Mark 1.4 -11, June 3, 2018, Sermon

Mark 1.4 -11 CEB

4 John the Baptist was in the wilderness calling for people to be baptized, to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. 5 Everyone in Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to the Jordan River, and were being baptized by John as they confessed their sins. 6 John wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He announced, “One stronger than I am is coming after me. I’m not even worthy to bend over and loosen the strap of his sandals. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

9In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

SERMON (PASTOR) 

I like that the gospel of Mark starts with baptism, it’s from where my joinery started too. It started in a little church in Texas, and parents deciding to go because they needed a pastor’s signature in order to adopt a child. In that same little church, with yet a new pastor, I was baptized, picked up as an infant and sprinkled in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Then the congregation said the words that you have also said, to me and to others, the ones which promised to love and raise up our children in faith, hope and love. It’s about the most beautiful thing as a baptizer to walk around, child in hand, damp head, in the warmth of this congregation’s promises. It’s a pretty profound thing likewise, to witness youth and adults, answer those questions for themselves, and give answers that speak of baptism, as next steps on a journey. But today, as I prepare to part with you, I go back to John in the gospel of Mark.

“Everyone in Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to the Jordan River and were being baptized by John as they confessed their sins,” and I have to think that is a lot of people. To stand there in the water with everyone of all Judea, and to lay down and bring up all the people of Jerusalem, and to hear the each person’s confession of their distance form God or to notice the ways they carry it without speaking a word. It’s a lot to carry. In other scriptures, we hear John say, to Jesus, that Jesus ought to baptize John, instead of John baptizing Jesus. And we interpret this as John being unworthy, because he isn’t worthy, no ordination can do that. But what if John asks Jesus to baptism John not only because of John was unworthy, but because of the weight of all those people, and John wanting to be washed clean, his heart and mind changed too? When, in this scripture, and in others, did John get to be baptized? It doesn’t say. But as long as John is the baptizer, he cannot be the baptized, and many of us ministers can relate.

In her book, Leaving Church, episcopal minister, Barbara Brown Taylor tells a story that “takes place at a house party - a rare occurrence of an invitation, because you simply don't invite the parish minister to fun parties, but since she has handed in her resignation then she is free to accept it. She's standing at the edge of a pool when suddenly a fully clothed adult gets pushed in and she writes,”

“I stood back and watched the mayhem that ensued. All around me, people were grabbing people and wrestling them toward the water. The dark night air was full of pool spray and laughter. The kids were going crazy. Several people hunting for potential victims turned toward me, their faces lit with smiles. When they saw who I was they turned away again so that I felt sad instead of glad. Whatever changes were occurring inside of me, I still looked waterproof to them. Like the sick man in John's gospel, who lay by the healing pool of Bethzatha for thirty-eight years because he had no one to put him in when the water was stirred up, I watched others plunging in ahead of me. Then two strong hands grabbed my upper arms from behind, and before I knew it I was in the water, fully immersed and swimming in light.

I never found out who my savior was, but when I broke the surface, I looked around at all those shining people with makeup running down their cheeks, with hair plastered to their heads, and I was so happy to be one of them. If being ordained meant being set apart from them, then I did not want to be ordained anymore. I wanted to be human. I wanted to spit food and let snot run down my chin. I wanted to confess being as lost and found as anyone else without caring that my underwear showed through my wet clothes. Bobbing in that healing pool with all those other flawed beings of light, I looked around and saw them as I had never seen them before, while some of them looked at me the same way. The long wait had come to an end. I was in the water at last.” 

Barbara Brown Taylor had been waiting and wading at the waters edge for years, all the people of Jerusalem and Judea had come to her, and for what she longed - was to be pushed in, to be a part of a people, to be baptized, instead of the baptizer. I get that. I need that too. I have amazing friends here, but there is nowhere I can go in Eastern Oregon that there are not the crowds who recognize me as the baptizer, from the older man, whom I did not recognize, at the grocery store, who told me a cheesy church joke that made smile, to ski days with congregants or with friends surround by congregants, to other people’s birthday parties, whereupon my introduction, come the comments and questions about the leather belt around my waist, and my propensity for eating locusts and wild honey out here in the wilderness. Sometimes, as amazing as baptizing is, I just want to be in the water, and that is what I am going to go do this summer. 

