The Glory of God

A Sermon Preached at Salem United Church of Christ

Higginsville, Missouri

22 October 2023

I. God and Moses

• God and Moses have a unique relationship in the biblical literature – Moses talks to God like no one else – and God listens
• This story actually begins a couple of chapters earlier – Moses is up on the holy mountain speaking with God and receiving God’s Instruction for how the people are to live
• Moses is on the mountain so long that the people begin to doubt that he is going to come back down – they get a bit nervous and decide that they need a god of their own making – they go to Aaron, Moses’s brother, and tell him that he needs to make a god for them
• Sadly, Aaron agrees to do just that – he collects all the gold earrings that the women and their children, both sons and daughters, are wearing – he takes all the jewelry that he collects, melts it down, and cast it into the shape of a calf – then he announces to the people that this is their god, the one who brought them up out of Egypt – they schedule a party, a festival, for the next day
• On the festival day, the people all get up early and start the party – they offer burnt offerings and sacrifices to their new god – they have a feast, and after that the party really gets going
• God sees all of this and tells Moses to go down the mountain because the people have lost their minds and done the unthinkable – God decides to put a stop to the shenanigans in a particularly brutal way – God is going to destroy them all and start over with Moses
• At this point, Moses’s response to God’s extreme anger is rational and conciliatory – Moses reasons with God – he asks God to remember who God is and all the promises God has made to the ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Sarah, Rebekah, and the wives of Jacob – Moses asks God to remember the covenants and to let go of God’s anger – Moses asks God to change God’s mind about destroying the people – and God does! – God changes God’s mind and relents from destroying the people
• When Moses goes down the mountain, he seems to be unprepared for what he sees – he carries the two tablets of God’s Instruction, which God had cut and carved – when Moses sees how the people are carrying on, when he sees their so-called god, this time it is his anger that flares up – he throws down the tablets, breaking them into pieces
• He takes the idol and burns it, makes a powder out of it, scatters it in water and makes the people drink it
• When he asks Aaron what is going on, Aaron tries to lay the blame on the people, as if he had no choice about making the golden calf – Aaron’s response does not cool Moses’s anger – he calls out any who are still on God’s side, orders them to get their swords, to go throughout the camp of the people, and to kill their brothers, their friends, and their neighbors – in this telling of the story, these men became the Levites, the priests of God
• Moses tells the people that they have committed a great sin and that he is going to try to make things right with God – even so, God sends a plague on the people – worse, God threatens not to go with the people when they leave the mountain
• Finally, Moses tries to convince God not to abandon the people and not to abandon him – furthermore, he wants more than just a promise from God – he wants a demonstration that God will not leave – he wants a demonstration of God’s glory
• No one knows precisely what Moses is asking for, other than a visible manifestation of God’s presence – the problem is, seeing God’s glory would be fatal to human beings
• God devises a way whereby Moses can see something of God – he will not see God’s face and he will not see the fullness of God’s glory – Moses will see something of the goodness of God, and God will be gracious to whom God will be gracious and God will show mercy to whom God will show mercy
• God will place Moses in a nearby cave and cover the opening of the cave with God’s hand until God has passed by – then God will remove the divine hand and Moses will be able to see the goodness of God’s back
• It is remarkable that God is willing to do this for Moses – with Moses, God is willing to negotiate and to make allowances
• And it is remarkable that Moses has the strength to negotiate with God, especially given how angry Moses gets when he comes down the mountain – but then, Moses does not have the ability or the power to eradicate the people – what he has the destructive power to do is bad enough, but he cannot kill them all – God could have done that

II. The Glory of God

• What God gives Moses is a great gift – and I think that God offers a similar gift to us today – we cannot see directly the glory of God – we can no more look directly on the face of God than Moses could have done – I do not know that it would kill us, but such demonstrations are not the ways that God works
• But we can still see the glory of God in the faces of the people around us – each person we see, whether they are friends or strangers, is an expression of the image of God – every person is, in a way, a representative of God, whether or not they acknowledge it – every person reveals something of God’s glory, or at least of God’s goodness
• And so does the world around us reveal something of God’s glory – I know that we all of us have seen the ocean or mountains or trees or hills or animals and felt the presence of God’s glory – that is not to say that those things are God, but that God is present in every part of creation

