"Let the Waiting Begin"

“Let The Waiting Begin”
Advent I
Mark 13:24-32
Rev Carolyn Waters
November 27, 2005 CCUM

It’s the first Sunday of Advent! Do you know what you are waiting for?

Wait you must, for the next four weeks. Wait you will, whether you want to or not.

Waiting is the single most word that describes these four week of our liturgical year. It has become a helpful way to “countdown” 4….3…..2…..1…..Christmas!

According to an article Ben found in an old Christianity Today, the tradition of Advent began in the 4th/5th Century of Spain as a preparation for Epiphany! The time we celebrate the baptism of Jesus, the visit of the Magi! The Romans took over Advent in the 6th Century, linking it to the “coming” of Christ. “Coming” was not about the birth, but about the “second coming,” thus the scripture today from Mark warning listeners to be alert and awake for we do not know the hour or the time that Christ will come. By the middle ages, Advent focused on the “birth” of the Christ Child, but not without the mixture of the second coming theology. (Advent---Close Encounters of a Liturgical Kind<” by Chris Armstrong. Dec 6, 2002 Christianity Today.)

So today we begin the process of liturgical waiting, anticipation of getting from this day, to the 25th day of December.

A story is told about a little boy that could not wait to get to high school. The high school kids seemed to have so much fun. Once he got to high school however, he noticed that the people, like his sister, who had gone off to college were having more fun than he was. He could not wait to get to college. But college seemed to drag on after a time and he was tired of all the homework. He couldn’t wait to get out of school, get a job and make some money. When he got his first job, it seemed as though people who were really happy were the ones with a wife or husband, a couple of children and a home with a back yard – maybe even a family dog. But once he was married and had two children and a mortgage and a dog, he envied those couples whose children had gone away to college. They had so much more time for each other. Finally his children had left for college. But now the burden of a mortgage and tuition for two children was very heavy and he couldn’t wait to be out of debt, pay off his house and retire. Then he could have some real fun like all those people who move to Arizona and play golf every day. Then one day – in the early winter of his life – standing at the tee of the 18th hole of the golf course near his home in Phoenix –– he thought to himself, "What’s the point?"

Our senses are often numbed by the Christmas season. We look around and go “What’s the point?” We may step aside from the hustle and bustle, declaring it all too commercial or far to full of simple consumerism mentality. But often in doing so, the cynic is alive and well in our attitude and even the spiritual aspect of the season is lost, forgotten, or simply ignored.

What is the point? Well, if we can’t enjoy the waiting………..we miss the experience and the expectation. If we can’t live in the midst of the unknown, the not knowing, then our dept of faith is wanton and shallow. Whether we are waiting for new life, or waiting for the announcement of death, we are living in the mean time………..we are living in the moment of the experience, we are living with the known and the unknown.

What we know is that God will show up again and again and again. What we don’t know is exactly how or when God will show up. So in the mean time we rehearse a story that has come to be so meaningful that nothing else can replace it. We rehearse a story for 4,3,2,1 weeks that opens our hearts to the possibility of beauty and love coming into the world over and over again. The already and not yet nature of God with us, but we are waiting for the already and not yet presence of God to return.

Part of the reason we can wait is because we know what we are waiting for. Part of the reason we can wait is because of the anticipation of a surprise that we know nothing about. We wait with patience because we know the wait is not forever, we wait with impatience because we just can’t wait to find out what God is going to do next.

Jenee Woodward, is the pastor of a local church, and shared her “Advent Waiting” story three years ago with her congregation. Her son Phil has autism. At the time she told her story he was 10 years old. He is severely handicapped by his disability. The family learned to slow down at Christmas a number of years ago when Phil was unable to tolerate *any* of the celebration. “He could not handle the changing scenarios - the twinkling lights, the changes in grocery store displays, the changes in the sanctuary at church, presents appearing under the tree, the tree ITSELF, and the moved furniture. He would fall on the floor and scream, unable to move, afraid to open his eyes, almost constantly from Thanksgiving until well after Christmas when it was all over.” His parents carried him through that time his head covered with his coat so they could get through the grocery store, or sat they with him huddled in his room, carefully ordered EXACTLY the same since summer, with no Christmas trappings.

Their neighbor across the street was one of those folks who bought every new outdoor Christmas display. Phil slept on the sofa in the living room for two Decembers, trying to stay awake so he could make sure that all of the lights across the street (on the whole block!) were functioning correctly. If one went out, or if the lights came on or turned off outside the proper times, he would scream and cry in panic until it was fixed.

Worship on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day was over-crowded and yet hushed, not a good combination for an autistic child. Christmas celebrations at home were a nightmare. Phil would scream and cry as each package was moved and (gasp!) unwrapped. As frightened as he was when each new thing appeared, he was equally frightened when it changed or disappeared. The family would try to find him a present he'd enjoy, but he'd merely scream and cry in panic at the intrusion on his carefully ordered world, and the gifts would sit ignored until he outgrew them and they gave them to some little boy who could appreciate them.

