Crowns

 

Crowns

 

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

The good fight of faith 

 

4:6 As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.

 

4:7 I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.

 

4:8 From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

 

4:16 At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them!

 

4:17 But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth.

 

4:18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

 

I’m working on this message while on our cruise, and we just finished a lecture about Salvador Dali’s illustrative watercolors he produced as companion pieces for each of the 100 verses of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” Of course, this epic poem is about his idea of the afterlife as a circuitous journey, starting with hell, at its lowest level, and proceeding upward toward “the heavens,” at its apex. As I remember the poem, we should all be thankful if we don’t end up stuck in the hellish lower levels, let alone griping that we didn’t get some sort of “award” or crown for how we lived our days while still sucking air. I find it humorous to be approaching this particular message after our review of Dante’s masterwork. However, in light of also reflected on the surrealist work of Dali, one of my favorite artists, I suppose the irony is, in itself, a bit surreal.

 

Let me continue to digress a bit, hoping to weave this all back together before this thing gets to the “amen.”

 

Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is surrealist literature, even as Dali’s art is surreal. Both are bold about their views of the Divine mysteries, Dante clearly demonstrating this in his poem, and Dali as a self-proclaimed atheist. As I listened to the lecturer today, it occurred to me that both men’s creative output suggests that they truly had a serious faith in things beyond this, our conscious life, and possibly a profound belief that their was something more, and something greater ahead. Dante’s rumination about it were triggered by the sudden death of his young love, Beatrice. The “Divine Comedy” betrays Dante’s wrestling with the classical “Christian” views of life, death, hell, and heaven. He weaves them all into this profound poem. Dali, on the other hand, calls himself an atheist, yet paints amazing representations of what he experiences in the subconscious realm of his dreams. I wonder if his “atheism” is triggered by the truly surreal landscapes he sees in his dreams, indicating that there is SO much more to reality than what we see while awake, coupled with his interest and knowledge of an emerging field of science in his lifetime—quantum physics. Could he possibly have embraced his atheism because when he looked back at what the church was teaching about the Divine, it could not possibly describe these ever-widening ideas? I must admit that I rarely encounter theologies broad enough to encompass the miraculous world enfolding in the realm of science, knowledge, and the arts. Theology is too often dogmatic and limiting, instead of seeking a broader, more inclusive view. These two greats of literature and art seemed to “get” that there was so much more to life, the universe, and everything—including the Divine—than doctrinal religion could handle, or even wanted to approach. I can get that. I know that we often “blame” the fallout of people—especially the young—from the church on declining interest in morals, or busy agendas, but what if folk are just overwhelmed by the explosion of knowledge at a time when the church is flirting with retrenchment? Maybe there’s more Dante and Dali in us than we might realize.

 

Now, we come to today’s text from the pen of Paul the Apostle. Paul is reflecting on his calling, his ministry as a messenger of the Gospel, and possibly evaluating his perceived effectiveness. We know Paul was an educated man, having studied under one of the great minds of his day, Gamaliel. (When Paul does that thing about “counting it all as garbage” beyond his faith in Christ, we must realize that he is making a value comparison between his love of knowledge and his salvific faith, the latter of which has been transformative. He is not literally throwing his education out with the trash!) Paul is writing to an audience that did not have his background in classical philosophy, history, and civics, so he approaches the afterlife for them using two simple themes: righteous living, and a “heavenly” reward for it. The “man in the street” could understand this: live rightly and in a way that embraces love of God and neighbor; and God will “reward” us when we arrive in the blessed afterlife made possible by the grace of God through the Christ Event. In Paul’s day, a “crown” was both a symbol of social standing and wealth, both things early Christians, most of whom came from neither, might long for. Paul was offering them a simple hope in the midst of the challenges they faced. We modern preachers try to do the same thing, but it is incumbent on us to realize that our folk are more Dante and Dali in regarding the scope of their knowledge, experience, and the questions they bring. (One of my parishioners once told me, “I come to church each week as an atheist, and hope you will prove I am wrong.”) We and the church err when we “dumb down” the faith. Grace may be easy (not cheap), but our questions and the life that generates them are not.