III. Conclusion

• God is all around us, always present with us – and we are never alone

The People That Produce Fruits

A Sermon Preached at Salem United Church of Christ

Higginsville, Missouri

8 October 2023

I. In the Vineyard

• The text today is a continuation of the conflict between Jesus and the chief priests and elders over the question of Jesus’ authority – Jesus has just told the parable of a man who has two sons – the man asks each of his sons to work in the vineyard one day – one of the sons says he will not work in the vineyard, but then he does – the other says he will work but then does not – the Evangelist uses that parable to say that Jesus tells the temple officials that the people they look down on, the tax collectors and prostitutes to name but two categories of sinners, who accept the authority of John the Baptist and, by implication, the authority of Jesus, will enter the Vision of God ahead of the temple leaders – the chief priests and elders think they have authority, but the real authority is in Jesus and in all who follow Jesus, even tax collectors and prostitutes
• With those words of Jesus still in the air, he begins another parable – “Listen,” he says, “there was a man, a householder, a landowner…” – this is another of those cases where understanding the parable as an allegory presents problems – if it were an allegory, the text would seem to be saying to us that there is a limit to God’s grace, that there will come a time when God’s anger and vengeance overwhelm God’s mercy – but that is a misreading of the story
• To be honest, there are some who have no problem with the idea of God’s wrath – they see the wicked tenants as unbelieving people, or, worse, as the Jewish people, and use the text to support the idea of supersession, which means they understand the parable to mean that God replaces wicked Jews with good Christians – these people say that if the Jews did not or do not accept Jesus, then they deserve whatever the wrath of God brings to them – I have a real problem with this, and I hope you do, too
• Take a closer look at this text – it is a dark and difficult story about greed, violence, and murder – it is a story with which we can resonate – it is a story that we read every day in the news and see in television programs – a man, a householder, develops his land, with a vineyard, a fence, a winepress, and a watchtower, and rents it out to tenants – he expects payment from the tenants, and the tenants act atrociously, even going so far as to kill the man’s son in the mistaken belief that their violence will somehow make it possible for them to steal the son’s inheritance
• The image of a dying son is one reason why we might think the story works as an allegory, but Jesus is not talking about himself here – he is talking about authority and about the people of God – and the language that Jesus uses to tell his story, is clearly a reference to the Hebrew scriptures, to Isaiah 5.1-7, in which the vineyard is a metaphor for the people of God – the story Jesus tells reflects the history of Israel, not his own future
• And when Jesus comes to the end of his parable, he asks a question: “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” – for some reason I cannot comprehend, I used to read the next statement as part of the parable – it is not – and in my mind this is the key for understanding what Jesus is saying in this parable – the statement about how the man, the householder, will react is the response of the chief priests and elders to Jesus’ question – the temple rulers say that the man will come and put the “wretches to a miserable death” – Jesus never says this – what, then, is Jesus’ response to the temple rulers?
• Jesus does not disagree with them – what they believe the man would do is precisely what people have done throughout history – we human beings are big on revenge – we are big on believing that an injury requires an injury in response – in God’s Instruction to the people, God allows an eye for an eye not because that is just, but to limit retribution – not only do we humans love revenge, we also like escalation – so Jesus allows that in human terms, in human relationships, what the priests and the Pharisees say would happen when the man arrives is probably what would happen
• Jesus goes on, however, to remind them of the words of Psalm 118 – this is the same psalm that the crowds shouted during Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem – it is the same psalm that plays such a major part in Jewish Passover prayers and rites – and here Jesus uses it to refer to his authority
• Jesus says, in effect, that God did not send an army of angels or prophets to condemn “wretches” to a “miserable death” – God sent Jesus into the world with God’s authority – and Jesus’ authority in the world is as a stumbling block to all who believe their authority is supreme – this is the issue between the temple leaders and Jesus – they believe that their authority, which they have had conferred on them by teachers and schools and position and status and by the tacit acquiescence of the people, exceeds any authority Jesus might have – but they do not realize or acknowledge that the source of Jesus’ authority is the power of God in him, the power of God’s Vision – Jesus is not who he is because of the school he attended and the teacher at whose feet he sat – he does not have authority because of his status in the community or position in the temple – he is who he is because the authority of God is in him – all who stand against the authority of God in Jesus will find their authority broken (not killed) and all on whom Jesus’ authority falls will feel their authority crushed
• And as the chief priests and the Pharisees hear these parables of Jesus’, they know that he is questioning their authority – they know that he is accusing them of not producing fruit in Israel – they know that he is threatening them with replacement as leaders of the people of God – Jesus is not saying that God will exclude them from the Vision – but he is saying that if they will not produce the fruits of the Vision, God will find teachers and leaders who produce fruits – and given how Jesus spoke earlier, the new teachers and leaders may even be the tax collectors and prostitutes, the sinners that the chief priests, elders, and Pharisees so despise

II. The People That Produce Fruits

• In light of the parable, we have a couple of questions that we need to ask ourselves
• First, we need to come to some understanding of what the fruits of the Vision are – the usual understanding of Protestant followers of Jesus is that the primary fruits of the Vision would be faith in Jesus – and certainly that should be part of it for us – but the problem with that is that we too often end up with people who give a sort of intellectual assent to the Lordship of Jesus, or who think of trusting Jesus primarily in terms of a list of doctrines and dogmas, almost entirely a matter of the mind – we end up with people who believe in their heads, but not in their hearts, not in the fullness of their lives – in these cases, Christianity really does reduce to orthodoxy, or correct belief, about Jesus and God – and I think it falls short of the full fruits of the Vision
• I think that along with believing in God’s authority in Jesus, and along with believing what we believe, we must also strive to live into the example of Jesus, to live into the Vision, even as we strive to lead others to do the same – we must strive to be the people that produce fruits – the faith in the head must also find expression in the faith of the heart, which leads us to act in life-giving, life-affirming ways in the world – believing in the authority of God in Jesus must also lead us to believe in the authority of Jesus in us (think of Jesus’ prayer in John 17, where he prays that his followers will be one as he and God are one, that they will be in Jesus as Jesus is in God), which will persuade us to live as people of the Vision, bearing fruits of the Vision in the world
• The second question that we need always to ask ourselves is this: is our being in the world today bearing the fruits of the Vision? – are we the people that produce fruits? – that is a question I cannot answer for you as individuals – for us as Salem Church, I would like to think we are doing well – but I also know we can always do better, do more, to be the people that produce fruits of the Vision

III. Conclusion

• Let us all go out into our worlds striving to live into the Vision and to live in ways that will bear the fruits of the Vision – may we go full of authority, but never full of ourselves – may we go and speak and live in ways that will draw others to share the journey with us
• We are all fruits of the Vision – let us share, then, so that we may be the people that produce fruits, so that others may be fruits of the Vision as well