My first visit, is to my home church, where I get to hear the stories of my own baptism, where I get to hear what baptism means to that community, where I get preach, not so much as Pastor Katy, but as child of that church, raised up by its promises. I get to return to and explore who I was at my baptism. From there, I will immerse myself in waters that have been meaningful in my life. The Texas coast, the river and blue hole at the church camp where I was a counselor, and the Atlantic in Massachusetts where my parents now spend summers. I get to discover again what it is to be just a swimmer, like everyone else. I get to enjoy some time away from this title and just be me in the water. Then I get to be a pilgrim. I get to go from Jerusalem and Judea to the River Jordan. Along the way, I get to confess my own distance from God, and come to that place to be renewed. Then I will swim in the waters of Italy, as new person, who, as the scripture reads, who’s heart and life is changed. Along with me will be family and friends, who know me not as pastor Katy, not as the baptizer, but as the baptized, the pilgrim, the one who longs for water on her head, the one who longs to be pushed in the pool, the one who longs just like John the baptizer must have.

I wonder if there ever was a time where John sought to go back to the place from which he came? Had he been baptized by others, and was carrying the ritual forward? Where would he have gone? Who would be the ones by his side on the journey? What would he have to leave behind to be pushed in the pool? I get this, but I hope you do too. 

First Presbyterian, we were granted a summer, a long one, and it is not just me who has a season to journey. We all have been invited to journey. What is the place to which you long to return? What is that place that speaks to the core of who you are? Where were you first a child of God? Is it horseback in the hills above Halfway, or your freshman dorm at college in California, is it on a surfboard on the Oregon coast, or anywhere there are woods and Pine Trees, or slopes covered in snow, is it a walk up Rock Creek, or a visit to a grave? Is it the house where you were born, or the field you played in as a child? Where do you need to go to return to the place where you felt baptized?

Where do you need to go, to get away from the throngs that come from Jerusalem and Judea, the multitude who call you teacher, father, daughter, doctor, mother, husband, lawyer, volunteer, scientist, rising fourth grader, caregiver, counselor, owner, cook, sister, brother, best friend, builder, bookkeeper, wife or whatever your title might be? What do you need to leave behind to journey to the wilderness you call home? 

Where is that space you need to return to hear the stories of your baptism? Who can tell you those long ago memories? Who remembers what you can’t, what you won’t, what shaped you before you realized you were being shaped? Who made promises to you, who loved you before you could even speak? Who would you like to travel with you to that place, to help you experience it, and enjoy it? With whom are you no one else but you? Who sees you and will push you in the pool? What is your pool? Your River Jordan? Your place where you become soaked, and remember that you too are a child of God? Where you get to stop being the baptizer, and become baptized?

Matthew 12.1 - 14, May 27, 2018, Sermon

SECOND SCRIPTURE READING (PASTOR)

Matthew 12.1 - 14 CEB

12 At that time Jesus went through the wheat fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry so they were picking heads of wheat and eating them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are breaking the Sabbath law.” But Jesus said to them, 

“Haven’t you read what David did when he and those with him were hungry? He went into God’s house and broke the law by eating the bread of the presence, which only the priests were allowed to eat. Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple treat the Sabbath as any other day and are still innocent? But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what this means, I want mercy and not sacrifice, you wouldn’t have condemned the innocent. The Human One is Lord of the Sabbath.” 

Jesus left that place and went into their synagogue. A man with a withered hand was there. Wanting to bring charges against Jesus, the Pharisees asked, “Does the Law allow a person to heal on the Sabbath?” Jesus replied, “Who among you has a sheep that falls into a pit on the Sabbath and will not take hold of it and pull it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! So the Law allows a person to do what is good on the Sabbath.” Then Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he did and it was made healthy, just like the other one.

 The Pharisees went out and met in order to find a way to destroy Jesus.