He wanted nothing. He would look straight at toys his parents thought he would like, and he would not react at all. He asked for nothing. He anticipated nothing. He just screamed and cried at all of it. His mother Jenee said in her story that “it is no bliss to have a child who doesn't get it - who doesn't want anything and doesn't want to have anything to do with Christmas commercialism - or it is only bliss in some romantic fantasy. In real life it is a surreal nightmare.”

Three years ago, right around Thanksgiving, one more time they asked the kids what they wanted for Christmas. Their 14-year-old daughter sat down and made out her list. And Phil, their 10-year old son, for the first time in his life, answered the question. "PlayStation 2," he said. "I want PlayStation 2 Christmas." She says they just about fell over. His sister gave him a piece of paper. She wrote "Phil's Christmas List" at the top. He wrote, "PLAYSTATION TOW" under her heading. "At Sam's," he said. "Go to car."

So, they drove to Sam's right then. Phil had never looked at anything there, never seemed to notice that Sam's had anything he might want. But he led them right to the PlayStation 2 sets, picked out the bundle he wanted and put it in the cart. "Open at Christmas," he said. He watched gleefully as they wrapped the package, and then he solemnly placed it under the tree. So, a PlayStation 2 game set sat there, wrapped, with his name on it, and he waited to open it. "December 25," Phil says. "Open PlayStation 2 December 25."

One night during Advent the family returned from yet another Christmas rehearsal with at church, Phil found a Best Buy ad in the paper and turned immediately to the PlayStation games. He circled "Harry Potter" and "John Madden Football", handed the ad to his dad, and said, "I want Christmas." There were tears in his mothers eyes. Jenee says of this moment: “It's was such a small thing, but such a truly amazing thing. It was one more bit of hope that Phil will be able to function in some semblance of society as an adult one day - that he might be able to live just a BIT more independently, and one day want the things he needs to survive enough to work for them. His mother says “consumerism might be ‘the enemy’, but a kid who understands none of it is only a hero in a Chicken Soup For The Soul story.

Jenee ended the story of Phil’s advent this way: “This Advent season I am grateful for being able to appreciate what complexity and miracle is involved in such small "selfish" acts as wanting something for Christmas and expressing those wants to another person. I'm grateful that my son is able to enjoy all of the commercial cultural trappings of the holiday this year instead of running from them screaming. I'm grateful for the many ways Phil helps me stop and look again, even at my most ‘Christian’ conclusions. And I'm especially grateful that my son helps me see Christ's humble birth, over and over again, even in the midst of nightmares and worries I could not have imagined 10 years ago, even in the midst of Advent.”
(http://www.textweek.com/advent_story.htm)

After I read that story several weeks ago I e-mail Jenee Woodward and thanked her for sharing her life with thousands of would be strangers on the Internet. She responded saying that Phil is 13 years old now and enjoys the preparations for Christmas more and more.

Phil’s story reminds me that even when we know what we are waiting for, we can do so with joy and expectation. And Phil’s story reminds me that even when we know what we are waiting for, we can do so with anticipation and wonder. No matter how much we think we know about what we are waiting for, we are still caught in mystery and darkness and not knowing. Jenee and Phil both knew what was under the Christmas tree, but neither of them knows what the future will bring.

We know most of what we expect will happen in this time of Advent as we prepare for our individual celebrations with family and friends. But there is always space in the stolen moments of darkness that surprise us. Not all of the surprises are filled with joy. Many of them are filled with great sadness.

Some people wait to be able to return to their home, after almost four months of homelessness. Others wait to return from war. Some familys wait for a doctor’s report or text results, others may have to wait for endless hours in a surgery waiting room.

Whether we wait for the known or the unknown, whether we wait for the expected or unexpected, whether we wait for the good news or the hard news, we are invited to wait for it with patience, and we are invited to wait for it with God. If we wait all alone, it’s chaos and terror, like a neighborhood full of lights to an autistic child. If we wait for the unexpected with God, then we wait with hope, knowing some of how the story goes, but also knowing that in God’s universe the unknown holds the deepest mystery of expectation and grace.

We can wait, because we know what we are waiting for. We have to wait, because we really have no idea what God is going to do.

From Rev Claire Childress

With Claire's permission I share the sermon she preached on November 6th, 2005 at First United Methodist Church in Boulder, Colorado.


Oil Reserves
Matthew 25:1-13 November 6, 2005

A father was driving his daughter to a dance lesson early one November morning when out of the blue she asked, “Daddy, why are you wearing that flower?” It was a simple question, and all she wanted was a simple answer, but in the silent moments that he took to respond, wrestling to find the right words, many thoughts came to his mind.
Some of his friends had stopped wearing the poppy, because it was linked for them with the glorification of war, and he wasn’t wearing it out of a sense of national pride or valor. Remembrance Day ceremonies at his daughter’s school were days to sing and talk of peace; the days that formerly had led students into active military service had long passed. He himself had been born a decade after the last World War ended, and he certainly wasn’t wearing a poppy because he had personal memory of friends who had never returned. So why was he wearing the flower?
And then the words came. “I wear this flower every November because it reminds me of the people who died in wars.”
“That’s sad,” his five-year-old said.
“You’re right. It always makes me feel like crying.”
“Then why do you wear it, Daddy?”
“Because I don’t ever want to forget to cry.”