O Lord, You Know

Salem United Church of Christ, Higginsville, Missouri

I. Suffering and Joy

• Jeremiah strikes me as the prophet who is most like the rest of us – his care and concern for his people is deep and compassionate – he hates to have to tell them what God communicates to him – he simply does not want to do it, at least when the word is a hard word
• He famously tries to hold it all in – he decides that he has had enough of preaching difficult messages to the people he loves and resolves that he no longer wants to say hard things to them – but when he tries to hold back the word, he feels something like a burning fire shut up in his bones – then holding it in exhausts him and he cannot do it – even if the messages are harsh and difficult, he has to preach (Jeremiah 20.8-10) – he can do no other, even though preaching causes him pain
• And that is part of what Jeremiah talks about in our text for today – he asserts that God knows what is going on in his life, that God knows how hard the task is that God gives him to do, that God calls him to a ministry that he would rather avoid, that God knows that the prophet suffers insult because of the work
• At the same time, Jeremiah avers that there is joy and delight in God’s words – he says that when he found God’s words, God’s intention, God’s will, he ate them – the prophet allowed God’s words to fill him, to inhabit his life and body – and those words became a joy to him and filled his heart with delight
• Jeremiah goes on to say that he has done everything in the right way – he does not carouse and he has not rejoiced in the intransigence of his people – even though he feels the weight of God’s hand on his life and has felt the loneliness of speaking on behalf of God, God has filled him with indignation – he has done all that God has asked and required of him
• So why is his pain unending? – why does the wound of preaching to his people not heal? – and God is no help to him in this regard – the prophet is angry at God and not shy about letting God know, in case God has not been paying attention – he goes so far as to call God a deceitful brook and waters that fail
• God apparently accepts this lament – God does not chide or rebuke the prophet for how he feels, but tells him that if he continues on the path that he has been walking, then the prophet will indeed serve as God’s mouth in the world, and the people will turn to Jeremiah and hear him – and Jeremiah will be a fortified wall for his people – even if they oppose him, they will not overcome him – God will deliver the prophet from the wicked and the ruthless

II. O Lord, You Know

• Our lives are filled with joy and gladness, with sorrow and suffering – we are good with one half of that statement – we have no problem with the joy and gladness of hearing and knowing God’s words – we do not mind in the least feeling the blessing and exhilaration of being a part of God’s family and work – when things are going well, we find worshiping and praising God easy to do
• What about the other half of the statement? – our lives all also have their share of sorrow and suffering, mental and emotional suffering if not actual physical suffering – we cannot go through life without facing our portion of sorrow and suffering – we all of us lose loved ones and friends to death – we all of us feel the sting of failed relationships – we all of us feel the pain of disappointment – either we disappoint someone and feel the weight of that, or others disappoint us and we feel the brokenness of that
• And, like it or not, we are all of us in some ways prophets – God may not speak to us as clearly as God seems to have spoken to the biblical prophets, but God does speak to us – then sometimes we have to share that message with others, either with words or actions – we are so often like Jeremiah, who was frequently a reluctant prophet – even so, a part of our calling is to let others know what we know, that God loves us all and wants all of us to be happy, even joyful
• But if God wants us to be happy and joyful, why do we have suffering in our lives? – some of us think that suffering is a sign of God’s displeasure with us, that God is punishing us for our brokenness – we have all known people who have held such a position regarding God and suffering
• For my part, I think that the answer is more basic and simpler – sorrow and suffering are simply a part of the world in which we live – God does not punish us for being who we are, but God does allow us to experience the full consequences of our brokenness – I do not believe that this gives God pleasure – and neither does God ignore our suffering or us – instead, God walks through it all with us – God knows all that we feel and experience, both good and ill, and God is with us in all of it
• And when we hurt, when we feel the pain of our brokenness, God hears our lament – God hears us when we complain that God is a deceitful brook and waters that fail – God hears us when we release our anger and sorrow to God – God has the strength to endure our complaints and laments without returning our complaints and laments, even though if God complains against us, those complaints and laments might have more truth in them
• When we feel joy in our work and life as Jesus’s followers, God is present and shares in our joy – when we feel sorrow and suffering in our work and life as Jesus’s followers, God is present and shares in our sorrow and suffering, too – God never leaves us to deal with life by ourselves
• God still speaks and God still teaches us through the words and works of Jesus how best to serve God and serve the world around us
• O Lord, you know – you know all that we think and feel – you know our joy and delight – you know our wounds and pain, our sorrow and suffering – O Lord, you know it all and share it all with us

III. Conclusion

• Let us go out into the world as God’s prophets and messengers – let us go out telling the world the full extent of God’s love, shown to us in Jesus – and let us go showing the world that God is with us all, all the time
• O Lord, you know – guide us and teach us always

Lamplighter Article, September 2023

Dear Friends,

In one of my favorite movies there is a moment when a character is talking about time and our perception of its passing. He drops a ball from one hand to the other and it falls normally. Then he talks about how slowly time passes on a difficult day and drops the ball again, and the ball appears to fall more slowly. I know it is a movie effect, and it is effective nonetheless. It is an amazing thing to see and I never see it without wondering how the filmmakers accomplished the effect.

A week before classes started at Lafayette County C-1 schools, the Higginsville Ministerial Fellowship catered a lunch for the teachers, aids, office personnel, and administrators. The teachers’ appreciation lunch, which is actually for more than the teachers alone, is an annual event that the ministers sponsor as a way to express our support for our local schools.