SERMON (PASTOR) 

This passage is my favorite kind of Jesus. Some people like the, Calm the Storm Jesus, some people like the Jesus on the Cross Jesus, some people like the “let the children come to me,” Jesus, but I like Sassy, Quick Witted, Subvert the Rules Jesus, (of course I do). I do because so often Christianity gets mixed up with rules, and being easily offended, and the letter of the law instead of the Spirit of the law, and Sassy Jesus, like in this passage, is all about the Spirit of the law, which he defines elsewhere, as love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself. In this passage, Jesus is deconstructing the Sabbath through the golden lens of what rules should be. 

Imagine it, the Jesus’ disciples are hungry, so they are gleaning the fields, an accepted practice on any other day but Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and the Pharisees believe the disciples and Jesus are breaking the law, something they feel Jesus does often, (insert Sassy, Subversive, Break the Rules Jesus here). And being that Jesus is this kind of Jesus, he backs-up his hungry disciples saying, ‘what about David, the heralded Jewish king, who fed the hungry on the Sabbath?’ The Sassy, Quick-Witted, Jesus turns the question on the Pharisees, “What about the temple priests, who, because it is their day of work, eat the bread on the Sabbath, but are still deemed innocent?” Finally, Jesus responds by using the undebatable Principal, he says, “mercy is more important the sacrifice.” Jesus is saying, that having compassion on the hungry is more important than the days on which they eat. Its that kind of response to which their isn’t a response, and I imagine the Pharisees heading back to the temple, to which Jesus admonishes, them, “The Human One is Lord of the Sabbath.” Saying that Jesus himself is the one who rules the Sabbath, not the old law for the law’s sake. Bamn, wouldn’t it be nice to be that kind of Jesus. The one whom is both right and has the quick comeback? He is our hero in this text, and then he proves it. 

He goes into the temple and when the Pharisees quiz him if it is permissible to heal on the Sabbath, he asks them if  because it was the Sabbath, they would leave a sheep who fell in a pit. The answer of course is no, because Jesus is Sassy like that, and then Jesus heals a man’s hand in the temple on the Sabbath, because Jesus is subversive like that, and it makes the Pharisees really mad, and they plan a way to destroy Jesus, but that is for the rest of the Jesus story, and focusing on ours today, I wonder how Jesus would Sass us a little, or perhaps stick up for us a little?

This is that moment where those of us who aren’t real rule people are perhaps feeling smug, and those of us who need the rules and order and policies might be feeling a little apprehensive, but it isn’t about rules or not, its about the mercy of the law vs. it’s sacrifice. Its about the Spirit of the law, rather than it’s letter. If our rules help us uphold the Spirit then we are succeeding, if our lack of order and policy help us uphold the Spirit, we are also succeeding, but if we become so authoritarian or loosey-goosey that we miss showing the grace of God to one another, then we are probably doing it wrong. 

For example, I lived in the South for awhile where we had what were called Blue-Laws. Blue Laws meant that you could not buy alcohol on Sundays. What it meant for me was when I would be invited to Sunday dinner, I would swing by the Piggly-Wiggly (yes that was the name of the grocery store) and walk to pick up a bottle for my hosts, and discover a taped of aisle. I like the idea of having a day not to drink, but as a church-worker, it wasn’t my Sabbath, and moreover, it made it harder to bring something to offer my host. I imagine Jesus at the checkout counter, Pharisees, she is not picking up a bottle because she has drank every day and needs a break to honor God, she is picking up a bottle to offer to the congregants who have welcomed here. Though if it were sassy Jesus, he would have said it in a really smart way I would not have thought of and then go heal someone on the way out of that sillily-named store. 

Another example, I think of Jess and Dr. Nathan Defrees talking about his being on-call at the hospital and going in at two in the morning. He both took care of a patient who needed immediate attention, and also a patient who’s condition could wait, but because Dr. Defrees was already there, he sought to heal the ER patient as well. It is the mercy of the law which Nathan was following and I think Jesus would have cheered, and cheers once every six weeks when our town docs rotate their hospital call. Its not something that can be done every week, our doctors would be ineffective and completely sleepless which would not honor God, because those docs would be trying to BE God. But with an every six week policy the rules of the law help the Spirit of the law to succeed. It is what brings about healing and honoring God. 