I like this story for this morning for several reasons. First, the remembrance of all who continue to die in wars. Next, our love and grief for those whom we especially remember today on All Saints Sunday. And also, sadly, for what has occurred in our denomination this past week.

As some of you know, The United Methodist Church’s Judicial Council – the equivalent of the Supreme Court – handed down two grievous decisions early this past week. One of them was expected – the final removal of the clergy credentials of The Rev. Beth Stroud, a gifted and beloved pastor who has been fighting to hold onto her ministry since she came out as a lesbian living in a long-term committed relationship. That one was pretty much expected.

What has stunned nearly everyone is what the Council did in a case few of us even knew about until this week, involving a pastor in Virginia who late last year denied church membership to a man because he is a practicing homosexual.
When that happened, his Bishop, district superintendent, and all but twenty of over six hundred pastors voted to remove him as leader of a congregation. The pastor then appealed that decision to the Judicial Council, who this week ruled that he was within his rights, and that pastors can exclude anyone we deem inappropriate for membership in our churches. This is frightening.

There has been a firestorm of protest, which I hope will only grow. In Denver, a prayer vigil at Iliff and conference offices took place on Thursday, along with a media statement and plans for an ad in The United Methodist Reporter.

The Council of Bishops has issued a pastoral letter which they request be read or distributed in every congregation, stating that homosexuality is not a barrier to membership and urging all pastors and laity to make every congregation a community of hospitality. Copies are available on the table by the main doors.

The Board of Ordained Ministry of the Baltimore Washington Conference has passed a resolution asking the Council of Bishops to call for a special session of General Conference to be held as soon as possible to clarify the authority and accountability of pastors, cabinets, bishops, Boards of Ordained Ministry and clergy sessions as to whom may be received as member of our churches.
Two former Judicial Council members, including Sally Geis of Denver, have formally requested that United Methodist Communications withdraw all references to the current slogan “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors,” since the Judicial Council decision makes the statement untrue and obviously false advertising.

St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis has e-mailed a petition addressed to the Judicial Council urging reversal of this decision. That is also in the narthex for any of you who wish to sign. It’s at the welcome table.

Don Messer, former Iliff president now an activist for AIDS awareness, cautions that reconsideration of this action will take months and that the composition of the Council would make a reversal a miracle. Instead, he finds hope that even in Virginia – far from the most liberal of conferences – only a handful of pastors thought this was okay, and that the overwhelming majority of United Methodists nationwide will be ashamed of this action and want to reaffirm our church’s open membership. The Judicial Council does not speak for the church, he insists, and reminds us that Bishop Melvin Wheatley used to always encourage us never to surrender the church to the right-wingers, and to affirm that it is our church regardless of those who seek to exclude us.

Likewise Ron Hodges, Director of Mission and Ministry for this conference, writes that when the many lay friends who are asking him why they should stay in the United Methodist church when the Council’s decisions are so foreign to their personal beliefs, he says this: “You need to stay because your witness is so much greater from within the church than it will ever be from without.”

Which brings me to the gospel lesson for today. (Matthew 25:1-13) This is the lectionary text; I didn’t select it. It’s perfect, though. Here’s why.

Most scholars consider this text to be an allegory – each major element is a symbol for something. The wedding banquet, for example, is a symbol for the kingdom of heaven; the long-awaited bridegroom clearly is the expected Son of Man, Jesus Christ.

[I need to stop here for a minute and tell you about this word “kindom.” I learned it from Cal McConnell. It’s in your bulletins twice this morning, not a misprint, but a word to use instead of “kingdom,” which can have connotations of male domination, hierarchy, and other things we don’t associate with God’s realm. If we leave out the “g,” and make it “kindom,” the word more accurately reflects what we imagine – the family of God, humankind, related to one another, connected in the Spirit.]

The strange midnight arrival of the bridegroom underscores the expectation that the messiah will come an unexpected time, like a thief in the night, and the cry of the foolish bridesmaids, “Lord, Lord” evokes the sad response of the groom, “I do not know you . . . .” It all echoes the judgment in Matthew Chapter 7 where “not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” and Christ will turn away from evildoers with a dire “I never knew you.”

This judgment stuff is hard for us – after all, we’re hurt and angry that some of our brothers and sisters have been judged unfit, so how can we do the same thing? I have a big struggle here, but what I can get into is this odd business of who is wise and who is foolish, and what having enough oil has to do with it.

Why is having an extra flask of oil the characteristic that distinguishes wise from foolish in this parable? Is it that the “wise” bridesmaids have enough oil to work through the long night of waiting for the bridegroom, doing the will of God without ceasing while the realm of God is delayed?
Sounds good, but there’s a problem. None of the bridesmaids not even the wise ones, actually worked through the night. They all slept, wise and foolish.