 

In the text, Paul is making a case for living an ethical, “righteous” life, as what will be both honoring to God and an effective witness for the Gospel of Christ. He talks of being “poured out” himself in trying to do so. A true faith life is no easy business. Neither is wearing a crown, by the way, as this, too, carries many obligations. This leads me to one of those personal “sidebar” stories…

 

When I was appointed as lead pastor of St. Paul’s UMC, a few of my ministerial colleagues—who were understandably jealous—questioned what I did to get such a large, “cushy” church job. They saw it as a kind of “crown,” I guess? Having served as an associate pastor there back in the early 1990s, I knew better. While I knew it to be a wonderful and vital church, I also knew the incredible responsibility and heavy workload it presented. There would be nothing “cushy” about it, and that was what I thought was so long before I had to help the church get through the traumatic passing of a truly monumental servant of Christ (and our Administrative Director), Faith Geer, AND the COVID epidemic! My challenge to these colleagues was to come follow me around for a day to see what serving a large, extremely active church was like. Only a couple ever took me up on this, but both said it was a real eye-opener. I can understand what Paul means, at least to some extent, by being “poured out.”

 

Dante may have had the best answer to the best reward of the afterlife—arriving at its highest level. Where he erred, though, was in the idea that righteous living is what gets you there, which might have been the “works righteousness” of the church in his era. What gets us there is nothing but the grace of God. However, Paul is right in saying that both righteous living and “finishing the race” are godly virtues, but they are responses of gratitude for the grace and love of God which we freely receive. AND they are witnesses to the rest of the world of what an effective, compassionate Christian life looks like. Remember, Jesus said that world will know God’s love when they see it working in us!

 

What might be the equivalent of a “crown of righteousness” to us in our day? I would say the satisfied heart. When I live at my most “Christ-like,” I can feel God’s pleasure, as well as my own encouraging contentment. This is no small thing at a time in human history when so many find themselves discontented, angry, or depressed. Remembering my distance-running days, I know that even a good split time doesn’t mean much unless I finished the race. So it is with the Christian life journey. You can have the crown; I’ll relish the day-by-day satisfaction of loving God, my most precious loved ones, and my neighbor. It is such a good feeling to do for others out of the deep, deep well of God’s grace that saves and empowers me. And you?

 

And in terms of serving a large, ridiculously busy church? Dali was right—the clock always seemed to be melting…Amen.

Donald Trump Wrestles the Almighty

 

Donald Trump Wrestles the Almighty

 

Genesis 32:22-31

Jacob receives God's blessing 

 

32:22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

 

32:23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.

 

32:24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

 

32:25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

 

32:26 Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me."

 

32:27 So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob."

 

32:28 Then the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed."

 

32:29 Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him.

 

32:30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved."

 

32:31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

 

 

I had a good laugh as I read this week’s lectionary passage. Why? Because I first think of Jacob as one of the great connivers in the Bible. Jacob cons his brother out of his birthright, GETS conned by his father-in-law to be into marrying Laban’s older daughter, Leah, before prevailing and winning the hand of his beloved Rachel. Jacob seems to find a way to get what he wants, even when others become either the foil of his schemes, or even the victims of them. A sarcastic chuckle blurted out when I thought of the great provocateur of our current time—President Donald Trump—and how he, too, is a well-known conniver who will do most anything to get his way. Then, I had this wild moment of fantasy, imagining Donald Trump having a wrestling match with God (or God’s angel?), which is amplified in its humor by the fact that Trump really IS a big fan of the WWE and its “fantastic,” staged matches between the most bizarre of play-acting characters.

 

Donald Trump as a kind of modern-day Jacob is certainly a stretch, and while our Jewish siblings venerate Jacob as the “father of the tribes of Israel,” they must also admit that he is a schemer. And those of us who aren’t particularly in Donald Trump’s corner must also admit that he has successfully connived his way into the most powerful office in the land—twice—and convinced a majority of American voters—twice—to put him there. And like Jacob, he seems to have a limitless supply of energy, devious longsuffering, and chutzpah to get his way with much, some of which may not be to the betterment of his constituency. But you have to admire his pluck, even if the end results invoke a similarly rhyming word in your mind.