In our politics, I am kinda fascinated with the Summit with North and South Korea, and America. I feel like there is, in part, a big fight over the calendar, as if dates and scheduling are a power play that forgets the Spirit of the law, to create peace all countries. Peace on one hand, “scheduling complications,” on the other. hum, what would Jesus say to all of the leaders?

Another global example, I heard and read that in Switzerland and in Germany there are laws against mowing your law on Sunday. Personally, I think my neighbor decides to mow their law whenever I am getting ready to do some computer work outside. Granted, my work days are off the normal schedule, but anyway, how nice would it be to have some guaranteed hours of peace and quiet once a week, unless, for like, some mowing their lawn is where they find peace? How would Jesus handle mowing the lawn, what is the mercy of the law there?

A final example, I am supposed to count my days working, but just this week on a day off a friend texted with some marital problems, I asked, “Do you want friend Katy hat or Pastor Katy hat?” which meant do you want me just listening as a friend, or bringing by counseling background in, but no matter what their answer, I can’t really take off my ordination hat, it isn’t a hat. Does that conversation then count as work, or as a day off. What if it happens at the store, at a party, or God forbid, I don’t get my book or computer out fast enough, on a plane? How am I to count those hours? Ministry is fluid and I am sure much of your work is also. So how do we in our callings, in work, or even retirement, still honor and take time for God and our neighbors? How does the exactness of a calendar translate to help us both have Sabbath, and promote healing, or teaching, or listening, or getting the mowing done? How does not having a calendar do the same? I would like to hear Jesus sass me here, sass all of us, because I don’t think many of us are very good at this balance, and because we are all different, how we balance will look different for each and I think Jesus would sass us accordingly. Some may say, Sunday is Sabbath, hard and fast, and that may be how their brain works, and what they need, but does the hard and fast rule ever get in the way of healing in the outside world? Is the sheep in the pit, the hand withered because we have such a deep need to be on schedule? Some may say, I don’t need a calendar, all my days flow together, but do those individuals end up working so much that their ability to heal becomes diminished because they haven’t made time for God? Or do they too focus so much on Sabbath, that heaven forbid, they forget to heal their neighbor. There will always be deeper places to explore with God, and there will always be more people to heal, more disciples to feed. So how do we measure? What would Sassy, Subversive Jesus, say to us, to me, to you?

Romans 8.22 - 27, May 20, 2018, Sermon

Romans 8.22–27 May 20, 2018

22 We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now. 23 And it’s not only the creation. 

We ourselves who have the Spirit as the first crop of the harvest 

also groan inside as we wait to be adopted and for our bodies to be set free. 

24 We were saved in hope. 

If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope. 

Who hopes for what they already see? 

25 But if we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.

26 In the same way, the Spirit comes to help our weakness. 

We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

 27 The one who searches hearts knows how the Spirit thinks, because the Spirit pleads for the saints, consistent with God’s will. 

SERMON (PASTOR) 

I don’t realize I hold my breath, but periodically in my life, I have to be told to breathe. I first was made aware of it in college, when I would be writing a paper and my roommates would start to chime in behind me saying, “SIGH, woe is me,” “SIGH, the world is ending,” “SIGH, SIGH, SIGH.” At first I didn’t understand, until they would say, “Katy, you have been over there sighing for half an hour. Take a breath.” And they were right, the breath would give me some more energy and clarity, and I would be able to dive back in. It happened learning tennis. I would  take a breath, hold it, toss the ball up and serve. Then let out my air. This might seem stabilizing, but then I continue to hold my breath, while running after and attempting to return balls, until I could feel my heart in my ears and Luke, my coach, would say, “Katy breathe!” Most recently, I was at the dentist, and for me, it’s the sounds that get me, anything that can be heard on work bench, should not be coming from my mouth. Then you have the water sprayer thing and the water sucker thing and it’s all too much. So much so, that the dental assistant said, “Breathe Sweetie.” I breathed, and I laughed, realizing yet another place, where when stressed, I hold my breath. 