As we were setting up for the lunch, putting out desserts for everyone, I had the thought that we had just done the exact same thing only a few weeks ago. That a year had passed since we last did it seem impossible to me. I thought that there was no way that that much time had elapsed since our last teacher appreciation lunch. To play with the image of the man dropping a ball from one hand to the other, it seemed to me as if the ball did not drop at all, but simply disappeared from one hand and appeared in the other.

That is the nature of time. It passes, and whether it passes slowly or quickly depends on our perception of it. Much of that perception is beyond our control. We cannot govern what other people do; we can see to our responses to the actions of others. This means that there will be occasions when time will pass more quickly than we would like and when it passes more slowly than we would like. Tending to our responses and to our actions is just about all we can do with the time we have available to us.

Jesus taught his followers to be good judges of time, to be aware of what is going on in the world around them. Such judgment is not always easy, but there is wisdom in striving to be in touch with the world while not allowing it to overwhelm us. There is much that we have to give to the world, and we have to be aware of and tuned into each moment to be able to give all that we can.

We can also enjoy living in the time we have. The Preacher of Ecclesiastes tells us that they know that there is “nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live” (Ecclesiastes 3.12). Even in these hot and humid dog days of summer, life is for our enjoyment. Be mindful of the time, my friends, and allow the fullness of life and love to fill your time with joy.

Grace and Peace

Tommy

Lamplighter Article, August 2023

Dear Friends,

This month is my tenth anniversary of arriving at Salem Church. You may recall that I came to Salem as the designated minister. At that time, designating a minister was a relatively new thing in the United Church of Christ. The Associate Conference Minister at the time, the Rev. Dale Parson, suggested to the Salem Council that designation could be a way to move forward in finding a pastor for the church. The Council at the time accepted the suggestion and we did indeed move forward.

Once Dale had spoken to the Council and to me, I met with a few Council members and got a tour of the building and parsonage. After that, we set up a time for an online interview. This was in the days before Zoom, so I think we used Skype and I spoke online from Columbus, Ohio, with members of the Council, the Elders, and the Board of Christian Education. We all agreed that I should preach a trial sermon, which I did on Father’s Day in 2013. There was some agreement among all the parties, and I began my work here in August 2013.

Initially, I came to Salem on a three-year contract. At any time during the three years, we could convert the designation to a settled status, which we did at the Annual Meeting in 2016, as I recall.

Next April, I will have been ordained for forty years, and Salem is my longest pastorate. I cannot tell you what these ten years have meant to me. In some respects, they have been difficult years. I have participated in over one hundred funerals, each one of them marking a loss that affected us all. We endured a global pandemic, which included some further losses.

At the same time, we have seen the creation of an online ministry presence, which COVID forced on us, but which has extended our reach far beyond the walls of our building. We celebrated Salem’s sesquicentennial in 2020, even if the pandemic required us to be flexible with many of our plans.

Through good times and difficult times, we have worked together to be the hands, feet, and voice of Christ in Higginsville for these years. I thank you for allowing me to be your minister and teacher, and pray God’s blessing on us all in the years yet to come.

Grace and Peace

Tommy

The Women

A Sermon Preached at Salem United Church of Christ

Higginsville, Missouri

27 August 2023

I. The Women Save a Baby

• The thing that strikes me most in this story of the birth and early childhood of Moses is the nearly total absence of men in it – other than an unnamed Hebrew husband and father, the one adult man in the story is Pharaoh, who is a completely ineffective actor – he accomplishes nothing and at every turn he is outsmarted and out maneuvered by women, including his own daughter
• The story begins several generations after the death of Joseph, a portion of whose story we talked about last week – Joseph had been a powerful man in Egypt – his insight, foresight, and planning saved Egypt through a famine, and his own family as well
• But as happens with the passage of time, there came a day when the new Pharaoh had not known Joseph and did not care to know who he was – the author of Exodus makes note of Joseph’s death and says that in spite of Joseph’s passing, the numbers of the Hebrews grow, and their numbers make the Hebrew people a powerful people – In fact, they are so numerous and powerful, the new Pharaoh is afraid of them – Pharaoh fears a revolt and he is afraid that if a revolution begins then the Egyptians will not be able to stop it
• Pharaoh’s solution to his Hebrew problem is nothing new – he decides that to deal with the Hebrew people, the Egyptians need to treat their former friends and guests harshly – it is what empires have often done in human history – the Egyptians put a yoke of oppression on the shoulders of the Hebrews and force them to work as slaves – the Egyptians force their Hebrew slaves to build entire cities for Pharaoh
• Even so, the numbers of the Hebrews continue to increase – Egyptian oppression wears them down, but cannot slow their growth – so, empires being empires, the Egyptians treat their slaves even more harshly, filling the lives of the Hebrews with bitterness and hard labor, both in construction and in the fields
• When that does not work, Pharaoh orders the Hebrew midwives to kill any and all male children to which the Hebrew mothers give birth – but the midwives, surely not the only Hebrew midwives but the only ones the text names, Shiphrah and Puah, revere God more than they do Pharaoh and they do not kill the boys – when Pharaoh challenges them on it, they simply tell him that the Hebrew mothers are too strong and healthy, and they give birth before the midwives arrive on the scene – really, Pharaoh, sir, there is nothing the midwives can do
• So Pharaoh orders his people everywhere to throw Hebrew boys into the Nile – it is a drastic and draconian thing to do
• Now a certain Levite man and woman have a son, and the mother hides her son for three months – but such an effort cannot go on indefinitely – she waterproofs a basket and then puts her son into it and puts it among the reeds along the Nile River
• Pharaoh’s daughter comes to the river to bathe and sees the basket – when she and her attendants open it, they see the child inside – she surmises that this is a Hebrew baby – the baby’s sister, who had been watching, volunteers to get a nurse from among the Hebrew women to tend to the boy – Pharaoh’s daughter endorses the idea and the girl goes and calls the baby’s own mother to come nurse the child – Pharaoh’s daughter even pays her to do it!
• When the boy is a bit older, his mother brings him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who takes him as her own son – she names him Moses, which in Egyptian means “to beget a child,” but in Hebrew is close to the word meaning “to draw out”
• Once again, according to the storyteller, God subverts evil human plans and advances God’s own purposes