 

So, we have two schemers with massive egos and grandiose plans, facing a challenge that may be beyond their ability to manipulate—Jacob and Donald Trump. The Bible text says that Jacob faced his “opponent” near the shores of the Jabbok, when he found himself locked into an all-night wrestling match with “a man.” And while I’m not a Hebrew scholar, those who are tell us that this “man” was most likely a theophany—some translations say “an angel,” but if a true theophany, “the man” was actually God, making a human appearance. Putting this all together, it is humorous in its own right that Jacob could “out-wrestle” the Almighty, but this is exactly what the text says was happening! So, God pulls a Trump move on Jacob—he cheats. A divine touch to Jacob’s hip socket, and his hip is dislocated, which might have normally ended the match—kind of like we thought happened, in Donald Trump’s case, when Joe Biden defeated him in 2020. Jacob holds on to God, even with a dislocated hip that must have been excruciating, until God “blesses” him. I know it’s a weird metaphor, but this is how I see the resurgence of Donald Trump playing out. He refused to give up his desire for power and his own way, and he has prevailed once again. Although ironically, in winning his second term, it doesn’t appear that he had to cheat to do it, unless you brand his wildly fabricated stories and “analysis” of the problems facing this country a form of cheating by preying on the emotions of his listeners. Again, I’m not offering an apologetic for Donald Trump as much as I’m trying to understand how people like Jacob and Trump are able to prevail, even when they are wrestling with the likes of the Almighty?

 

Is God testing the rest of us by waving the proverbial red cape out of the way, getting the bull to charge, and stepping aside so WE are the ones now facing a raging bull? God renamed Jacob as “Israel,” a name which meant “you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.” And Jacob’s sons would be the progenitors of the future people who would wear the “Israel” moniker, themselves. And is it not true that God’s people Israel have faced massive challenges—both human and divine—down through the centuries—pogroms, persecutions, holocausts—and yet have survived to this day, at least in some form? And does not the world have a love/hate relationship with the modern state of Israel, in that we stand with them and yet deride them for “overreaching,” in this case, seeking to obliterate the Palestinians in the name of “protecting their interests”? We’re back to Donald Trump again. In him, Israel has found both a friend and foe, depending on which way the wind is blowing. I admit that I am fairly impressed with the peace plan that Trump’s team has put on the table to end the fighting between Israel and the Palestinians, as I mentioned in last week’s message. Its openness to a two-state solution for the Palestinians while calling for an end to terrorist attacks against Israel, as well as utilizing a United Nations-led arbitrating committee to manage the situation seems like it could work. The wide support the plan has engendered among the Arab nations may be a ray of hope. (As I am editing this message the week of 10/15, the initial plan has been signed, some hostages released, but still threats to its enaction remain.)

 

This is the “wrestling match with God” that today’s Israel must face. Might God use another conniver—President Trump—to spur an amicable solution? Or might God use him to “dislocate” Israel’s hip joint to accept and agree to a peace that is not exactly what they wanted? In reading what is truly an absurd passage from the Book of Genesis this week, I guess I should not be so swift to laugh at how God might have something up God’s sleeve that uses an absurd “catalyst” from our own time, the aforementioned Donald Trump. We can only hope that something good comes of this for all the parties involved. I wish I could be more optimistic, but our President seems to have a penchant for mucking things up just as it something is about to break, for he, too, suffers from the same kind of “paralysis by ego” that Jacob did. Both of them would certainly benefit from a wrestling match with the Almighty to have their egos knocked back a few notches, even by a God who cheats, when necessary.

 

Anyone who tries to sanitize some of these preposterous Bible stories is missing the message behind the mayhem. In this case, God is so concerned with the human creation that God is willing to “get down and get dirty” with us to prevail, whether it’s wrestling or blessing. As we mentioned last week, this is precisely what God is doing in the Christ Event, and we must admit God “cheats” there, too. God cheats DEATH, actually. Jesus was murdered by the powers that he threatened with is message of forgiveness, love, and reconciliation of all humanity. As we know, when you are murdered, you are dead. Jesus was dead, but then God cheated. And death’s hip was dislocated, permanently. Thanks to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, death will not prevail.

 

As I have mentioned in other messages, too, it is important t note that Mideastern traditions are much different from ours in the West. The Bible is full of stories of unscrupulous actors being used by God (David) or even being praised by Jesus (the parable of the unjust steward, for example). We have a hard time rationalizing these with our Western ethics, but of course, those in the Mideast don’t get our “business ethics” of usury in lending and “hostile takeovers,” let alone stockholders abiding such nasty, predatory behaviors just to milk a few extra dollars out of their shares.