It’s the last thing I should be doing when stressed. Even WebMD, recommends deep breathing exercises, saying they decrease anxiety and stress. And while, our doctors in the house can tell you more officially, other websites suggest, breathing can help recover from exercise, decrease pain, help our immune system, enable memory, increase our digestive system, help alleviate insomnia, assist our joints with mobility and stability, relieve neck issues, and increase our senses. Additionally, because the Bible is the most accurate of medical journals, just kidding, instead, because it has be a spiritual guide for centuries, we can notice that even the book of Romans suggests that the Spirit is at work in the breath. The scripture reads, “In the same way, the Spirit comes to help our weakness. We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” Not only is our breath connected to our mental and physical states, but also the Spiritual. I think of those sighs, paper writing in college, the Spirit was sneaking in, those reminders to breathe returning tennis balls the Spirit moving through me, and at the dentist pleading, “Sweetie breathe,” the Spirit was sneaking in, helping respectively, my creativity, my strength, my anxiety. The Spirit does these things, and all we have to do is welcome it in with a deepness of breath. 

The Spirit does this, but not only is the Spirit coming to us in our sighs, but the Spirit is sighing as well, and if it can do those things in our human sighing, how much more can the Spirit do in it’s own. The Spirit sighs in breaths too deep for words, and in that sigh, the Spirit, intercedes. I think of it like this. You know those times, where you see no way way forward, where you read the news and doubt it will ever turn around, where you feel so helpless that sobbing someone must remind you to breathe and you wish they’d just let you cry it out because it’s out you know, where laying down at night your heart seems to be having a race with your mind, where life seems paused in a waiting room you and head in your hands, the Spirit is sighing. The Spirit is intervening. There is a Zora Neele Hurston quote, that reads, “there are years that ask questions and years that answer,” and I believe the years in-between is where the Spirit is intervening. I had a couple visits with congregants in the last month, that were this kind of, ‘there are years that ask questions, years that answer,’ kind of visits. In one an opportunity I had been waiting years for arose, and I was able to tell someone, “this was not your fault," and no one had spoke that answer to them before. In another, I learned about patterns of this church that go back long before my tenure, and I saw answers to the present day questions. In both visits, the Spirit had been intervening and was now breathing in. I visited my mentor, now in his last call and me in a long first, and I asked questions, that I did not have the words for seven years ago, and in sighs too deep for words the Spirit was intervening. I heard yesterday that Princess Markle is a crowned decedent of slaves and it seems after years of a racist and oppressive history the Spirit interceded. I think of the MeToo Movement, and the Spirit intervening in words that once were too deeply shameful to be spoken, now have become a topic of regular conversation, helping us to consider one another and society’s larger systems against women. I think of walking around Seattle this weekend seeing rainbow colored crosswalks, and equally colorful hairstyles and rejoicing at the vibrancy of the intervening Spirit in that place, “It’s nice to see people that look different.” I think of a single note I heard Paul Simon lift above a crowd of people, all wrapped silently in awe to deep for words, and the Spirit in that, and in the people dancing, and the intergenerational comment I heard from behind me, “this song brings my mom to tears,” and the Spirit at work through a song in the relationship between a mother and son, and me remembering my own parents had, “Bridge over Trouble Water,” sung at their wedding. I think of the Spirit that descended in the rainbow after yesterday’s rain. I think of a friend, us both older, telling me he didn’t hate the church anymore, that enemies were not that black and white, and me saying, “thank you,” having always felt his critique had been unfair. The Spirit intervening in sighs too deep for words. I think of All the things that are yet to come which require size too deep for words. I think of tough meetings to be had and I know even they the spirit will breathe in them. I think of those waiting for diagnosis and then those places also the spirit is longing for us to witness intervention. I think of the heartbreaks of those lost and gone where we wonder how we will go on and the spirit will intercede. I think of the pain so many experience in their bodies and the Spirit reminding us breathe because the Spirit is breathing with us seeking answers and comfort. I think of those at bedside waiting for death and the reminder that even there, and especially there, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. That in all of life there is no sighs too deep, for the spirit sighs even deeper and intercedes.

I think of this Pentecost day, the day where we celebrate the Spirit sending us out breathing, the Spirit sighing alongside us, sending us out with sighs too deep for words. This is our Holy Spirit. Let us breathe. Amen.