II. The Women

• For the time being, we can leave both Moses’s father and Pharaoh out of the story – they make contributions, one positive and one negative, but neither one is a significant actor in the story
• In a manner that is unusual in Scripture, all the primary actors in this story are women – the Hebrew midwives and their co-conspirators the Hebrew mothers, Moses’s own mother and sister, and Pharaoh’s daughter – these are the actors in the story
• Without the women in this story, there would be no story – there would be no action – they take charge of their own lives and of the lives of others in the story – they outwit Pharaoh and all his plans – those plans have their bases in fear, fear of others, fear of outsiders – and the women act and all of Pharaoh’s plans come to nothing – even Pharaoh’s daughter acts in opposition to Pharaoh’s plans – but no one feels sorry for Pharaoh
• God agrees with and supports and rewards the actions of the women – good things happen because the women follow their own consciences, their own minds, make their own choices
• The women in all our lives are equally important actors – of course we all owe debts that we cannot repay to the women who bore us, who raised us, who nurtured us – our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters play indispensable parts in our lives, whether we are female or male
• And women play important roles even in the churches – throughout history, women have been primary actors in the churches – even when they could not be in positions of leadership, they acted – even when they could not be pastors, they acted – and the churches have benefited from their actions for two millennia
• Who were the first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus? – the women who came to his tomb to anoint his body – who was the first women ordained to the ministry in the modern era? – Antoinette Brown in 1853 was ordained as a minister in the Congregational Church, one of the churches that eventually came together to create the United Church of Christ
• God calls and equips women for ministry still today – not all churches acknowledge this call and equipping – not all churches allow women to preach and teach – but we do – and when we do, we are part of the stream of God’s work for thousands of years

III. Conclusion

• Celebrate the women, from the ancient Hebrew midwives to Moses’s mother and sister, to Pharaoh’s daughter, to the women of the early Jesus movement, to the women who helped found this congregation, to the women who have showed us the ways of God in all our lives
• Celebrate the women and give God the praise and glory for bringing them all into our lives

Come Closer

A Sermon Preached at Salem United Church of Christ

Higginsville, Missouri

20 August 2023

I. Joseph and His Brothers

• There are dysfunctional families and then there is the family of Jacob – Jacob cheated his own brother out of his birthright and their father’s blessing – Jacob lied and cheated and schemed for most of his life, it seems – given the example of Jacob, and that the family must have repeated the stories at least occasionally, should we be even a little surprised at the Joseph stories? – probably not
• You might think that Jacob would have known better, but he played favorites with his twelve sons – Joseph is special to Jacob – Joseph is the oldest son of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel – and Joseph is the son of Jacob’s old age (Genesis 37.3) – Jacob shows his favoritism by giving Joseph a fancy robe with long sleeves
• For his part, Joseph is sometimes not too smart – he would tattle tale on his brothers and get them in trouble (Genesis 37.2) – he had dreams that he believed showed that his brothers would bow down to him in the future – if being their father’s favorite were not enough, his actions angered his older brothers even further, until things reach a breaking point
• Jacob sends Joseph out to his brothers who are tending the family flocks, to see how they are faring – what Joseph does not know is that as he goes to his brothers, they are planning to kill him – only one of his brothers opposes doing away with him – Reuben wants to sell Joseph into slavery instead of killing him – which is what they do – they sell Joseph to some traveling Ishmaelites, who take him to Egypt and sell him off there
• You all know the stories – Joseph gets into trouble with Potiphar’s wife and ends up in prison, where he gains a reputation as an interpreter of dreams – when Pharaoh has some dreams that his wise men cannot interpret, he hears about the prisoner who is good at dream interpretation – he calls Joseph to have him tell him what the dreams mean
• What God reveals to Joseph is that there is a famine coming and it is time to begin preparing – and thus begins Joseph’s rise into the Egyptian elite – by the time the famine hits and begins to affect many nations and families, including his own, Joseph is the second most powerful man in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself
• Our story for today is not the first time Joseph’s brothers have come to Egypt for help during the famine, but the first time they did not recognize Joseph
• And why would they recognize him? – they sold their brother into slavery years earlier, when he was still a youth – now he is a mature man and a powerful man in Egypt – he probably was not well dressed before, and now he is in the robes of royalty – and even in a famine, he is obviously well fed – it is no wonder that they have no idea who he is the first time they come to Egypt
• This time, however, Joseph cannot contain himself – he has to reveal his identity to his brothers – he has to let them know that even if they planned and perpetrated ill for him, God used their foolishness for a good thing – had he not been sold into slavery he would not have ended up in Egypt – he would not have been in a position of power to be able to take care of his family
• His brothers did intend to rid themselves of a troublesome younger brother – they did intend to get him as far away as possible – they did intend to deceive their father into believing that his favorite was dead – they did intend to make their lives better by getting Joseph out of them
• But God had other plans
• So they are confused when Joseph sends the Egyptians out of the room where he meets his brothers – but once the Egyptians are gone, Joseph is free to reveal himself to his brothers – and, not surprisingly, his first question is about how his father is doing – also not surprisingly, his brothers are so thunderstruck that they cannot even speak – they may also be wondering what he is going to do to them – they did try to get rid of him, after all
• What they might not expect is for Joseph to call them to come closer to him, unless it is to beat them up a bit – but that is not what he does – he has an amazingly forgiving and conciliatory attitude toward his brothers and what they did to him – he tells them that what they did is all for the best, that God has plans and they include Joseph taking care of his family so that all will live through the famine – and it is hugs and kisses and tears all around
• Come closer, indeed