 

For those of us who struggle mightily with our current situation under President Trump and his “wrestling match” between wanting to earn a Nobel Peace Prize AND carrying out destructive revenge and retribution against those he perceives as his enemies, may look to this passage as a sign of hope. Israel might never have come to be, had it not been for God’s willingness to wrestle with Jacob, resulting in the change of direction necessary for its birth. Perhaps we should pray for our President to have one of those late-night divine wrestling matches in place of a tweet bomb? He already knows the “theater of war,” given his love affair with the WWE, so just maybe the Almighty can entice him into the ring? God knows our nation needs a change of direction, if IT is to survive. And we believe in a God who just won’t give up on us! Amen.

 

 

 

The Vegi-Pod Fiasco

 

The Vegi-Pod Fiasco

 

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Israel plants gardens in Babylon 

 

29:1 These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

 

29:4 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:

 

29:5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.

 

29:6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.

 

29:7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

 

 

Since this week’s message features a prophetic passage about hope, let me start with a story of hopelessness!

 

A few years ago, Dara and I ventured out to the annual Home Show in Pittsburgh, held at the massive Raphael Vinoly masterpiece, the Convention Center. Since our townhouse is a fairly new structure, we went only to “get some ideas” about minor improvements, not expecting to spend much, other than gazing time. Of course, you know how that works out. At the end of one long aisle, we came across a display of “Vegi-Pods,” which is an Australian invention. The Vegi-Pod is a free-standing, elevated gardening device, with a ventilated cover to keep destructive insects away from your “crop.” The unit has a large plastic base that holds an amount of water, that automatically feeds the plants, when their roots grow through the dirt in the upper level, and into the water layer. Since we really can’t have a garden in our small backyard, and other “container gardens” had been eaten alive by insects, we decided to spring for the smallest of the Vegi-Pods on display, along with a stand and the optional top cover, designed to let air and light in, but keep bugs out. At just a bit over $400, they would ship it to us, so we didn’t have to lug stuff around as we continued perusing the show. As it turns out, that was a big mistake, on a couple of counts. Not being incumbered with Vegi-Pod boxes meant we would be enticed by a super-deluxe, split-top, queen-sized mattress with a fancy, remote-controlled, duel-adjusting frame. Suffering from guilt over spending $400 on the Vegi-Pod thing, we assuaged it by buying a $9,000 mattress and adjustable bed. (At only $250 a month—with no interest—we’d have it paid off in only three years.) We really like the bed, by the way, and it’s been very good for my back and acid reflux. The Vegi-Pod is another story…

 

For the past three years, we’ve put new, special “raised-bed” soil in the Vegi-Pod, filled its lower chambers with water, and have tried planting various “crops” in it, from tomato plants, to peppers, to even the most simple leaf lettuce. The “high-tech” cover keeps the destructive insects out, but apparently, it is just as efficient denying the plants what they need to grow. One season, we decided to hinge the top back to expose our plant sets to the proper natural elements, and the insects feasted on them, as usual. Our $400 Vegi-Pod investment has been a disaster. Since neither Dara or I have a “green thumb” with growing stuff, we have consigned ourselves to buying produce at the market and will offer the Vegi-Pod up at a future moving sale, hoping someone who has an Australian heritage can make sense of it. At least we’re getting a good night’s sleep.

 

In this week’s lectionary passage, Israel starts out behind the proverbial “eight ball,” as they find themselves in exile in Babylon, again living as “strangers in a strange land,” mostly because of their selfishly fashioned unfaithfulness to Yahweh. They long for Zion, wanting desperately to go “home.” They cry out to God about it, sing about it, and are just otherwise miserable in Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar. Their cries to God seem to be hitting the ceiling, as the prophets had told them it was God who sent them there because of their unfaithfulness, in the first place. Now, I must remind the reader that Israel practiced a strict monotheistic faith, when they decided to be faithful to Yahweh, their God. The great Shema they recited regularly, and which we see peppered throughout the Old Testament, was: “Here O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” Other than those times when they tried out the multiple “godlets” of the tribes around them, this is what they believed. As monotheists, they necessarily believed that everything—EVERYTHING—had to have its causality in this one God. Even “evil” had to come from God, including Israel’s frequent misfortune of being conquered and taken into captivity by stronger nations. And as monotheists, on their best days, they believed that only Yahweh could be their deliverance. Hence, they cried out to God in their misery, hoping for better days ahead, when God decided to listen.