The wise bridesmaids are described as “those who were ready.” For what? We imagine it to mean ready for the bridegroom, but so were the foolish ones – all of them were eager for his arrival.

What were the wise ones ready for that the foolish were not? THE DELAY!!!!!
Bringing along an extra flask of oil signals that they are ready for the bridegroom to arrive early or late. If he had arrived on time, all the bridesmaids would have greeted him and waltzed merrily into the banquet.
But the groom, like the kindom of heaven, did not arrive promptly. He was delayed, and some two thousand years later, the kindom is still delayed.

The wise ones in the church are those who are prepared for the delay; who hold onto the faith deep into the night; who, even though they see no bridegroom coming, still serve and hope and pray and wait and work for the promised victory of God.

In the contemporary words of a good pastor friend who e-mailed me this week, “What distinguished wise from foolish is that the wise were prepared for the delay, were prepared for some stupid decisions from on high, were prepared for discouragement, were prepared to know that simply because some dumb judicial agency makes a foolish ruling, this cannot, cannot, keep the bridegroom from coming. And this bridegroom who comes is for mercy, righteousness, and peace. And those who try to keep gays and lesbians out of the kingdom are going to be off at the oil shop when the bridegroom comes.

‘Lord, didn’t we pass legislation that honored you?’ they will cry. ‘I never knew you,’ will come the awful reply.”

Regardless of our sexual orientation, any of us, or our theology, or our politics; whether we are proud of being a Reconciling Congregation or wish we had never heard the term, I solemnly hope that all of us are profoundly and personally offended by what the Judicial Council has done. I call on us, every one, to respond in some way, according to the Spirit’s leading.

It seems to me there is no more fitting way to honor those who have gone before us, giving so much of themselves to this church, and those who will come after us, that these doors will be open to them, whoever they are.

I’ll close with these well-known words by The Rev. Martin Niemoller, written in 1945. You’ve heard them:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

A Big Enough Table

“A Big Enough Table”
Matthew 25:31-24
Rev Carolyn Waters
November 20, 2005 CCUM


Mark Twain
“It is not those parts of the Bible that I do not understand that bother me. It is the parts of the Bible that I do understand that bother me the most.”

The gospel lesson this morning is quite clear and to the point! Take care of the people who need help and you’re a sheep! Enter the kingdom of heaven with no risk or question! On the other hand, if you turn the other way in the face of injustice, you’re a goat! No amount of barter or begging or bribing will make a difference. The goat’s are history, be gone from here, there is simply no hope.

But wait just a minute. Before we too quickly assume that we are in one animal pen or the other, lets take a minute to look a little closer at what happened for the surprised righteous ones who were welcomed to God’s kingdom, and the shocked ones likened to goats who were turned away.

In our liturgical calendar, this is the last Sunday of the Christian year, commonly referred to as “Christ the King” Sunday. In effect, this is the day that would make the most since for people to “join” the church or confess their faith. It is the day that we use the scripture to ask the question, who wants to be a part of this party? Who wants to go for this ride? Who, by the way they are living and the decisions they are making, are living lives that reflect the Kingdom of God in our midst.

Perhaps that would make a really good question at the time of joining the church. “Are you living a life to reflect the Kingdom of God in our midst?”

Reinhold Neibuhr in his work Beyond Tragedy, published in 1937 and therefore a little dates with language, speaks directly to this scripture passage:
“On the one hand it is true that it makes a difference whether men are good or evil, loving or selfish, honest or dishonest. It makes a real difference, that is, an ultimate difference in the sight of God. On the other hand it makes no difference. No life can justify itself ultimately in the sight of God. The evil and the good, and even the more and the less good are equally in need of the mercy of God.”

“The difference between good and evil in history is an ultimate difference, which transcends the relativities of history. The love shown to "one of the least of these my brethren" is love to God Himself. That is, the "good" deed, which in the gospel is always a loving deed, is one which enters into the very texture of eternal reality. Yet on the other hand eternal reality is determined by God and not by man. And it is revealed in the divine mercy, which overcomes the evil in man and therefore the distinction between, good and evil in man. It makes a difference. It makes no difference.”

“Love is the law of life and not merely some transcendent ideal of perfection. All men may violate the law of life but there is a difference between those who seek to draw all life into themselves, and those who have found in God the centre of existence and through loyalty to Him have learned to relate themselves in terms of mutual service to their fellows.”


(Beyond Tragedy was published in 1937 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. This material prepared for Religion Online by Harry and Grace Adams.)
http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=436&C=335

In other words it makes a difference, it makes a difference to the world, it does matter how we live and how we relate to others. It is a reflection of God in and through us. On the other hand it doesn’t make a difference as to God’s reaction to us in our need of God and our own brokenness.

The sheep are separated from the goats. But according to the rest of our biblical story, God still loves the goats…………even though frustrated by them!

The great Catholic Social worker Dorothy Day once said: “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least."

Another of our spiritual leaders John Wesley once said: “One great reason why the rich, in general, have so little sympathy for the poor, is, because they so seldom visit them.”