II. Come Closer

• Few of us have to deal today with famine – there are places in the world where famines do come, but not here
• Few of us ever have to deal with family members who decide that rather than kill us they are going to sell us into slavery
• So what would any of this story have to say to us?
• I think at its heart, this story has much to say to us about who God is and how God works in our lives and in our world – it says that God loves us even when we do foolish things – and we do many foolish things in our lives – we do all sorts of things that lead us away from the ways of God for us – we make all sorts of decisions and choices that do not easily fit with God’s Vision for us – even so, God never gives up on us
• The most wondrous and amazing thing about God’s working in our lives is that God takes even our mistakes and foolishness, which play a part in making us who we are, and works them into the tapestry of the Vision – God has a plan for the universe and God will use even our wrongheaded choices to move the Vision forward
• In the life and work of Jesus, God is saying to all of us, “Come closer” – like Joseph, God wants to forgive us, God wants to reconcile us to God’s self – this is part of God’s plan and Vision

III. Conclusion

• God tells us all to come closer – there is work for us to do – there is love and grace for us to share – there is hope to impart to everyone – there is unity to create and make manifest in the world
• Come closer, sisters, brothers, and friends – come closer and see what God is doing for the world

A Sound of Silence

A Sermon Preached at Salem United Church of Christ

Higginsville, Missouri

13 August 2023

I. Introduction

• There is, of course, a rather plaintive Simon and Garfunkel song with almost the same title as this sermon, but the sermon has nothing to do with the song
• In some ways, this text from I Kings is both plaintive and encouraging – but in every way, it begins with fear

II. Elijah on the Run

• Elijah the prophet is on the run and he is afraid for his life – in the previous chapter of I Kings, the prophet has had a rather dramatic and, we must admit, violent encounter with four hundred fifty prophets of Ba’al on Mount Carmel – Elijah set them all a task, with him on one side and the four hundred fifty prophets of Ba’al on the other
• Both sides are to prepare a bullock of their own choosing for a sacrifice – they are to kill the bullock and lay it on an altar, but not to light the wood on the altar – instead, they are to pray to their gods to send the fire for the sacrifice – the God that responds will be the true God and everyone will see it and know it
• The prophets of Ba’al pray and dance and shout and cut themselves with swords and lances – they pour themselves into their prayer for Ba’al to send fire to consume their sacrifice – but there is no voice, no answer, no response (I Kings 18.29)
• Elijah calls everyone to gather around him – he builds an altar, lays the wood for the fire on it, and lays the bull on top of the wood – along with building the altar, Elijah digs a trench around it – when everything is ready, he instructs people to pour water over the sacrifice and the altar, three times, until the trench is full of water
• Then Elijah prays that God would let everyone know that God is God in Israel and that Elijah is God’s prophet – then fire comes down from heaven, consuming the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and even licks up the water in the trench
• This convinces the crowds that God is the true God and Elijah orders them not to allow the prophets of Ba’al to escape – they take the prophets of Ba’al to a nearby stream and Elijah kills them all
• This does not please Ahab the king, but it really angers the queen, Jezebel, and she is the real power in that family – she vows to do the same thing to Elijah that the prophet has done to the prophets of Ba’al – so Elijah goes on the run for his life
• After having an angel feed him heavenly food three times, the prophet heads into the wilderness on his own – forty days later, he ends up at Mount Horeb, where God gave Moses God’s Instruction
• In a cave on the mountain, God asks what Elijah is doing there, and Elijah’s answer, although true, sounds like nothing so much as self-pity – “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away” (I Kings 19.10)
• God tells the prophet to get out of the cave and stand before the LORD, for the LORD is going to pass by – first, there is a great wind so strong that it breaks rocks, but God is not in the wind – then, there is an earthquake, but God is not in the earthquake – then, there is a roaring fire, but God is not in the fire – any one of these cataclysmic events would be terribly frightening, but the worst is yet to come
• After the fire there is the sound of sheer silence (I Kings 19.12) – some translations say it was a “still, small voice” or a “murmuring sound” – and maybe it is the most terrifying moment of all, because out of the silence God asks the prophet again what he is doing in this place – and the prophet repeats his self-pitying reply
• God seems to reject the prophet’s response and instead sends Elijah back from whence he came, with a couple of detours – things will be bad when Elijah returns to Israel, but they will not be hopeless – there will be a remnant still faithful to God – and that will be enough