 

In this case, God gives Jeremiah a hopeful message to share with God’s people, Israel. The prophet tells them to “home out” in Babylon—plant gardens, build houses, and enjoy whatever bounty they can muster in captivity. In short, live like you ARE in Zion. It sounds like an overly simplistic message, but think about what God, through Jeremiah, is trying to do here. Here is a short summary of the message:

 

         “Stop crying and start living. A place is not as important as your attitude about life. Longing for Zion has become an excuse for making yourselves miserable. Even in Babylon, you must eat, raise your children, love your families, build a harmonious community with one another, and most of all, return to your faithful life with Yahweh. After all, the forever promise is that God will always be with you. God is a “portable” God—wherever you are, God will be WITH you, not hanging around in Jerusalem, waiting for you to rejoin God there.”

 

When Israel adopts a better attitude and starts building a better life in situ, they will rediscover that God IS with them. By developing an enthusiasm for their lives, their faith, their families, and even it “seeking the welfare of the city where God has sent them,” they will be so much better off. And just possibly, a metamorphosis on their part might lead to freedom and a return to their homeland. Of course, we know it eventually does.

 

The psychology here should not be lost on us, either. As a pastor, I can testify that much of my time in the counseling room was with parishioners who found themselves in deep lament over where they “were” at a given stage of life. As they would describe their angst, I could hear that they were in some state of “exile,” either foisted upon them, or self-imposed. Exempting persons who suffered from some form of clinical depression—which almost always requires professional, even medical intervention—I would often share Jeremiah’s counsel to Israel from this passage, with the reminder that God was with them, as well. As Christians, who are not monotheists in the sense that we must locate all “evil” and misfortune in God’s lap, we do believe that “God so loved the world that God sent the only Son” for our redemption and benefit. God is NOT against us; God is eternally FOR us. And God desires, as indicated in the Christ Event, to deliver us from whatever “captivity” in which we may find ourselves. Still, we may have to “plant some gardens” and work at changing our attitude before we reawaken enough faith to again see the light from God illuminating a path forward.

 

There is also something to this “seek the welfare of the city where you find yourselves” encouragement, too. If the place we find ourselves seems hostile toward us, perhaps if we invest a little energy in improving ITS outlook, we might possibly find our own outlook improving as well. “Planting a garden” is another way of saying “bloom where you are planted.” There is an old fable about an aging man who responds to his own waning mortality and the recent death of his wife by planting a tree, the fruit of which he will never see. While his neighbors chide him for it, declaring the act as “folly,” the man names the tree, “Hope.” In his own final days, he watches it take root and begin to grow, knowing that others will benefit from his response to grief. (Note that many funeral homes today offer an opportunity to “plant a tree” as a gesture in remembering loved ones who have died. See where it comes from?)

 

Friends, if you ever find yourself in some “captivity” that is so confining it is sapping all of your energy and leading to sleepless nights—kind of like Israel in Babylon—maybe it’s time to “plant a garden,” or “seek the welfare of the city” by engineering a change in attitude. Begin by renewing your faith in our God who has planted his OWN garden among us by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, as our friend, guide, and Savior. Oh, and if you want to give a Vegi-Pod a try for that garden, I know where you can get one real cheap. Amen.

 

Plenty of Room in the Pew

Plenty of Room in the Pew

 

Lamentations 1:1-6

Jerusalem empty and destroyed 

 

1:1 How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become subject to forced labor.

 

1:2 She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers, she has no one to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.

 

1:3 Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations; she finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

 

1:4 The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals; all her gates are desolate; her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter.

 

1:5 Her foes have become the masters; her enemies prosper because the LORD has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe.

 

1:6 From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty. Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer.