It’s appropriate to have this challenging scripture just before we celebrate our own “national” Thanksgiving Day. And it is appropriate to have this scripture passage just before we begin the Advent and Christmas season.

We really have little to no trouble doing for ourselves in these coming weeks. But we all need to be challenged to do for others in the same breath that we “take care of” our own.

How big will your Thanksgiving table be this week? How large can your spirit expand in the next 30 days?

Anthony B. Robinson, senior minister at Plymouth Congregational Church in Seattle (Christian Century Nov 3 1993) tells about the ministry of a clothing bank in their church. One couple in particular gives themselves to its upkeep and availability to the community. Robinson says,
“I don't know if the clothing bank was effective. But, then, in the parable of the last judgment Jesus did not say anything about effectiveness. He only asked, "Did you feed the hungry?" "Did you clothe the naked?" "When I was in prison did you come to me?" It is good to know that, whether or not you can change the world, you can still be faithful. When you're not wielding a lot of power, it's easy to say, ‘What difference does what I do make?’ But maybe those who seem to be in charge are not as powerful as they appear. Jesus only asks us to be faithful.”

“Goodness is not planned. It is not a heroic decision or clever calculation. It is an expression of who we are.”


“The fact Jesus was pointing out to them was a fundamental rule of Kingdom living. We are the Body of Christ - and so, deeply united in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. What we do - one for another - heals and builds up the Body of Christ. What we do not do - one for another - weakens and diminishes it.”
From Weekly Wellspring…..Nov 20, 2005 http://www.wellsprings.org.uk/weekly_wellsprings/year_a/sunday_34.htm


In the current issue of Homiletics, the story is told of an experience theologian/philosopher Parker Palmer once had.

“Palmer was a passenger on a plane that pulled away from the gate, taxied to a remote corner of the field and stopped. You know the feeling: The plane stops and you look out the window and see that you’re not on the runway and the engines wind down and your heart sinks. The pilot came on the intercom and said: ‘I have some bad news and some really bad news. The bad news is there’s a storm front in the West, Denver is socked in and shut down. We’ve looked at the alternatives and there are none. So we’ll be staying here for a few hours. That’s the bad news. The really bad news is that we have no food and its’ lunch time.’ Everybody groaned. Some passengers started to complain, some became angry. But then, Palmer said, one of the flight attendants did something amazing.

She stood up and took the intercom mike and said, “We’re really sorry folks. We didn’t plan it this way and we really can’t do much about it. And I know for some of you this is a big deal. Some of you are really hungry and were looking forward to a nice lunch. Some of you may have a medical condition and really need lunch. Some of you may not care one way or the other and some of you need to skip lunch. So I’ll tell you what we’re gong to do. I have a couple of breadbaskets up here and we’re going to pass them around and I’m asking everybody to put something in the basket. Some of you brought a little snack along---something to tide you over---just in case something like this happened, some peanut butter crackers, candy bars. And some of you have a few LifeSavers or chewing gum or Rolaids. And if you don’t have anything edible, you have a picture of your children or spouse or a bookmark or a business card. Everybody put something in and then we’ll reverse the process. We’ll pass the baskets around again and everybody can take out what he or she needs.

‘Well,’ Palmer said, ‘what happened next was amazing. The griping stopped. People started to root around in pockets and bags, some got up and opened their suitcases stored in overhead luggage racks and got out boxes of candy, a salami, a bottle of wine. People were laughing and talking. She had transformed a group of people who were focused on need and deprivation into a community of sharing and celebration. She had transformed scarcity into a kind of abundance.”

After the flight, which eventually did proceed, Parker Palmer stopped on his way off the plane---deplaning, that is----and said to the her, ‘Do you know there’s a story in the Bible about what you did back there? It’s about Jesus feeding a lot of people with very little food.’ ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know that story. That’s why I did what I did.’ “

As we enter the holy day and holiday seasons of Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas………

May we all remember that we have enough, there is more than enough to go around.

Not just enough food for the table, or enough money for more gifts for more people………..

But we have enough time, for the things that need our attention.

We have enough vision, to see those who have needs.

We have enough patience for the impatience of children.

We have enough heart, to listen to the hurting hearts of others.

We have enough clothes, to shed some and give away.

We have enough spirit, to lift up the downtrodden.

And we have a big enough table, providing room for any who are hungry.
And that my friends, is what the Kingdom of God looks like, enough………….more than enough to go around.

"Using the Most for the Best"

"Using the Most for the Best"
Matthew 25:14-30
November 13, 2005
Rev Carolyn Waters, CCUM


There was a 20-dollar bill and a 1-dollar bill on the conveyor belt of the downtown Federal Reserve Building. As they were lying there side by side, the 1-dollar bill said to the 20-dollar bill, "Hey - where have you been? I haven't seen you in a long time?" The 20-dollar bill replied, "Oh, I have been having a ball! I‘ve been traveling to distant countries, going to the finest restaurants, etc... etc. After describing the great travels, the 20-dollar bill asked the 1- dollar bill, "What about you? Where have you been?" The 1 dollar bill replied, "Well, I've been to the Baptist church, the Methodist church, the Presbyterian church, The Episcopalian church, the Catholic church and to the United Church of Christ..." "WAIT A MINUTE! " shouted the 20-dollar bill. "What's a church?"