III. The Sound of Silence

• In our world today, it seems that the loudest voice gets the most attention – whoever yells loudest and longest gets their opinions out the farthest – the point of such shouting appears to be the silencing of opposing voices
• We even have a popular saying that relates to this idea, although we do not hear the saying as often as we once did: the squeaky wheel gets the grease – obviously, that is a way of saying that the loudest, most irritating noise or person will take precedence – and it is often true
• There are some people, however, who get quieter when they get angry or when they want something to get done – instead of getting louder and shouting down others, they get still – they even seem sometimes to gather their strength in their quietness – and they can be just as effective as the loud people
• Those quiet souls are like God in this story – God does not often shout to gain our attention – God does not create a commotion in our lives or in our world to try to get people to listen – in the midst of the noise of this world, in the midst of so many angry voices shouting at us trying to get our attention, in the midst of the tumult of a broken world, God comes to us so often in a sound of sheer silence
• We, then, have to slow down our hearts and our minds, we have to close our mouths, and listen – when life seems overwhelming, maybe the best thing we can do is to shut it all out for a time – we cannot do it permanently, but for a time if we can cut off all of the noise, we can give ourselves an opportunity to hear God speak
• And God does and will speak – it may be in a sound of silence, or it may be in the voice of a child or an elder, or it may be in the quiet voice of a friend or coworker or spouse – we have to train ourselves to listen for the voice of God in a sound of sheer silence because God has things that God wants to say
• The voice is there – we have simply to listen for it

IV. Conclusion

• This is not an easy thing to do, but God is still speaking, as we in the United Church of Christ like to say
• Let us listen within a sound of silence for the still-speaking God – we may just find that God has a place for us to go and a job for us to do

Christ Is over All

A Sermon Preached at Salem United Church of Christ

Higginsville, Missouri

6 August 2023

Anniversary Sunday 153

I. Sad Paul

• This is not something we see very often in Paul’s letters – we frequently see him angry or impatient or pedantic – we see him trying to correct and teach his recipients like a parent or a teacher – he offers advice and ideas for attitude adjustment freely – he can be boastful and irritatingly self-confident – we are used to all of that – but we are not so well used to Paul as he is in this little section of Romans – here, Paul is sad
• He is sad because his own people, the Jews, mostly reject him, but he might actually be able to live with that – Paul seems to have a strong enough ego that he could handle personal rejection – he might not like it and he might get touchy about it, but he would not allow it to get him down
• What he cannot accept, what makes him sad in this case, is the rejection of his message, which is the same as rejecting Christ and the good news – that just goes too far for Paul – if it were anyone else, maybe he would shake the metaphorical dust off his feet and go on with his work, but it is not anyone else – it is the people of his birth – it is the people whom he believes should know better
• Some of the Romans might believe that Paul is just making up his sorrow – they do not know him personally – as far as we know, he has never been to Rome – if he has, we have no record of it in Acts or any of his letters – his Roman readers, which could conceivably include any number of Jewish followers of Jesus, might assume that he is working for their sympathy – but no, he assures them, he is simply telling the truth – his heart is full of sorrow and unceasing anguish
• He wishes it were not so – if it would make any difference at all, he would allow himself to be cut off from the love of God in Christ Jesus – if all of his people would turn to Christ if Paul were cut off, he would wish it to happen – They are his people, his kindred according to the flesh, and that is how much he wishes things were different
• After all, the Jews have so much going for them – to them belongs the adoption as children of God – they have the glory of God with them always – God made the covenants with them and those covenants are still dear to God – through Moses God gave them God’s instruction – they have the rights and the rituals of worship – God has made promises to them and God does not fail to keep God’s promises – the patriarchs, the ones to whom and through whom God first made God’s self known, were the ones God chose – and even Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, was one of them, and he is over all and God blessed forever
• All of these advantages belong to the Jews, and God has never taken them away from the Jews – that they should either fail to recognize God at work in Jesus Messiah or recognized him and still refused his message, is painful beyond belief for Paul
• Certainly not all Jews have rejected Jesus – many have heard the message and followed him, followed his teaching – and, more importantly, God does not reject them – they are still God’s chosen people – God still loves them and Jesus Messiah still loves them and nothing can change that
• Later on, in Romans 11, Paul will use an agricultural metaphor, saying that God has grafted some wild olive shoots onto the olive tree, but God has not replaced the tree – God does not cut down the tree and place a new one – he is saying that by the grace of God and the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Gentiles have found a home and roots alongside the Jews – the Gentiles are not better than the Jews – God does not love the Gentiles more than the Jews
• And yet Paul is sad – the rejection of the good news is a rejection that fails to recognize that Christ is over all
• That is the message of Paul – Christ is over all – Christ is over all things, over all nations, over all people – Paul wants his kindred to listen to Christ, not because without Christ God cannot love them, but so that there can be unity in the family of God – God will not love the Jews more if they turn to Christ – the benefit will be to the world, who will see the cooperation among the people of God

II. Christ Is over All

• We human beings seem to miss the point of Paul’s concern – throughout history, the Christians have believed that they are superior to the Jews in some way – the Christian record with regard to the Jews is not good – historically, and even today to some extent, many Christians have made accusations against the Jews as Christ-killers – Christians have blamed Jews for natural disasters and plagues and fires – the list goes on
• Too many of us hold Jews responsible for things we have done – it beggars belief – Paul’s truth is that Christians are not over Jews and nor are Jews over Christians, but Christ is over all
• That should give us pause when we are tempted to think better of ourselves than we ought – when we want to believe that we are better than some other people or some other religious tradition, remember that Christ is over all
• Our task is not to tell other people how to live their lives, or to correct mistakes that we think we see in them – our task is to keep in mind that Christ is over all and then simply love others as they are
• This is the example that Christ set for us – it is how we are to live

III. Conclusion

• In Christ, who is over all, all are God blessed forever
• That is enough for us to know and to live