 

What an appropriate text for this week’s retirement sermon, given the revelation of the “Trump Peace Plan” for Gaza, Israel, and Palestine! It doesn’t take an historical or exegetical genius to understand that this Lamentations text is a cry of emptiness during the exile—in fact, the text actually SAYS so! Growing up in the church, and attending worship and Sunday School weekly, I can remember wondering what was so special about Jerusalem. It seems to show up in so many texts, is the “apple of the eye” of the Jewish people, down through history, and even became the shared “Holy City” with Muslims and Christians. For the Jews, it is the mythical “Zion” for which they cry, especially when they were driven out of it. For Christians, it was the capital city of Jesus’ ministry, is where he was crucified, and if you follow the dispensationalist philosophy, is where Jesus will “touch down” upon his return. Muslims have one of their holiest mosques there, the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, which includes the “Dome of the Rock,” which they believe enshrines the very rock where Abram was to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Still, I never understood the preoccupation with Jerusalem. My seminary and “faith” education has helped inform this understanding, but having been there, I’m still thinking it’s a bit of an oversell. As I walked the streets of Jerusalem, I found it hard to imagine it as the place Jesus strolled with his little band, even when I tried imagining the numerous Israeli soldiers with their machine guns were the Roman guards mixing with the people in Jesus’ day. Of course, the streets I walked were many levels above the ones Jesus walked, so knowing this took some of the magic away, as well. Yes, the “mystique” of Jerusalem is somewhat lost on me, but certainly not for those of the major religions who continue to posture for control of their parts of the city, if not the whole enchilada. 

 

I suppose we should listen to our Jewish siblings who have such a “thing” for it. Ultimately, Jerusalem stands for all of the things the Jewish people have always longed for and never seemed able to have: prosperity; religious freedom; a secure land; and peace. The “Promised Land” God offered to them was already occupied by others, and in some cases, people who did NOT want to share the territory. Israel’s biblical history is one of wars over these things, exile and return, and then being chased out again, and, of course, fighting with God over whether they were following God’s law. Most anyone has heard the more recent history of how, after the second World War, the fledgling United Nations divided up the Mideastern parcel of land known simply as “Palestine,” relegating a fair portion of it to a newly created nation of “Israel,” while giving the collection of peoples who were currently living there—the “Palestinians”—a portion, as well. This didn’t sit well with the collection of “tribes” making up the Palestinian residents, and was even more irritating as the Jewish diaspora began to congeal in the new Jewish nation. For many Jews, this became the “return to Zion” they believed their holy scriptures had forecast for millennia. Jerusalem, with its various religions, was again the “capital city” of the resulting dispute over who was in charge, and how that was going to work. In 2016, a new American President put his endorsement on moving the capital of modern Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, “refreshing” the historic irritation over this question. One of the hardest things for Christians to understand is that Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel—the political “nation state” created by the United Nations in 1947-1948—is NOT the same thing as “Israel” as the people of God we read about in the Hebrew Bible. It was actually heartening to see this week, as I write this sermon, that a majority of Americans have now come to realize this, and that empathy and support for the Palestinians of Gaza has eclipsed the “blind” support for Israel. At the least, we now believe these “Palestinians” have a right to exist and to have a homeland where they, too, can have some measure of security and safety.

 

I know I’ve related this before, but it is important for Christians to realize that the modern nation state of Israel has been quite hostile to the people of Gaza and the West Bank LONG before the current war spurred by Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7 of 2023. Many of us who have been on educational pilgrimages to the “Holyland” were also made privy to the horrifying stories of Palestinian Christians who had their legally built and owned homes simply bulldozed by Israel while they were at work, coming home to their school-aged children crying in the rubble of what had been their bedrooms. Why? Because Israeli Jews wanted the land for their own settlements. This has been going on almost since the United Nations divided the land, in the first place. Here is a map (about six years old) of what has happened as this “land stealing” has taken place:

 

 

While Hamas may be a terrorist organization, can we at least see why groups like the and Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) have taken such a dim view of “modern” Israel? One can argue the historical “hatred” between the people of Ishmael and the people of Isaac all you want, but clearly the events since 1947-1948 have stoked these historical fires. 

 

Yes, as the author of Lamentations relates, Israel has lived so much of its life in “lament” for what they have had and lost and then had again. The tears are real, even as they have been for the hostages captured and killed two years ago this month. As always, though, the “oppressed” in this case—Israel—must take responsibility for that part of their suffering which the writer is saying they must own. Was what happened in 2023 right or “fair”? Of course not, but one can see why Israel has been lighting the fuse on a powder keg for decades. 