Tempting, as it may be to use this scripture to talk about giving, I’m not going to do that! First of all, I hope you have already turned in your pledge card! But primarily the reason to not use this parable to talk about giving your money to the church is because that’s not what the parable is about!

In Jesus day, a talent was around 6000 denarii. One denarius was about a day's living wage. So what the first servant was given translates into 30,000 denarii. 30,000 work days! If you’re making a denarius a day then you are in the upper crust of employment which means that you would have at least a four week vacation time every year……leaving 240 work days a year. It would take over 125 years to make 30,000 denarii. But of course that’s without taking into mind wise investments. In other words, 30,000 was a lot of money! What would it convert to in terms of a day's wage? Maybe $5mil? Having the landowner come up to one of the employees and offer so much would be like winning the lottery. IMPOSSIBLE!

From William Loader: *
“Talent has so much become part of our vocabulary as a term for natural abilities, that we usually miss the point that the parable is talking about money and what you can do with it. The ancient world did not have our complex finance markets, but it knew about investments and profit. Many of Jesus' parables reflect economic practices of the day and how they affected people. People would know what you could do with such a sum. Money was powerful then, too.”
“In this parable, the money is an image for what is potent in the kingdom and for the kingdom. It may also be seen as a way of talking about the Spirit or at least about the life of God within us. It is slightly missing the point to think it is talking about how we use our various natural abilities (talents in the modern sense). It has more to do with how we allow the life of God to flow through us - because it is powerful- like money!”

Loader continues: “Fear of being abandoned seems to motivate burying the talents. Matthew's community might think of the controversy over the expansion of the gospel into the Gentile world and the refusal of some Jews to accept that the doors should be flung open so recklessly. God is misbehaving again and they cannot believe it and refuse to support the adventure. In typically Matthean style the text promises only damnation for such lack of trust.”

Damnation for lack of trust in God. Not damnation for sin…..we can be forgiven for that. But damnation for lack of trust, believing in the possibilities of God’s intervening presence in life.

The parallel with the recent Judicial Council decision 1032 of the United Methodist Church, which gave authority to a pastor of a congregation in Virginia to deny membership (entrance through the doors) to a gay man simply because he is gay is all too obvious! Attempts to control the gracious redemption of a loving God who is at work in the world have never been successful! Hear again Loaders words: “God is misbehaving again and they cannot believe it and refuse to support the adventure.”

“They” have become the establishment. “They” have become the “institutional church”. They too quickly become Us!

Loader goes on to say:
“The parable challenges us not to sit on the life of God in us.”

“If the modern use of talents has any relation to the text, it is at the level of allowing God's life to do its adventures with us and putting our talents (our natural abilities) at God's disposal. The talents of the parable are really about God's life and power, not about our natural abilities. But the appropriate response is to allow God's investing hand to employ our abilities.”

Given the climate in main-line denominations around the issue of homosexuality it a wonder that any of the gay and lesbian community dare set foot in any church. Between the people who are afraid of the presence of diversity in the pews or are convinced that God will damn the individuals and their supporters, and thus leave places such as this congregation primarily out of fear………………AND the community of those who find the behavior and exclusion of our denomination toward gay and lesbians intolerable, and therefore may also leave the church……..we are left with the remnant of the rest of us that keep imagining that someday things will be different. That to leave is to give up. And to stay is to have hope.

Not hope in the institution, but hope in the mercy of a loving God who works in this world despite the institution.

William Loader goes on about this morning’s text from Matthew with words exactly to the point:
“The tragedy is that many people are afraid of losing or endangering God and so seek to protect God from adventures, to resist attempts at radical inclusion that might, they fear, compromise God's purity and holiness. Protecting God is a variant of not trusting God. Matthew wants his hearers to share God's adventure of inclusiveness. God is bigger than our religious industry”

Spiderman once said: “with great giftedness, comes great responsibility."

The gifts or talents entrusted to us give us the ability to do great things. In our personal lives and in our lives together as a community of faith, I believe that the gathering of people here at Christ Church are gifted beyond measure. We are gifted because God has invested in us. We are gifted beyond the 125 years of resources needed to equate 30,000 denarii to $5 million. We have been given much in terms of our openness to one another, our vision of what the world could be, and our desire for the body of Christ to be REAL in the world.

With those gifts comes responsibility. With those gifts comes the expectation from GOD to act in the world according to the measure of the gifts we have received. With those gifts comes the expectation that we will not be silent in the face of injustice; that we will not be complacent in the atmosphere of judgment; and that we will not be afraid because of the risk of losing numbers or money.

Those who do not speak, lose their voice.

Those willing to risk nothing actually risk losing everything.
Life is a risk.

Fr. John J. Boll says of this scripture passage: “the faith we have is not fragile, it is a rich and an effective treasure and need not be handled with kid gloves. If we don't take risks with it, how can we say we have faith?”

