about what you fear but think about what you can offer.

Be the medicine this world needs.  Be the uplifting music.  Be the lamp in the darkness.  Be a carrier of hope.

Where others hoard…..help.
Where others deceive……speak truth.
Where others are overwhelmed or uncaring…..

. . . be kind and respectful.

 “Humble yourselves,” as Peter says, “under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.”

Psalm 68:1-10 Exsurgat Deus

1 Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered;

      let those who hate him flee before him.

2 Let them vanish like smoke when the wind drives it away;
as the wax melts at the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.

3 But let the righteous be glad and rejoice before God;
let them also be merry and joyful.

4 Sing to God, sing praises to his Name;
exalt him who rides upon the heavens;
The LORD is his Name, rejoice before him!

5 Father of orphans, defender of widows,
God in his holy habitation!

6 God gives the solitary a home and brings forth prisoners into freedom;
but the rebels shall live in dry places.

7 O God, when you went forth before your people,
when you marched through the wilderness,

8 The earth shook, and the skies poured down rain,
at the presence of God, the God of Sinai,
at the presence of God, the God of Israel.

9 You sent a gracious rain, O God, upon your inheritance;
you refreshed the land when it was weary.

10 Your people found their home in it;
in your goodness, O God, you have made provision for the poor.            

Acts 1:6-11

When the apostles had come together, they asked Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

Fifth Sunday of Easter
We all know that Jesus uttered words of despair or something close to despair on the cross. We all know the words: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? They are from the beginning of the 22nd Psalm, the end of which we just recited this morning.
We all know how 23rd Psalm begins. They are some of the most soothing words in all of Scripture. We can easily recite the opening words and much of the rest of it: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” We recited it last week.
What are these psalms doing right next to each other in the Bible – despair and confidence right next to each other in the holy scriptures? One answer is that despair and confidence are just part of life, and the psalms deal with life in all of its triumphs and tragedies. Another answer is that the Psalms were collected in no particular order, so there they are – deal with it.
Then we should go on to notice that if you read all the way through to the end of the 22nd Psalm, which is what we recited this morning, you find that the Psalm as a whole is not a cry of despair at all, but a confident prophecy and declaration of faith in the person and power of Jesus:
28 To him – Jesus, the Messiah – alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship;
all who go down to the dust fall before him.
29 My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him;
they shall be known as the LORD’s for ever.
Then the best part:
30 They, my descendants – the descendants of the psalmist, namely us – shall come and make known to a people yet unborn the saving deeds that he has done.
It is an amazing declaration of confidence that a people yet unborn 3,000 years ago, namely us, will hear of and proclaim the saving deeds of Jesus. It’s also interesting that the first humans arrived in Samoa, we think, about 3,000 ago when King David composed and recited the psalms.
We gather of a Sunday morning to celebrate the whole Christian story. We celebrate the good news that somehow this amazing life and death and resurrection of Jesus makes a huge difference in our lives so many years later.
King David knew the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, and was confident that at the end, through the grace of God, we will be victorious.
In this light Saint Paul said in his letter to Romans: ” . . . I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38-39)
Also in this light, Saint John wrote his letters and his Gospel and passes on to us this morning the famous words of Jesus: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you.”
Paul states it one way: Nothing can separate us from the love of God. John puts it another: Jesus abides in us as we abide in him. We are all connected in space and time, to one another and to the risen Lord.
That’s our message for today. Somehow here we are, all connected to King David and his people 3,000 years ago, connected to the first people who came to Samoa 3,000 years ago, and to the first people who arrived here in California, some 15,000 years ago and connected as well to those folks who were somewhere in Europe or Japan or somewhere else way back when; and here we all are right now, today, the few of us here, conscious of some 7 billions other people on this planet, living breathing – we’re all connected to each other, and of course, connected by the Holy Spirit to the Almighty God. Somehow by coming together here, by coming to still ness, by praying, learning, praising we heal our souls and we heal everyone on the planet. Yes, we do. This is the Gospel.
For a contemporary illustration, I heard an interview on Public Radio a little while ago with some sort of expert on forests who said that trees and actually all plants communicate with each other. After taking all this all in, the interviewer said, “I read your book one afternoon in preparation for this interview and then sat down to dinner with my family, speared a stalk of asparagus and looked it and paused and then thought: Gosh, just a few days ago this asparagus was in the ground communicating with its neighbors – um, should I be eating this little creature? The author of the book said, yes, go ahead and enjoy your asparagus. Food chains are what make life on this planet possible.
But the point of this interview, and of this sermon, is that as even plants are connected to one another, so are we. Somehow we are connected to our ancestors and our descendants and all creatures on this earth. Mystics have often said this, but now scientists are saying it, too.
3,000 years have passed since King David wrote the psalms. 2,000 years have passed since Paul and John proclaimed the Gospel. From age to age, however we proclaim it, the Gospel remains the same. Somehow Jesus made a difference. The surrender to death and the triumph over death to the resurrection life – this whole Christ event makes a difference. Even though the resurrection happened 2,000 years ago, we are still connected to it. It makes a difference. We live in the aftershocks. Throughout winter and summer, victory and defeat, good health or bad, God is with us.
Thanks be to God.