 

Now, this week, we have a new plan for peace on the table. To our President’s credit (and I’m not one to give him much, I admit), he and his team has put something on the table that has a chance, or at least deserves serious consideration. This plan would bargain a peace by brokering concessions from Israel about backing off their incessant expansion into Palestinian territory, and from the “confederation” Palestinian peoples by cooperating with the United Nations, which would form an “apolitical” committee to supervise the rebuilding of Gaza. Obviously, the plan is much more complicated than this—after all, it is a 20-point plan—but this is the core of it. The news today is that Netanyahu has agreed to pursue it after a long meeting with President Trump and his team, but he will have to sell it to those back home who are even more hardline than he is, which is hard to imagine. A large and increasing number of the Arab nations have signed on to pursuing the plan, pressuring Hamas to agree to it, as well. One of the formerly “non-negotiable” parts of the plan is that a door would be opened to a Palestinian state, something typically referred to as the “two state” idea. Now the world waits to see what will happen. I know it’s quite premature, but if a peace IS brokered, and one that may eventually lead to a Palestinian state AND a retrenchment of Israeli expansion in the West Bank, our President may get and deserve that Nobel Peace Prize he so badly covets!

 

One cannot read this passage from Lamentations without “feeling the pain” of the original audience of the piece, and certainly recognizing that even modern people who have been exiled—or otherwise marginalized—must face. When I read it, though, once I got beyond thinking about Israel and Palestine, another “pained” group popped into my mind—the modern Christian church.

 

You see, we, too, have an “exile” going on. The tearful words, “How lonely sits the city that was once full of people,” can apply to the empty pews of most of our churches. (I know I’m taking the “allegory” route here, which we were scutched in seminary for doing!) As a retired pastor, I have been preaching in a number of United Methodist Churches, filling in for vacationing colleagues, representing the Mission Barn (team-speaking with Dara, who is a board member), and even serving part-time in a hurting church for a year. To look out upon pews meant to hold hundreds of worshippers “back in the day” and to see only a handful now DID invoke such a lament in my heart. There was a time when a majority of Americans attended church regularly just because it was a healthy place to raise a family, an opportunity to give thanks for one’s blessings, and a place to meet your neighbors, often ones of very different socio-economic or even racial backgrounds as you. Remember how, when things were going well for Israel in its long history, it tended to let arrogance trump gratitude? It’s happened to us, too. The last time I saw a church packed (other than a large church like St. Paul’s that would fill the pews on Christmas Eve) was when terrorists staged the horrible attacks of September 11, 2001. And after that largely blew over, things pretty much went back to normal. COVID became an “open door” for even more self-imposed exile from our churches, and in several of our Christian denominations, schisms over doctrines and “biblical authority” became another. “Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations; she finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.”

 

The churches that are filled tend to be ones that cater to the needs and desires of those who fill them. It’s much harder to fill the pews with people when your message and key efforts are about seeking justice, brokering peace between “warring” factions, and offering God’s grace to the hurting and tearful. These things, while gospel—literally—don’t sell out the room, anymore. Our arrogance, rooted in the belief that WE are the masters of our own prosperity, has stolen “the Lord’s Day” away from the church. Churches that either refuse to “prostitute” themselves on the altar of “giving the people what they want” (or, in some cases, just don’t know how), have plenty of room in the pews, and NO wiggle room in the church checkbook. I’ll be honest—I was optimistic that the “disaffiliation” movement in the United Methodist Church might lead to a true “reforming” of the remnant church, including a commitment to streamlining and “right-sizing” the church structure, aimed at truly focusing on what we believe. So far, I’m not seeing much of that. We have possibly fallen prey to the same “turf wars” and survivalism that others have faced in such schisms. At least we have opened the door to more inclusivism, especially for LGBTQ persons, but even that is highly tempered on an “individual church” basis. It is still not true that my gay friends can attend any UMC in the belief that they will be warmly welcomed. 

 

So, as Moses challenged the people of primitive Israel in Deuteronomy, we have two choices before us, as nations of the world, and as religious bodies such as the church. We can choose to continue down the path of selfishness, “exile” from one another, and eventually the destruction of our societies, or we can CHOOSE LIFE. Let’s all pray that the Trump Peace Plan succeeds in some form, AND that our churches will awaken to the challenge before them to meet the legitimate needs of the people in their neighborhoods, welcoming all, and offering them Christ, as Mr. Wesley said, without selling out to merely consumerist religion. 

 

After all, there’s plenty of room in the pew…Amen.