Actually, the third slave acted as he was probably taught. In first century CE, Jewish culture taught that if one was entrusted with something of great value, one should bury it in the ground for safekeeping.

But we are living in a different world. To bury your valuables would be foolish. To leave all of your financial resources in CD’s would give reason to pause for question.

Chose any issue that brings passion to your heart. Chose any social concern that screams for God’s intervention. Pick any headline that reminds you of the hurting world. And listen to the places where God is begging you to invest yourself for the sake of mercy in the world in which we live. Lay aside the “risk” and take on the challenge to live out what we say we believe in.
Our issues need not be the same issues, but our hearts must come from the same place if our lives are to be counted for much of anything. When our hearts and our spirits come together we do begin to “count” and make a difference. When we stand up, even one at a time, others notice and begin to stand along side.

The greatest tragedy of our convictions is not conflict; the greatest tragedy is apathy or fear.
The person given much, who does little to nothing with the resource, is the greatest disappointment to God.

God challenges us to use the most of who we are for the best of what the world can be.

God challenges us to use the most of what we have for the best of what the world needs.

God calls us to be the most of who we have been created to be for the best of who God is in us.
Are you willing to spend your life living the most for the best?


*references from William Loaders web site: http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtPentecost26.htm

Some of God's Children

Some of God’s Children
All Saints Sunday
I John 3:1-3
CCUM November 6, 2005
Rev Carolyn Waters

John Steinbeck wrote the following in his epic novel East of Eden:
"It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world."

In all my years of ministry, there was only one funeral that I experienced as a celebration by six people who were relieved the person had died. Not because of her suffering, but because of the suffering she inflicted upon those who knew her.

It seems to me that God is quite gifted at creating a good percentage of saints to mix in with the rest of us!

The people who show up on our pathway and make walking the path more manageable. The people who always know how to offer words of hope in situations that seem hopeless. The one’s who always have time to listen, to help.

They are the saints of our lives; the saints of our churches; the saints of our culture.
We all know some of them. We have all participated in their lives and missed them in their deaths.

They are the great cloud of witnesses that guide us beyond our own abilities and wisdom to continue walking on the path that is about justice and righteousness, forgiveness and love.

Saints are people who know something profound about love, that suffering is connected with it. They learned the path of sainthood is not one of accolades but accusations. They were charged with demanding change because they wanted people to know more about God than others could stand to have revealed. They challenged governments and leaders who were exploiting others. They worked to bring justice to those who were ground down by unjust systems. And in their dedicated work, they were jailed, beaten, and sometimes murdered.
Other saints are the simple less famous ones. The teacher that took the time to listen, the neighbor that was always near when needed, the patient friend that could listen for hours.

We are pilgrims of the saints. We become a reflection of who has reflected the face of God to us. We become the children of the children of a living God because of the memory of those we have known or the memory of the history we are told. We honor them by the decisions we make and the way we live. People we call saints; have given us unique insights into what it means to live a life in relationship with God.

It is not hard for me to name the saints I have known. The church can be quite good at growing its saints. Some of them are grown in order for others of us to be tolerated! We’ve said good by to some very important saints in our congregation this past year. Last week we said goodbye as a nation to Rosa Parks, an unassuming black woman who’d had enough.
Hopefully our main task is challenging one another to live into our own sainthood. Not to be presumptuous, but what a difference it would make if we all considered ourselves to be in training, to someday be called a saint by another person.

Every death that is a part of my life makes me reflect on my own death.
Every birthday that puts me closer to a bigger number, gives me pause to ask what am I doing with my life.

We remember the saints today, both those of church history and those of our own community, because we honor them. But we also remember them because we need to be reminded of our own mortality, and reminded that the way we live our lives, does make a difference to others.
God has set into motion the possibility of individual greatness. It has nothing to do with what we gather in our granaries………..it has everything to do with the list of people we give ourselves to, and the efforts we make to make a difference.

Ole Anthony, is founder and president of the Trinity Foundation, who has what we might consider a fairly radical approach to Scripture. Ole Anthony has either reached out and embraced the poor, the hungry, and the weeping, or they have found him. He lives in a community that follows a vow of poverty. In the community he lives in there is at least one formerly homeless person in each house. His community fights the corruption of televangelism in a David and Goliath-like battle. And, he is smart enough to figure out that the war against homelessness requires more than a pot of gold. It requires us to do "to others as [we] would have them do to [us]."

"All theology and doctrines are meaningless unless you lay down your life to meet
the needs of those around you who are hurting."
And,

"It is not the function of the Church 'to change the world.' It is the function of the church to have community -- not just have it, but live it."

Christ church is a community of believers both living and dead that reflect the image of God in the world. We are Children of God……….only some of God’s children……….seeking to empower the saints among us!

Madeleine L’Engle wrote:
“We do not convince others by telling them loudly how wrong they are and how right we are. We convince them by showing them a light so lovely they will want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

A Reflection of God

“A Reflection of God”
I Thessalonians 2:9-13
CCUM Rev Carolyn Waters
October 30, 2005

Verse 12 of our reading from Paul’s letter to the church in Thessalonica is enough of an attention getter, and good works challenger to fill the morning!