Psalm 22:24-30 Deus, Deus meus
24 My praise is of him in the great assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.
25 The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
and those who seek the LORD shall praise him: *
“May your heart live for ever!”
26 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, *
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him.
27 For kingship belongs to the LORD; *
he rules over the nations.
28 To him alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; *
all who go down to the dust fall before him.
29 My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him; *
they shall be known as the LORD’s for ever.
30 They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn *
the saving deeds that he has done.
1 John 4:7-12
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
John 15:1-8
Jesus said to his disciples, ”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

Sermon 

2^nd Sunday of Easter

April 24, 2022

“Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”

The setting of this passage is very much like the setting of Pentecost.  The disciples are all huddled together in a room because they are in shock.  At Pentecost, the they receive the Holy Spirit by means of fire.  Here they receive the Holy Spirit from Jesus himself by means of breath.

There are four primal elements: earth, air, fire and water. Each of these elements is associated with key moments in the life of Jesus.  He was baptized with water by John at the beginning of his earthly ministry.  Earthquakes were reported at his death and resurrection.  In today’s Gospel, after his resurrection, Jesus breathes on the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  Thus the Holy Spirit is associated here with air, and at Pentecost, just a few weeks later, with fire.   Earth, air, fire and water. 

The Book of Genesis begins with the Spirit of God moving over the water.  As God breathed life into the watery creation at the beginning, as God formed Adam from earth and breathed life into him, so Jesus breathed life into the disciples at the beginning of the church and blessed them shortly thereafter with the fire of the Holy Spirit.

John’s Gospel begins with the famous words:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.”  – John 1:1-2. 

Indeed, the very Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, was with God and was moving upon the water in the beginning.

Moving, breathing, thinking, creating, speaking – all are related.  As you move around this spring, in these joyful days after Easter, notice your breath.  Noticing and deepening the breath is the easiest way to make each moment of life a little sweeter.  When out walking, when driving, when standing in line, when sitting – notice how you are breathing.  Take a deep breath. 

Think of the breath of God moving upon the waters. 

Think of God breathing life into the first human. 

Think of Jesus breathing on the disciples to give them the Holy Spirit.  

With every breath we take, we receive the Holy Spirit. 

Through that Holy Spirit we are connected to Jesus and the disciples, to God, and to one another.  We are not alone. 

What is the essence of Christianity, the essence of all religion?  We are not alone.  That is the Good News.  When we are not alone, when we are with others, when life is good it is even better and when life is difficult it’s not so difficult.

Breathe.  And be grateful. 

Have breath and life in the name of Jesus Christ; the very breath, spirit and Word of God.

– Psalm 118:14-29

14 The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation.

15 There is a sound of exultation and victory
in the tents of the righteous:

16 “The right hand of the Lord has triumphed!
the right hand of the Lord is exalted!
the right hand of the Lord has triumphed!”

17 I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the Lord.

18 The Lord has punished me sorely,
but he did not hand me over to death.

19 Open for me the gates of righteousness;
I will enter them;
I will offer thanks to the Lord.

20 “This is the gate of the Lord;
he who is righteous may enter.”

21 I will give thanks to you, for you answered me
and have become my salvation.

22 The same stone which the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.

23 This is the LORD’S doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.

24 On this day the Lord has acted;
we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Acts 4:32-35

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

John 20:19-23

[19] On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

[20] When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
[21] Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”
[22] And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
[23] If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

By now most of us have been made aware of the pollution problem from the use of plastics in our daily lives. We’ve seen images of the plastic islands in our Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

https://oceanplasticdebriseducationresearchawareness.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9eqDo8ek8gIVzhmtBh2DsABAEAAYAyAAEgKHQ_D_BwE

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/08/how-plastics-contribute-to-climate-change/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIg_bR38ak8gIV0z6tBh39awB5EAAYBCAAEgIMb_D_BwE

Plastic manufacturers use different technologies and machinery to reduce the harmful remains of the plastic compound. But it remains a challenge. Not all plastics are recyclable. Microplastics are still found in our waters, threatening sea life, wildlife, and human lives.

One current focus to address the problem is Soft Plastics. Soft plastics are thin, flexible, or film plastics that include plastic bags, plastic wrapping, or flexible packaging material.

Soft plastics lack adequate recycling methods as they easily entangle in waste separation machinery, leading to mechanical failure and contamination of other recyclable materials such as paper.

Phoenix has a program to address Soft Plastic.
https://www.phoenix.gov/publicworks/softplastic

We in the Bay Area and the Peninsula are getting on the bandwagon to follow suit.

The SAN CARLOS LIONS CLUB YOUTH GROUP, the LEOs, HAVE COMMITTED TO A SOFT PLASTIC COLLECTION DRIVE. For every 500 pounds of soft plastic collected, LEOs get to put a park bench somewhere in San Carlos.

A plastic collection bin will be placed in Mahany Hall by the entrance. There is a poster with pictures of what is considered Soft Plastic. For additional reference, download a picture from the Phoenix website above.

WE INVITE AND ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO REMEMBER TO SET ASIDE THEIR SOFT PLASTIC AND BRING IT TO DEPOSIT IN THE LEO’S COLLECTION BIN IN MAHANY HALL THE NEXT TIME YOU ARE ON SITE. The bin will be emptied out once on Thursday night and once on Sunday night.

You will feel good for doing this extra part for our environment!

UCCSC/San Carlos Lions Club LEOs 8/9/21

Mahany Hall and Callis & Elaine Center were the site of an Edventure More (EDMO) 4-week STEAM & SEL focused summer day camp between 6/18 – 7/16/21. It was awesome to see how hard the Program Manager, Site Coordinators, Coaches and Teachers work to make sure that the kids under their wings are safe, learning, and enjoying themselves.