God Is with Us

Salem United Church of Christ, Higginsville, Missouri

I. Jacob Runs Away

• Jacob is a difficult character in the Bible – he is not very likable, at least by anyone other than his mother, Rebekah – from the beginning of his life as the younger twin of Esau, he and his brother have been at odds – even their parents are divided about the two – Isaac favors Esau who is an outdoorsman and a hunter, a worker in the fields – Rebekah favors Jacob, who likes living in tents, living a life of ease
• Jacob rarely acts fairly toward his brother – for example, Esau comes home after a hard day in the fields and is famished – Jacob has prepared a stew, and we might think that he would share it with his brother, but not Jacob – he always works an angle – in this case, he will not share with his brother unless Esau renounces his birthright, which is his because he is the oldest – Esau is so hungry that he does renounce his birthright – he may have thought Jacob was joking, but Jacob was being serious (Genesis 25.29-34)
• Later, Jacob conspires with their mother to steal Isaac’s blessing, which, again, is Esau’s right because he is the older brother – Jacob deceives their blind and near death father and Isaac gives his blessing to Jacob believing he is giving it to Esau (Genesis 27.1-40) – the giving of a blessing is a serious enough matter that once Isaac gives it, he cannot take it back and he cannot transfer it to his intended son – Esau is just out of luck – too bad, so sad
• When Esau discovers Jacob’s treachery, he becomes enraged and vows to kill his brother (Genesis 27 41) – seeing the dire nature of the moment, Rebekah advises Jacob to go away to her family back in Haran, believing that he will not have to be there long – perhaps the tragedy is that when Jacob leaves, he will never see Rebekah again
• His flight away from Beer-sheba and to Haran is where our story begins – he travels until the sun sets and settles down for the night – he uses a stone for a pillow – the difficult thing for Jacob is that that he prefers a life of ease – laying his head on a stone for a pillow cannot be comfortable
• As he lays down to sleep, Jacob has a dream – as dreams go, it is really quite something – the star of the dream show is God – Jacob dreams that he sees a stairway or a ramp or a ladder – the stairway reaches from earth all the way up to heaven – and ascending and descending the stairs are God’s angels, God’s messengers – standing either at the top of the stairs or beside Jacob, the text could be translated both ways, is God
• When God speaks, God does not identify God’s self as the God of Jacob, but only as the God of Jacob’s grandfather Abraham and of Jacob’s father Isaac – and yet God makes the same sort of promises to Jacob that God has made to Abraham and Isaac
• The land on which Jacob stands will belong to Jacob’s descendants, who will be as the dust of the earth, covering everything and everyone – this family will spread in every direction from that place – and they will bless the earth – and wherever Jacob goes, and wherever his descendants go, God will be with them, watching over them, protecting them – God will not leave them, ever, until God accomplishes all that God has promised
• God does not stop there – God also promises that God will bring Jacob back to this land from wherever he goes – this is extraordinary – these promises that God makes do not have conditions – God does not say that if Jacob does this or that then God will be with him and bring him back – God simply says that this is what God will do
• When Jacob wakes from his dream, he is in a different place – I would like to say that Jacob is different, but he is not, not really – right after renaming the place, he says that if God will be faithful to God’s promises, then Jacob will acknowledge it – he is not really any different at all – but at least in his perception of it, the place has been transformed from “a certain place” into a very special place – the presence of God has made it different – when Jacob lay down, he was in a certain unnamed place, maybe it is near Luz – but when he wakes, the place has a name, or a new name – it is Beth-El, the house of God – he did not know it when he fell asleep, but he was at the gate of heaven because God was there
• Later on in the story of Jacob’s descendants, this place, this Beth-El will become one of the sanctuaries of God’s people – for the present, it is a stone standing on end and covered with oil – and it is a holy place, indeed

II. God Is with Us

• It seems to me that the transformation of the place likely would have happened wherever Jacob had stopped for the night – the specific place is not what is important and what triggers the transformation – one place could have been just as good and just as important as another – what makes the place important, what gives it significance, what transforms it, is the presence of God
• In effect, wherever Jacob goes will be the house of God, will be Beth-El, will be the gate of heaven, because God goes with him – the presence of God has a way of making everything different
• I want to connect this story with a story from the Gospel of John – Jesus is calling his disciples to join him – he calls Philip, who then invites Nathanael to come along and meet the one of whom Moses and the prophets had spoken, a man from Nazareth – Nathanael is skeptical because can anything good come from Nazareth – but when he meets Jesus, he is convinced that Jesus is the one for whom they have been waiting – Jesus says that Nathanael has not seen anything yet – if Nathanael sticks around, he will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (John 1.43-51)
• Jesus uses Jacob’s dream to tell Nathanael and the rest of us that wherever he is, there is the house of God, there is Beth-El
• God still transforms places and people – by the power and reality of God’s presence, any ordinary place, any certain place can become the gate of heaven and the house of God
• The promise that God made to Jacob, Jesus extends to any who would follow him – through Jesus, God promises that wherever we go God goes with us – wherever we go, God protects us, protects our spirits – wherever we go, God is with us, giving us courage and confidence to do what Jesus’s followers need to do: to speak out for the poor and the oppressed – to welcome the stranger – to care for those in need – to feed the hungry – to clothe the naked – to proclaim in word and action the Vision of God

III. Conclusion

• God is with us, and wherever God is, is Beth-El – let us go out into the world carrying the presence of God in our words and actions – let us go out to be Beth-El and the gate of heaven, opening heaven to all of God’s messengers
• We can do this and so much more because God is with us, now and always