Hear the words again: (We were) urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into God’s own kingdom and glory.

“Lead a life worthy of God.”

WOW. Not pleasing to God, but worthy of God.

It’s a phrase that brings me face to face with my own stuff as I reflect God in the world.

NRSV translation says: Lead a life worthy of God.
Another less reputable translation says:
Walk in a way worthy of God.

Either way, for me it’s a challenge to imagine that my life might be a reflection of God’s presence in this world.

In other words, I think that Paul thinks that I should live in such a way that God would be living through me.

I think that’s what he means. Challenging, as it is to live in such a way that God is living through me………through you.

My 92-year-old mother Lucile had her gall bladder taken out last Thursday afternoon. She was sick when I visited her last week. She told the doctor she had been sick for several weeks, but a funny thing about communication, unless you do it doesn’t! Because she hadn’t told any of us she had been sick, she almost got too sick for anyone to be helpful.

So, having been sicker than she needed to be, after the surgery went well, and she didn’t die, her old self kicked back in. (by the way she spoke to me on the phone Thursday morning you would have thought it would be the last time I’d ever talk to her.)

And this is how the old self goes for my mother: when she isn’t in control she’s a mess. When she is hungry she’s a triple mess, and when she isn’t in her own space she is impossible.

Friday morning, once again talking to her one the phone……….she was being a real grump. Now I visit a lot of people in the hospital. Sometimes you have good reason to be a grump…………..but even when that is true, being a grump produces less attention from those who need to care for you.

It would be in my mother’s best interests to treat the people caring for her in a kind way. She will get far better results in being cared for. I know from my own experience that when my mother is a grump (there are other words I might use for this behavior!)………I have absolutely no desire to be around her.

So, I said to my church going, Baptist upbringing, and Southern Methodist mother…………… “Mom, how about if you act like the next 4 days of how you act will determine how you are treated once you get to heaven. Nothing else up to this point matters, it’s only about how you treat others for the next four days.”

Silence……………total silence. She knew exactly what I was talking about.

Then she started laughing and said, “You’re just trying to get me to be a nice person!” And I said to her, “Isn’t that what life is all about?”


One evening an old Cherokee chief told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.”
“The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee chief simply replied, “The one you feed.”


We feed what we live on. Too often we are feeding a part of our spirits and souls that produce the very opposite of what we desire from others and ourselves. Too often our choices keep the evil wolf alive inside of us.

--Philip Yancey wrote an article called: Humility's Many Faces, in Christianity Today, December 4, 2000
He used this illustration:

For most of his life Albert Einstein had the portraits of two scientists, Newton and Maxwell, hanging on his wall as role models to inspire him. Toward the end of his life, however, he took them down and replaced them with portraits of Albert Schweitzer and Mahatma Gandhi. He needed new role models, he said -- not of success, but of humble service.

When I think of what it might mean to be intentional bout reflecting the presence of God in the world, my whole demeanor changes. The challenge is that I so often forget. I get caught up in the daily, the ordinary, the pushes and pulls………..or buttons get pushed and not unlike my mother I can become grumpy………..it’s hereditary you know!

But then a passage like this shows up in my reading and I’m reminded about what’s most important.

Of all the character attributes we might give God, the primary one I would give is God’s persistence at loving. God seems to never give up on us. God seems to show up again and again through our recorded religious history, and in our contemporary lives. Whether it’s pushing the people through the Promised Land, staying with the stragglers after the crucifixion, birthing a church in a climate of conflict and religious intolerance………..God is persistent with loving, God seems to never give up on us.
For the past 6 or 7 weeks our choir has been singing “Bambelela” as a choral introit.

I don’t know what that arrangement does for you, but I can tell you what it does for me. It wakes me up in the middle of the night. Really! I can’t make up stuff like that.

At three in the morning I’ll be laying in bed wishing I could go to sleep and all I can hear is Bambelela, Bambelela, Bambelela, Bambelela.

I told Ben he was haunting me in the middle of the night. Then he told me the story of Bambelela. I want him to tell you that story.

(Ben’s story and sing)

To lead a life worthy of God is to never give up on God’s presence with us.

To lead a life worthy of God is to never give up on the possibility of hope for those in our world who need so much.

To lead a life worthy of God is to recognize that God is forever waiting for us to notice that God in with us in everything we do, every person we meet, every decision we make, every choice that goes wrong.

To lead a life worthy of God is to rest in the desire that we recognize there is something beyond us that is more important than we are, that there is something within us that brings out the best of who we are, and that there is something among us that keeps us together as a community of faith.

To lead a life worthy of God is to believe in the stories of old that tell us over and over again that we will not be abandoned, that we are not alone, that God is with us and that God never gives up on us, even if we have given up on ourselves.

And finally, to lead a life worthy of God is perhaps to be haunted by God’s presence in the middle of the night…………saying, “Never give up!”.